Sam Bankman-Fried: 5 unknown facts about crypto’s fallen king

The report by CoinDesk triggered an avalanche of customer withdrawals, with FTX seeing an estimated $6 billion in withdrawals over the course of just 72 hours. FTX struggled to fulfil these demands as Bankman-Fried tried to turn to industry rivals for a bailout. But after none materialised, the company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

According to CoinTelegraph, Bankman-Fried and two former FTX associates are currently “under supervision” by Bahamian authorities. As the crypto industry grapples with the meteoric rise and then fall of one of its poster boys, here are five things you might not have known about Sam Bankman-Fried.

1. He is a physics graduate

In 1992, Bankman-Fried was born into a family of academics, with both his parents being professors at Stanford Law School. In 2010, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from where he graduated in 2014 with a major in physics and a minor in mathematics.

But he is quite dismissive about formal education and his experience with it. “Nothing I learned in college ended up being useful other than, like, social development. . . . On the academic side, though, it’s all f***ing useless. . . . School is just not helpful for most jobs. . . . Everyone knows it’s true. . . . Some people kind of don’t really want to say it’s true, but it just is,” said Bankman-Fried about his education, according to Yahoo Finance.

2. He is a self-proclaimed “altruist”

After graduating, Bankman-Fried went to work at the trading firm Jane Street. He says that he donated half his salary and gave it away to animal welfare and other initiatives, according to The New Yorker magazine.

Even after making billions of dollars from FTX, Bankman-Fried pledged to give away nearly all his money, and said that he is willing to contribute more than a billion dollars every year. He also set up the FTX Future Fund, whose initial ideas included developing an early-detection system for unknown pathogens and designing and manufacturing vastly improved personal protective equipment aimed at making the lives of immunocompromised people easy.

Bloomberg reports that his “effective altruism” efforts have imploded along with the rest of his fortunes as the FTX Future Fund team has resigned amidst the financial crisis faced by its parent company.

3. He is a big Biden supporter

Sam Bankman-Fried had contributed more than $5.2 billion to US President Joe Biden’s election campaign, according to Politico. While he does claim to support politicians on both sides of the aisle, also contributing to many Republican campaigns, Bankman-Fried worked with Nishad Singh, director of engineering at FTX to seed a super PAC (political action committee) that backs Democrats “who take a long-term view on policy planning.” According to Fortune, Bankman-Fried was the second largest contributor to Democratic causes in the 2021-2022 election cycle after George Soros.

4. He ran FTX and Alameda with a “cabal of roommates” in a Bahama penthouse

According to a CoinDesk report, Sam Bankman-Fried runs both FTX and Alameda Research with his “inner circle” of nine members, some of whom were colleagues at Jane Street, and others who he met at MIT. All these ten members and Bankman-Fried are roommates in a luxury penthouse in the Bahamas.

His nine housemates include Singh, FTX co-founder and CTO Gary Wang, and Caroline Ellison of Alameda. CoinDesk reports that only this inner circle knew that FTX was siphoning funds to Alameda, citing people who are familiar with the matter. “The whole operation was run by a gang of kids in the Bahamas,” said a person familiar with the matter to the publication.

5. He is a vegan

According to the Wall Street Journal, Sam Bankman-Fried is a vegan that shares his apartment with his friends and often sleeps on beanbags. He is often pictured wearing casual attire that often features cargo shorts, and according to Bloomberg, he drives a Toyota Corolla and has a Robin Hood-like philosophy.