Commentary
Less than a month ago, in the adoring eyes of the establishment media, 30-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried was the “crypto emperor” (New York Times) and the multibillionaire with the monkish lifestyle who wanted nothing more than to “give his fortune away” to altruistic causes (Bloomberg Markets).
That was before it was revealed that Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange FTX had allegedly lent billions in customers’ funds to a trading company he also co-founded, Alameda Research. In short, FTX was allegedly bankrolling Alameda’s risky bets on the volatile digital-currency market using other people’s money, unbeknownst to them or anyone else. The Bahamas-based FTX collapsed overnight in a liquidity crisis after a customer run, and Bankman-Fried’s wealth fell from an estimated height of $26.5 billion in March to zero (although he may have assets parked somewhere). Amid reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the financial-crimes unit of the Justice Department had launched investigations, Bankman-Fried resigned as FTX’s CEO on Nov. 11, and the company filed for bankruptcy restructuring….