FTX SBF SOL

Crypto is complicated. Apparently fraud isn’t. It took a jury only 4 hours to find SBF guilty on all charges. “FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s spectacular rise and fall in the cryptocurrency industry — a journey that included his testimony before Congress, a Super Bowl advertisement and dreams of a future run for president — hit rock bottom Thursday when a New York jury convicted him of fraud for stealing at least $10 billion from customers and investors.” FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried convicted of defrauding cryptocurrency customers.

+ “Bankman-Fried’s back was to his parents. He was talking to his lawyers, Mark Cohen and Chris Everdell. He appeared to be shaking. He did not look back to see his parents until he was being escorted out. As he glanced back, Fried crumpled, and her husband steadied her.” Sam Bankman-Fried gambled on a trial and his parents lost.

+ “During the trial, it emerged that Mr. Bankman-Fried had spent $15 million on private plane travel. He never did much to disguise the fact that he lived with some of his FTX pals in a $35 million penthouse. The question of whether these young people should be sleeping on the beach instead of living the high life if they were truly following the doctrine of effective altruism never seemed to get asked.” David Streitfeld in the NYT (Gift Article): Sam Bankman-Fried’s Wild Rise and Abrupt Crash. “It’s impossible to read the sad saga of Mr. Bankman-Fried without thinking he, and many of those around him, would have been better off if they had spent less time at math camp and more time in English class. Sometimes in books, the characters find their moral compass; in the best books, the reader does, too.”