"I f—ked up, and should have done better."
He was crypto's billionaire golden boy ... and then lost everything overnight. This is the story of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
He was crypto's billionaire golden boy ... and then lost everything overnight. This is the story of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
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00:00The guy you see next to me is the most generous billionaire in the world.
00:04Hi, my name is Sam and this is my story.
00:07Here's how the crypto world's golden boy became a billionaire before turning 30
00:11and then lost everything overnight.
00:14The scale of impact you can have on the world is just really, really large.
00:19Now, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces federal charges
00:23including wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.
00:30We were founded in 2019 and today we have roughly $15 billion a volume
00:35that trade daily on the platform.
00:38In 2019, MIT grad Sam Bankman-Fried, also known as SBF,
00:43founded FTX, one of the world's fastest growing cryptocurrency exchanges.
00:47It allowed users to buy, sell and trade digital currencies like Bitcoin and Dogecoin
00:52without the hassles of traditional financial institutions.
00:55We just started getting people signing up for the platform that we had never met before.
00:59That was when I started to feel like this might actually be real.
01:04Before long, the FTX name was everywhere,
01:07from a sports arena in Miami to Super Bowl commercials
01:10with high profile personalities like Steph Curry, Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen and Shaquille O'Neal
01:16helping to bring the platform to a wider audience.
01:18Yeah, yeah, trade. We're telling everyone.
01:21Not a trade trade, I'm trading crypto.
01:23FTX is the safest and easiest way to buy and sell crypto.
01:25Bankman-Fried was a self-described adherent of effective altruism,
01:29a movement based on earning to give popular among tech founders.
01:34I wanted to get rich not because I like money,
01:36but because I wanted to give that money to charity.
01:39His giving wasn't limited to charitable causes.
01:42Bankman-Fried also became a major political donor,
01:44spending $40 million during the 2022 midterm cycle,
01:48primarily to Democratic candidates and political action committees.
01:51You have talked that a billion dollars is perhaps your ceiling for 2024.
01:55Does it depend on if it's Biden and Trump?
01:56That's one thing it's going to depend on.
01:58And it's not just the presidency as well.
02:00It's more generally like I want to support great public service.
02:03Despite a slump in the broader crypto marketplace throughout 2022,
02:07FTX seemed to be roaring along full speed ahead,
02:10even buying up competitors that were in trouble.
02:13At one point, Bankman-Fried's personal fortune was valued at $26.5 billion.
02:19I don't think I give a shit about my legacy.
02:22That's not what matters.
02:23In the end, it's the mark that we actually leave on the world,
02:27not the mark we're perceived to leave on the world that matters.
02:31But that all changed in November 2022,
02:34when CoinDesk, a crypto-focused digital media,
02:37published a financial balance sheet of a crypto hedge fund
02:40also owned by Bankman-Fried, Alameda Research.
02:43According to the explosive report,
02:45much of Alameda's assets were made up of FTT tokens,
02:48the digital currency created by FTX.
02:50This raised questions about whether customer money
02:53held in FTX was safe from any potential crises within Alameda.
02:57In light of the revelations,
02:59the founder of rival crypto exchange Binance
03:01and major investor in FTX, Changpeng Cixi Xiao,
03:06announced plans to sell all of Binance's FTT tokens.
03:10It caused panic investors to withdraw their funds from FTX.
03:13I'm just shocked.
03:14I'm shocked that, you know, he lied to everybody.
03:17So we shouldn't blame this problem on any single person
03:20other than Sam.
03:21The only problem?
03:22FTX didn't have enough money to cover customer withdrawals
03:26to the tune of $8 billion.
03:28I understand the risks when I put money in crypto.
03:30What I am pissed off is about this con man
03:33going around and spending our funds.
03:35Within a week, FTX and Alameda Research filed bankruptcy
03:39and Bankman-Fried stepped down as CEO.
03:42He apologized by tweet before going on a media tour
03:45to explain himself.
03:47If I had been spending an hour a day
03:49thinking about risk management on FTX,
03:51I don't think that would have happened.
03:52I think I got a little cocky.
03:55On December 12, 2022, Bankman-Fried's luck ran out
03:59when he was arrested in the Bahamas
04:01after being charged in U.S. federal court with eight counts,
04:05including wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.
04:08He was extradited to the U.S.
04:10and posted a $250 million bond
04:13before pleading not guilty to all charges.
04:16Can you speak into the microphones, please?
04:18Can you let us know about your plea?