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PROFILE
Sam Bankman-Fried
Founder, FTX
$17.2B
2022 Forbes 400 Net Worth
as of 9/27/22
Photo by Guerin Blask for Forbes
About Sam Bankman-Fried
Sam Bankman-Fried was one of the richest people in crypto, thanks to his FTX exchange and Alameda Research trading firm, before his empire came crashing down in November 2022.
After users began withdrawing their investments from FTX at a rapid pace, Bankman-Fried filed for bankruptcy for FTX, FTX's U.S. operations and Alameda Research.
It's a stunning fall from grace for Bankman-Fried, who had been heralded as a modern J.P. Morgan for swooping in to save troubled crypto firms before his own firm blew up.
The son of two Stanford law professors, he studied physics at MIT and traded ETFs at a quant firm before pivoting to crypto trading in late 2017.
He launched FTX in 2019 and grew it into one of the leading exchanges for buying and selling crypto derivatives. In early 2022, investors valued FTX and its U.S. operations at a combined $40 billion.
Most of his wealth, which peaked at an estimated $26.5 billion, was tied up in ownership of about half of FTX and a share of its FTT tokens.
EducationBachelor of Arts/Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Did you know
Bankman-Fried poured hundreds of millions into mainstream marketing, including the naming rights to leading esports league TSM and the Miami Heat's arena.
Bankman-Fried was the second largest billionaire donor to Democratic causes in the 2022 midterm election, giving nearly $40 million.
Bankman-Fried essentially put up none of his own money as part of the agreement, which is only secured by equity in his parents' house and a promise to return to court.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is set to be released from federal custody after his attorneys struck a deal with prosecutors on a bail amount of $250 million, according to multiple reports.
Sam Bankman-Fried has entered a world of isolation, pressure and the realization of unintended consequences as he faces charges of a massive fraud involving his crypto trading platform FTX.
A Bahamas judge on Wednesday approved the extradition of former billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of befallen crypto exchange FTX, from a Nassau jail to the United States, where the former crypto wunderkind faces a slew of criminal charges.
By deftly navigating crypto’s frontier markets and winning big on the collapse of Terra’s stable coin, Wintermute has grown into one of the world’s leading crypto trading firms. Now it must navigate a market littered with carcasses and landmines.
SBF was expected to agree to extradition in a court appearance Monday, but the hearing went off the rails when his lawyer said he was "shocked" his client was even in court.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former billionaire crypto wunderkind now jailed in the Bahamas and facing a litany of criminal charges for alleged fraud, did not agree to extradition back to the U.S. as expected in a Monday court hearing.
He’s nowhere near as rich as he boasts, nor as poor as his critics claim. Donald Trump’s real net worth? $2.5 billion, according to our most recent tally.
