Born: March 6, 1992
He has become known as SBF.
Bankman-Fried was a billionaire who is now considered a fraudster for his role in the collapse of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange firm that filed for bankruptcy in November 2022. He was founder and CEO of the exchange along with trading firm Alameda Research.
His rise to prominence was quick, as was his downfall. In a few years, his net worth ballooned to $26 billion, placing him #41 on the list of Forbes Richest and #60 in the world billionaires.
On November 8, 2022, the day FTX filed bankruptcy, SBF saw his net worth drop by 94%, to $991.5 million, the largest one day drop ever. Not long thereafter, it was determined that he had no material wealth at all.
On December 12, 2022, Bankman-Fried was arrested by the Bahamian authorities for financial offences, at the request of the US government.
Career
SBF graduated from MIT. After getting his degree, he went to work for Jane Street Capital, a propriety trading firms that deals in international ETFs.
In November 2017, he co-founded Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm, with Tara Mac Aulay. It was determined that he owned 90% of Alameda as of 2021.
Bankman-Fried founded FTX, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, in April 2019 with Zixiao "Gary" Wang. SBF ended up testifying in front of Congress in 2021 over regulations concerning the cryptocurrency industry.
The downfall might have started in May 2022 when Emergent Fidelity Technologies Ltd, another company mostly owned by SBF, bought 7.6 percent of Robinhood Markets stock. In a November 2022 affidavit, and prior to his arrest, Bankman-Fried said he and FTX co-founder Gary Wang together borrowed over $546 million from Alameda Research in order to finance the purchase of the stock.
Before his downfall, Bankman-Fried was rubbing elbows with some high flying people. Regarding Elon Musk's buyout of Twitter, SBF offered $5 billion towards the purchase. The messages were released during a lawsuit between Twitter and Musk.
In the end, SBF never got involved in the deal for the social media company.
In addition to his interest in cryptocurrency, Bankman-Fried invested more than $500 million in venture capital firms, including $200 million in Sequoia Capital. Sequoia published profile highlighting Bankman-Fried which it subsequently removed after the solvency crisis at FTX was revealed.