The crypto industry is an incredible market for potential investments and massive profits, with countless examples of successful traders. Many have truly changed the course of their entire life by making well-informed decisions, during proper, and most convenient timing.
While it would be easy to list off all the success stories and the journeys of investors who won big in the industry, it would also sadly give only a side of the perspective. The truth is one needs to be armed with extremely vast amounts of information and knowledge while stepping into the blockchain, in order to make sure there are no massive losses due to fluctuating crypto prices, but more importantly shady traders.
Thankfully, though, we live in an era, in which knowledge and research always fall into our hands, just a few clicks away. And when it comes to cryptocurrencies, reliable websites, such as cryptocurrencyhelp.com provide answers to any potential question regarding the cryptocurrency market. Armed with these answers, your probability of failure regarding crypto trading decreases dramatically.
What exactly is going to be the topic of the article, well, it is one of the greatest losses in the history of the industry, sparked up by a recent not-so-pleasant update on the founder of FTX, and the culprit of that big loss. Below, we will go over Sam Bankman-Fried’s fall from the top, as well as the updates on his trial.
Who was SBF? What We Know So Far
Born in 1992, in California, Sam Bankman-Fried was a crypto billionaire, and the CEO of the second-largest Crypto exchange, FTX. Having a net worth of 26 Billion USD, none could ever suspect that his entire empire would collapse and vanish in a span of a single weekend, yet it did.
Sam was a well-respected figure in the community, having dinners with huge NBA superstars like Stephen Curry, or performers such as SIA, and even appeared on the cover of a Forbes magazine. He had a very methodical and calculated public image, selling himself as a humble, non-materialistic person, driving an average Toyota, and living a normal lifestyle.
Of course, in secrecy, it was later found out that he owned a massive, 30-million-dollar mansion in Bahamas, which is the place where a lot of his operations ran. Even before FTX, Sam had a business Alameda, involving around 10 people, most of them involved in romantic relationships, and a very inexperienced CEO, Caroline, who also happened to be SBF’s girlfriend.
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Rise and Fall of FTX
The project was started in 2019, and as mentioned was an exchange website. Immediately there was a huge controversy involving Sam’s previous firm Alameda, and FTX. Alameda was a crypto hedge fund of sorts, carrying out and matching traders and clines, and giving out the investors a supposed return. The firm promised an impossibly high 15% annualized fixed rate loans, but later on would be exposed by the Wall Street journals for using customer deposits as loans for trading.
Alameda would receive 10 billion dollars in total, as a result of this, clearly violating their own guidelines, and misusing customer funds, catching the attention of the media even further. Somehow, for the time, FTX would not suffer as a result of the debacle, and would continue expanding to massive heights.
Associating the brand name with NBA stars, as well NFL in having Tom Brady invest 650 million dollars in the company assets. It is clear that Sam’s reputation of a quiet, humble genius was doing him many favors, as he continued to run his operation successfully. The public was clearly a bit too mesmerized though, as SBF himself has admitted live on air, to quote “running a Ponzi scheme”.
All of this would eventually catch up to Sam though, as he would be interviewed and exposed by multiple media outlets, even including a popular YouTube investigator known as CoffeeZilla who played a part in the swaying of the public opinion of SBF. Sam would often avoid all the shade business moves, and blame Alameda as opposed to FTX, supposedly avoiding responsibility.
Of course, this was a rocky defense, since he was the founder of Alameda firm, and the CEO was his girlfriend Caroline, that was mentioned above. He was very obviously well aware of the operations that FTX was running, including transitioning the traditional coins such as BTC and Ethereum into the FTT coin, as a result taking billions in total from the customers.
On November 11, 2022, billions of dollars would be wiped from FTX, resulting in a massive crash, as well as the loss of not only Sam, but more importantly the community who were investing. The situation ended with SBF’s arrest, and him becoming a hated figure in the community, for not only running an illegitimate business, but also making the investors, or regular people lose their money.
SBF Trial Update
This conversation was sparked up by Sam trying to quote “intimidate witnesses and taint the jury pool”, before his upcoming trial on the October 2 of this year. He is once again desperately trying to shift all blame on Alameda, and his ex-girlfriend Caroline, who he himself put in charge as CEO. Caroline herself managed to remove her 110-year prison sentence, after agreeing to expose Sam and his operations, marking an end to the lies. Ultimately, the crypto world was hugely affected by SBF, but is still going strong.
