Sam Bankman-Fried: The fall of the crypto king
‘The king is dead, long live the king!’
If he isn't already dead, he's on life support. That sums up Sam Bankman-Fried's (SBF) brief reign as the 'crypto king'. Known as the cryptocurrency wonderkid, he raced to build the world's third largest cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, in less than three years, outpacing former investor and now rival Binance.
Over the course of three years, the exchange grew to handle nearly 11% of the $2.4 trillion in derivatives traded globally each month, according to a report by crypto research firm CREBACO Global.
FTX's revenue grew by 1,000 percent to $1.02 billion in 2021 from $89 million in 2020, according to a CNBC report. During the same time period, Bankman-Fried became an influential figure in the US policy discussion surrounding the cryptocurrency sector, almost a messiah to his peers and investors in the sector.
As of September, FTX was trying to raise around $1 billion in funding at a valuation of $32 billion.
But don't be dazzled by the exchange's stellar financial performance just yet, because brand SBF is all about giving back to society for the greater good, while earning as much as he can to do so. To any fan of his, Bankman-Fried is the capitalist monk who stands by his altruism and vision.
But what happens when an industry's strong voice of reason goes wrong? Where does this leave investors and customers?
On November 11, FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US. Bankman-Fried, too, resigned as CEO after his crypto empire came under scrutiny for its financial practices.
The man that is SBF
Bankman-Fried was born to lawyer parents on March 6, 1992, on the Stanford University campus — the pin code of at least 85 Nobel laureates in the past — and his life symbolically began
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