Within a week, Sam Bankman-Fried “SBF” became the most hated figure in the cryptocurrency world, yet he was one of its rising stars. The youngest billionaire of his generation, he is the founder of FTX, one of the most widely used cryptocurrency exchange platforms in the world. It was home to millions of users and was worth $32 billion.
SBF had everything of the ideal figure of tech: casual look, humble, philanthropic and committed.
However, in a few days his empire collapsed, taking away the money of users, investors and Sam’s fortune. The damage is estimated in billions of dollars.
At the center of the fiasco: a mix of deception, complex financial products and mismanagement. User money was used by FTX to place risky price bets, while substituting its equity for a wobbly cryptocurrency, which collapsed overnight. All in the greatest secrecy.
So how did we get here? How did SBF fool everyone, and why did his house of cards end up collapsing? Answer in this new decryption of LN24 +.