Declared guilty this Thursday before a federal court, his fall has been as dazzling as his rise
The founder of the ill-fated digital exchange house FTX, Sam Bankman-Friedfound guilty this Thursday of seven crimes including investor fraud and money laundering, In just ten months he has suffered the most resounding fall that a human being can have and has become the perfect example of the millionaire blinded and ruined by his own greed.
At the end of 2022 he still led a carefree life in a luxurious chalet in the Bahamassurrounded by several friends as young and rich as him, but eight months later he appeared before the judge and complained that in the prison where he was awaiting trial they did not give him vegan food or the medicines with which he treated his hyperactivity disorder .
The transition to the harsh reality of a New York prison was not, however, immediate: after being extradited from the Bahamas, A judge granted him probation while awaiting trial.in exchange for an unusual bail of 250 million dollars.
From his parents’ house in California, Bankman-Fried dedicated himself to entering into digital controversies and even insulting his former FTX friends, to such an extent that the judge prohibited him from ever coming into contact with any company employee and from using the Signal network; Months later, and after verifying that he was using a VPN to circumvent the ban, he ordered the bail to be revoked and sent him to jail.
Training and career
The young man attracted by risk, who built what became the second platform of cryptocurrencies in the world, valued at its peak at $32 billion, was born in California on March 6, 1992 into a wealthy family. Her parents were law professors at the prestigious Stanford University.
His love for mathematics already emerged at school, where he participated in a summer program for talented students in this subject. He studied at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he graduated in 2014 in Physics with a specialty in mathematics.
That same year he went to work at the Jane Street firm that was dedicated to stock fund arbitrage operationswhich consists of the purchase of assets in one market and their immediate sale for a higher price in another.
In 2017 made the leap into cryptocurrencies with the founding of Alameda Researchwhich would end up becoming the investment arm of FTX, which he created two years later and where he put his knowledge into practice, but now applied to the still fresh cryptocurrency market.
Since then, His rise became a triumphant pomp, and his face was sculpted in prestigious economic magazines such as Forbes or Fortune, which last August asked on a cover whether Bankman-Fried would be the next Warren Buffet.
A bright, disheveled young man
The child prodigy of the crypto world created FTX when he was only 27 years old and its success was so dazzling that the millions amassed with that business allowed him to realize the dream of all millionaires in the US: a generous philanthropist who contributed millions of dollars to political parties, civil organizations, solidarity causes and sports centers.
He was a prolific political donor, contributed more than $5 million to the Democrat’s presidential candidacy Joe Biden in 2020, in what he called “effective altruism,” but he was also a Republican donor.
And despite his dazzling rise, never gave up a disheveled look – the untamable curly hair, the T-shirts and the shorts – nor did he change certain habits that baffled his interlocutors in the world of finance, such as taking a nap in the middle of his office even in front of high-profile visitors.
He also made the front pages for walking the halls of Congress, since in 2022 he participated in hearings with the Senate on the regulation of cryptocurrency markets, while He cultivated an image of “Quixote” savior of other struggling crypto platforms.