If there’s something distinctive about the world of crypto, it’s how fast big companies and big fortunes can be spun out of nothing — and just as swiftly collapse. Nowhere has that been more apparent than the meteoric rise and fall of crypto exchange FTX and its CEO and founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.
Bankman-Fried founded his crypto hedge fund Alameda Research in November 2017, with FTX established in May 2019. By early 2022, it had scaled to a multibillion-dollar operation, vaulting Bankman-Fried to the front ranks of both crypto executives and political donors.
But when a leaked company balance sheet exposed a shaky
