Sam Bankman-Fried(SBF), the 30-year-old founder of crypto companies FTX and Alameda Research, made billions in just a few years, and in the process, became the face of respectability in an industry usually associated with less-than-respectable characters.
He was one of the few crypto nerds who broke through into popular culture. He, and FTX, were everywhere: he was on the cover of magazines like Fortune and Forbes, in Superbowl ads with and in ads in Vogue and The New Yorker; comedian Larry David and football star Tom Brady did ads for the company, and the stadium where the Miami Heat play was renamed the FTX Arena. Bankman-Fried built a reputation as an elder statesman of crypto. When many crypto companies were struggling, he publicly declared that he would help bail them out.
That is, until November 2nd 2022, when a report published by CoinDesk, stated that Alameda research – a trading firm launched by SBF, which is trading thousands of digital assets, was heavily invested in FTX own token FTT. Couple pf days after the report was published, CZ (Binance’s CEO) tweets that he will sell all of the FTT Binance has.
This announcement made the price of FTT drop drasitcally, and people withdrawed their money out of FTX altogether. In just 3 days the company had witnessed an overall transactions of 6 billlion dollars.
On November 11th, SBF resigned as CEO and FTX and Alameda filed for banckrupcy.
This event raises an interesting question of when will goverments around the world would enact guidlines and regulate this new field of crypto currency.