‘Hall of Fame’ to ‘Hall of Shame’; Owner Of 26 Billion Dollars Became Pauper Suddenly, Also Sentenced 25 Years Jail

Sam Bankman-Fried, a young American entrepreneur and once known as the Crypto King, has been sentenced to 25 years. Sam founded the crypto exchange platform FTX in 2019. It soon became the world’s largest crypto exchange platform. But within two years the company also went bankrupt. Let’s know Sam’s entire story from ‘Hall of Fame’ to ‘Hall of Shame’.

Sam (32) has studied from one of the most prestigious institutions of America – Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was interested in the digital world from the beginning. In 2013, Sam worked in a company doing international ETF business.

But, his fortunes changed in 2017, when he laid the foundation of quantitative trading firm Alameda Research. American billionaire computer programmer John Talin also invested money in this. Then when the price of crypto increased in Japan compared to America, Sam came up with a new way to earn profit. He started buying crypto from America and selling it in Japan.

However, it was FTX that took Sam’s stars to new heights. He laid the foundation of this cryptocurrency derivatives exchange platform in the year 2019. Sam shifted his entire business to Bahamas. His company also invested in India’s e-sports segment. It also had a partnership with battle royale game Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) team TSM.

Sam reached great heights of success with FTX. It became the world’s second largest crypto exchange platform. America’s prestigious business magazine Forbes also included Sam in the list of 30 most successful businessmen under the age of 30 in 2021, But interestingly after the FTX scam, the same Forbes also included Sam in the list of Hall of Shame i.e. infamous people in 2023. 10 in this list, after getting success, adopted the wrong path and got ruined.

How did Sam Bankman-Fried ruin?

Sam’s bad phase started around 2022. Sam Bankman-Fried secretly transferred $10 billion of customer funds from FTX to his trading arm Alameda Research. Almeida used to trade with this fund, in which he suffered huge losses, when this news came out, the reputation of Sam, who is called crypto superstar, and his FTX was ruined.

There was a race among investors to withdraw their money from FTX. The company received withdrawal requests worth more than $6 billion in just 3 days. FTX had so much money in lump sum and there was a liquidity crunch. Meaning that the company was not in a position to return people’s money. He had only one option and he followed it. That was to file bankruptcy.

What did Bankman-Fried say after the sentencing?

Now FTX co-founder Sam has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. The judge has also ordered the confiscation of Bankman-Fried’s wealth worth more than $11 billion. To this, Bankman-Fried said, ‘I made many selfish decisions, which haunt me every day. Because of me, many people got upset and disappointed, I am sorry for that. There are many things that I could have done for the betterment of FTX and I could have stayed away from many things.