Sam Bankman-Fried received huge plaudits and superstar status as the head of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Now the comments aren't so kind after FTX filed for bankruptcy protection.
Signage for the FTX Arena, where the Miami Heat basketball team plays, is visible Saturday in Miami. Sam Bankman-Fried received numerous plaudits as the head of cryptocurrency exchange FTX: the savior of crypto, the newest force in Democratic politics and potentially the world's first trillionaire. Now the comments about the 30-year-old aren't so kind.
Under Bankman-Fried, FTX quickly grew to be the third-largest exchange by volume. The stunning collapse of this nascent empire has sent tsunami-like waves through the cryptocurrency industry, which has seen a fair share of volatility and turmoil this year, including a sharp decline in price for bitcoin and other digital assets.
"This is the direct result of a rogue actor breaking every single basic rule of fiscal responsibility," said Patrick Hillman, chief strategy officer at Binance, FTX's biggest competitor. Early last week Binance appeared ready to step in to bail out FTX, but backed away after a review of FTX's books. Sequoia Capital, which over the decades invested in Apple, Cisco, Google, Airbnb and YouTube, described their meeting with Bankman-Fried as likely"talking to the world's first trillionaire." Several of Sequoia's partners became enthusiastic about Bankman-Fried following a Zoom meeting in 2021. After several more meetings, Sequoia decided to invest in the company.
But up until last week, Bankman-Fried was seen as a white knight for the industry. Whenever the crypto industry had one of its crises, Bankman-Fried was the person likely to fly in with a rescue plan. When online trading platform Robinhood was in financial straits earlier this year — collateral damage from the decline in stock and crypto prices — Bankman-Fried jumped in to buy a stake in the company as a sign of support.
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