He was the face of cryptocurrencies, and he was young to boot: a media darling seemingly destined to unite the sector.
But Sam Bankman-Fried's surprising rise to prominence and wealth would be accompanied by his spectacular fall, and with it that of his FTX platform.
In just a few months, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate with a bachelor's degree in physics took a startup he founded in 2019 and turned it into the world's second-largest crypto exchange platform.
He quickly became more than just a young entrepreneur, becoming a cryptocurrency ambassador and making his first appearance in Congress in December 2021, testifying before lawmakers about the then-new form of currency.
The public would come to know a seemingly strange boy genius with a mop of dark, curly hair who, when not dressed for his appearances on Capitol Hill, wore shorts and a T-shirt as his de rigueur look.
The young man known as SBF would charm US lawmakers with his blunt speech and vision for the future of cryptocurrencies, including an extensive regulatory regime, a position at odds with many in the sector.
He came up with project after project, from a platform for people to make cryptocurrency donations to Ukraine to a financial derivatives products market that stepped on the toes of Wall Street.
Bankman-Fried denies wrongdoing in the collapse of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange
Timothy A. CLARY
Before it all fell apart, at his peak, this California native amassed a fortune estimated at $26 billion. "Except Mark Zuckerberg, no one in history has become so rich so young," read a headline from Forbes, which put Bankman-Fried on its cover in October 2021.
The son of two Stanford University professors, Bankman-Fried ventured outside the world of cryptocurrencies, donating to American politicians and persuading celebrities such as football star Tom Brady and basketball player Stephen Curry to back the cryptocurrency. FTX, for which they were handsomely rewarded.
CNBC has reported that Bankman-Fried even pursued a contract with singer Taylor Swift, although that fell through.
SBF is a vegan who said he believed in the concept of effective altruism: finding the best way to help other people, particularly by donating all or part of your wealth to charity rather than, say, volunteering at a soup kitchen. .
When the cryptocurrency world went into crisis in the spring of 2022, Bankman-Fried presented himself as a savior and bought the troubled platform BlockFi and shares of another company that was in trouble, Voyager.
"We take seriously our duty to protect the digital asset ecosystem and its customers," he tweeted at the time, as some people compared him (then barely 30 years old) to legendary investment guru Warren Buffett.
But behind her assurances, Bankman-Fried was walking a financial tightrope and taking colossal risks, as was later revealed in court documents.
Without their knowledge, Bankman-Fried's team allegedly used FTX clients' money to cover risky trading for an affiliated trading company called Alameda Research, to purchase luxury real estate properties, and to make political donations.
In November 2022, cryptocurrency news outlet CoinDesk revealed that Alameda had converted a large portion of its assets into FTT, a crypto token created by FTX. That news caused that currency to plummet.
Hours later, Changpeng Zhao, head of Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, announced that he was selling all the FTT tokens he held, causing it to lose 90 percent of its value in a matter of days and will take over the Bankman-Fried empire. he.
His fortune having disappeared overnight, Bankman-Fried was extradited from the Bahamas, where FTX was based. In December 2022 he was charged with fraud and extortion.
He faces a seven-count indictment in a trial that begins Tuesday in Manhattan.
"I'm broke and I wear an ankle monitor and I'm one of the most hated people in the world," he wrote in a document recently published by The New York Times.
Days after FTX's collapse, Bankman-Fried admitted that he "screwed up," but denied accepting anyone's money and blamed the huge mess on former colleagues, including some who will now testify against him during the trial.
"There will probably never be anything I can do to make the impact of my life net positive," he wrote.
The fallen wunderkind added: "The truth is, I did what I thought was right."
