Crypto Champion Sam Bankman-Fried’s Road to Ruin Leads Straight to Capitol Hill
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX cryptocurrency exchange, rose swiftly as a Democratic mega-donor, rubbing shoulders with elites as he lobbied for crypto-friendly regulation. With FTX collapsing now, it’s clear his politicking demanded scrutiny long ago.
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, during a Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee hearing in Washington, DC, on February 9, 2022. (Sarah Silbiger / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In April, when cryptocurrency guru and Democratic mega-donor Sam Bankman-Fried described how crypto tokens work on a Bloomberg podcast, the host remarked that it sounded a lot like being “in the Ponzi business.” Bankman-Fried, founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, replied that this was “a pretty reasonable response” with a “depressing amount of validity.”
The conversation — which occurred days after one of the industry’s top regulators in Washington tweeted a picture with Bankman-Fried — probably should have set off blaring alarm bells throughout Washington, DC, and the financial industry. It didn’t.
On Friday, FTX, which previously had $16 billion in customer assets, and was valued at $32 billion in its most recent investor funding round in September, filed for bankruptcy in Delaware. Thirty-year-old Bankman-Fried resigned as its CEO.
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