Sam Bankman-Fried is an American entrepreneur, investor, and former billionaire who is best known as the co-founder and CEO of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that was launched in May 2019 and which, by July 2021, was averaging USD 10 billion in daily trading volume with more than a million users. FTX had raised USD 900 million from the likes of Coinbase Ventures (the investment arm of Coinbase Global, Inc. (an American company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform) that aims to invest in early-stage cryptocurrency and blockchain startups) and SoftBank Group Corp. (a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company that focuses on investment management) in July 2021 at a valuation of USD 18 billion which had helped make Sam one of the richest people under the age of 30, in history.
FTX experienced a crisis in late 2022, which led to a collapse in FTX’s native cryptocurrency, FTT. He then announced he would wind down operations at Alameda Research and resigned as CEO of FTX, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Before his wealth disappeared in November 2022, Bankman-Fried was a major donor to Democratic Party candidates. He donated $40 million, mostly to Democratic candidates, during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections. On December 12, 2022, Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas, pending potential extradition to the United States. He is known online as SBF.
What was Sam Bankman-Fried Known For?
- Sam Bankman-Fried is an entrepreneur who co-founded the once widely popular FTX crypto exchange in May of 2019.
- Sam is a brilliant engineer and his charisma and passion have brought celebrities and athletes to the crypto world.
Who are Sam Bankman-Fried’s Parents?
Sam Bankman-Fried was born on 6th March 1992 in Stanford, California, U.S. He holds American nationality and his ethnicity is American-White. His birth name is Samuel Bankman-Fried. His present age is 30 as of 2022. He was born into a Jewish family. He is the son of his father, Joseph Bankman, and his mother, Barbara H. Fried. His dad is a lawyer and professor of Law and Business at Stanford Law School and the law school of Stanford University. His mum is a lawyer, author, professor of Law at Stanford Law School, and co-founder of the Political Fundraising Organizations Mind the Gap and Get-out-the-Vote (GOTV). He has a sibling – a younger brother, Gabriel ‘Gabe’ Bankman-Fried who is a former Wall Street Trader, and director of the non-profit Guarding Against Pandemics.
Sam went to Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough, California. Further, he went to a 5-week summer camp called Canada/USA Mathcamp which is for mathematically talented high-school students. Sam, after his graduation, joined the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2010. He graduated from there in 2014 with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and a minor in mathematics.
Sam Bankman-Fried Career Timeline
- Initially, Sam Bankman-Fried worked as an intern at Jane Street Capital, a proprietary trading firm, trading international ETFs in 2013. Then, he worked full-time after graduation from MIT.
- Next, he left Jane Street in September 2017 and moved to Berkeley, where he worked briefly at the Centre for Effective Altruism as director of development from October to November 2017.
- Sam also co-founded Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm, with Tara Mac Aulay from the Centre of Effective Altruism in November 2017.
- In 2021, Bankman-Fried owned approximately 90% of Alameda Research. Back in 2018, he organized an arbitrage trade, moving up to $25 million per day, to take advantage of the higher price of bitcoin in Japan compared to in America.
- Later, he moved to Hong Kong after attending a late 2018 cryptocurrency conference in Macau.
- After then, Bankman-Fried founded FTX, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, in April 2019. On 12th May 2022, it was disclosed that Emergent Fidelity Technologies Ltd., which is majority owned by Bankman-Fried, had bought 7.6% of Robinhood Markets Inc. stock.
- It was reported in September 2022 that Bankman-Fried’s advisors had offered on his behalf to help fund Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter.
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- Bankman-Fried then invested more than $500 million in venture capital firms, including $200 million in Sequoia Capital.
- In November 2022, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao revealed on Twitter that his firm intended to sell its holdings of FTT, FTX’s token. Binance received $529 million worth of FTT as part of a sale of its equity in FTX in 2021.
- Sam resigned as CEO of FTX on November 11 and was replaced by John J. Ray III. One day after FTX declared bankruptcy, on November 12, he was interviewed by the Royal Bahamas Police Force. On 17th November, Ray III, the CEO brought in as a liquidator, stated in a sworn declaration submitted in bankruptcy court that according to the firm’s records, Alameda Research had lent $1 billion to Bankman-Fried.
- On 12th December 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested shortly after 6 p.m. in his apartment complex in the Bahamas by the Royal Bahamas Police Force under the expectation that he would be extradited to the United States to face trial.
- The Southern District of New York charged Bankman-Fried previously that day with “wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and money laundering”, according to a source cited by the New York Times. the charges are expected to be unsealed on December 13.
- Philip Davis, the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, commented on the arrest that “the Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law … while the United States is pursuing criminal charges against SBF individually, the Bahamas will continue its own regulatory and criminal investigations into the collapse of FTX”.
- Braden Perry, a former senior trial lawyer at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission stated that a conviction on any of the charges may result in a prison sentence of years or decades.
Political Career
- In the 2020 US election cycle, Bankman-Fried contributed $5.2 million to two super PACs that supported the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign. He was the second-largest individual donor to Biden in the 2020 election cycle, and second to only Michael Bloomberg.
- In 2022, Bankman-Fried provided initial financial support for Protect Our Future PAC.
- Bankman-Fried was the second-largest individual donor to Democratic causes in the 2021–2022 election cycle, with total donations of $39.8 million, only behind George Soros.
- He said in an interview that he would prefer the Commodity Futures Trading Commission take a larger role in regulating and guiding the crypto industry. He said in February 2022 that his political contributions were not aimed at influencing his policy goals for the cryptocurrency ecosystem; however, FTX was circulating a list of suggestions to policymakers at the time.
- In May 2022, he stated that he planned to spend “north of $100 million” in the 2024 presidential election with a “soft ceiling” of $1 billion. In October 2022, he walked back his pledged spending, calling it a “dumb quote on my part”.
How much is Sam Bankman-Fried Net Worth?
Sam Bankman-Fried is an entrepreneur, investor, and former billionaire. 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. In April 2022, the net worth of Sam Bankman-Fried was $24 billion according to Forbes. At the peak of his career, his net worth had jumped to $26 billion which had dropped to $10.5 billion in October 2022.
As of December 12, 2022, the net worth of Sam Bankman-Fried is estimated to have $26.5 million. Investors esteemed FTX at $18 billion in 2021, helping make him one of the richest people under 30 in history. The exchange and its U.S. operations hit a combined $40 billion valuation in January 2022. He lives a luxurious lifestyle and he has lucrative cars and a huge mansion. His main source of wealth comes from investing and entrepreneurship career.
His cars collection include BMW X7, Audi A7, Mercedes Benz GLS, and Toyota Corolla among others. Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto trader entrepreneur at the center of the FTX scandal, reportedly put his luxury $40m Bahamas penthouse up for sale on Friday – the same day the cryptocurrency exchange filed for bankruptcy. Bankman-Fried’s penthouse – “the Orchid”, located in Albany, an exclusive private community in Nassau – was listed by real estate agent Seaside Bahamas at $39,500,000. The offering was first reported on Twitter by Autism Capital. Bankman-Fried, 30, is believed to have lost close to $16bn overnight eight days ago and is now facing investigation by US authorities. A real estate broker for the 12,000-sq ft, five-bedroom residence said on Monday the penthouse was put up for sale in the last week but declined to name the owner.
Who is Sam Bankman-Fried Wife?
Sam Bankman-Fried is an unmarried man. He has not revealed anything regarding his personal life to the media. He remains silent when it comes to his personal life. There are no details on his wife at the time of writing. He is focused on his career and he spent his time on his profession. He is assumed to be single as there are no details about his affairs and relationship. His sexual orietnation is straight and he is not gay.
What is Sam Bankman-Fried Height?
Sam Bankman-Fried has a tall height of 5 ft 8 in or 173 cm and her body weight consists of 77 kg or 170 lbs. He has Dark Brown hair color and her eye color is Light Brown. He has an average body type. He has curly hair with a clean-shaven look. He is a vegan. He takes healthy food in his daily routine. He takes too much care of his body.
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