FTX's Crypto Empire Collapse | Jacob Silverman | TMR

Emma is joined by writer Jacob Silverman to discuss the recent developments surrounding the crypto exchange FTX and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried. Jacob Silverman and Emma then dive into the rapid rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of a massive crypto empire in the FTX exchange and Alameda Research firm, diving into how his Ponzi scheme turned him into a billionaire on paper, while myriad liberal institutions offered him legitimacy, allowing him to effectively run wild, investing billions in others’ money completely unregulated. Wrapping up that story, Jacob and Emma discuss the echo of the 2008 financial crash that can be seen in the recent Crypto crashes, and the greater implications of SBF effectively disappearing billions of dollars from investors.

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Check out more from the MR crew:

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Friend of the show Jacob Silverman author of the upcoming book Easy Money cryptocurrency Casino capitalism and the Golden Age of fraud. Jacob comes on to rip on these crypto grifters on occasion and more. Jacob thanks for being here. Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you. So this has been an absolute Saga the collapse of FTX. You know Miami Heat recently sold the naming rights to their the their Arena. They're ripping off the letters because they're unable to pay for their sponsorship. And according to what I've read it seems like Sam bank man freed the head of this cryptocurrency exchange it has lost billions of dollars in a matter of days. And it is in Ruins financially. Although when you become rich even if you go bankrupt they always end up finding a way to get rich again or stay rich. But I guess let's just start at the beginning of this Saga. Who is this guy Sam bank man fried. And how did he end FTX's jump on the scene? sure well Sam bank man fried or SPF as you sometimes hear him called he started as a quantitative trainer a Quant at Jane Street. he went to MIT he is the son of a couple Stanford law professors. so he did pretty well in his early 20s Trader at James Street. then he went on from there to eventually found this big crypto Empire. that became FTX and Alameda were the two main companies. the first sort of origin story that you hear at least is that Sam found an Arbitrage opportunity where basically he was buying crypto cheaper on American exchanges and selling it on Asian exchanges. it was called the kimchi discount. and some people even dispute that story but allegedly that's how he made some Millions to start. and then you know that matured into a full-fledged crypto hedge fund called Alameda. and then FTX which was an exchange. just like coinbase or binance or some of these other exchanges.