Sam Bankman

Updated January 19, 2023
By cukuwotu

“Sometimes the obvious product is the right one. Other times it’s the lazy one.”

Sam Bankman-Fried’s career in cryptocurrency has been nothing short of extraordinary. He co-founded two remarkably successful ventures – FTX, a top 5 crypto exchange by volume, and Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm – before both companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2022.

By 30, Bankman-Fried had catapulted himself to riches and outstanding success in the crypto sphere. October 2022 saw him valued at an impressive $16 billion, with a portfolio consisting primarily of FTX ownership stakes and FTT token holdings from its native exchange platform – further cementing his status as one of Crypto’s top elite.

Biography

Bankman-Fried, born in 1992 to two law professors at Stanford Law School, found traditional education too tedious and rigid. During high school summers, he attended the Canada/USA Mathcamp for an intellectual outlet before graduating from MIT with a degree in physics and minor in mathematics, yet still remains critical of academic learning as none of it helped him professionally.

At MIT, Sam Bankman-Fried developed an inspiring life philosophy: effective altruism. This concept calls us to bring positive change and benefit the most people. After working as a trader at Jane Street Capital, he founded Alameda in 2017 – launching his purpose-driven journey of making a difference with meaningful impact.

An avid proponent of effective altruism, he was determined to make a difference in the world through reasoned decisions and following through on them. He became renowned for his commitment to “earning to give,” aiming not only for financial gain but also looking forward towards donating it all away down the line. His generous spirit could be seen by his past donations amounting into millions- as well as pledges showing continuous giving going forward.

From relative obscurity to crypto billionaire in four years, Sam Bankman-Fried’s success was meteoric. As a key figure and philanthropist permeating the cryptocurrency ecosystem, SBF had achieved immense wealth — until November 2022, when questions about FTX and Alameda’s assets sparked an overnight plummet that saw him transform from darling to villain of the digital economy.

After a successful internship at Jane Street Capital, an international ETF trading firm on Wall Street, Bankman-Fried returned there full-time after college and donated more than half of his earnings to charity. He made the courageous decision of leaving in September 2017 to pursue a career as Director of Development with the Center for Effective Altruism while exploring possibilities around setting up his own crypto trading firm – despite having limited knowledge about this growing industry. In Bankman-Fried’s words:“There was huge demand, volatility and appreciation surrounding cryptocurrency that its infrastructure couldn’t keep up with.”

Alameda Research

In late 2017, the demand for crypto – especially in Korea and Tokyo – was soaring. To capitalize on this trend Bankman-Fried and his college fraternity brother, Gary Wang, founded Alameda Research to create an international trading platform specifically designed to take advantage of price differences between identical assets across different exchanges using arbitrage strategies. In less than a year, they had already secured over $20 million in profits!

SBF owned 2021 approximately 90% of Alameda Research.

FTX

After just two years in the crypto-trading industry, Bankman-Fried and Wang grew discontent with offshore exchanges due to their lack of customer support systems, inadequate infrastructure quality and mismanagement. Offshore markets lacked traditional financial safeguards like those found on conventional stock market platforms.

In April 2019, Bankman-Fried and Wang made the bold move to launch FTX–FuTures eXchange – an ambitious crypto exchange platform with a suite of innovative products. As pioneers in streamlining market collateral, traders could now manage their margin funds more efficiently through one wallet.

FTX experienced unprecedented growth since their launch in 2019, reaching a valuation of over $1 billion following just one year. As users joined the platform en-masse, valuations increased to an impressive $32 billion within three years. Handling more than 1 million customers worldwide and continually expanding its product portfolio with crypto derivatives, options trading, prediction markets & leveraged tokens alongside OTC & pre-IPO tokenised stocks – FTX’s success story was something truly remarkable!

November 2022

In November 2022, SBF found himself at the centre of an explosive controversy surrounding Alameda Research’s balance sheet. The leaked data raised questions about its close connection to FTX and revealed that it held a large portion of FTT tokens on its books. Things took a further turn for the worse when Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao sold off heavy amounts of FTT shortly after these events transpired – driving prices down drastically and ultimately creating liquidity issues for FTX crypto exchange platform.

Friday, November 11th marked a pivotal moment in the crypto space when FTX’s filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy triggered speculation about the intermingling of assets between Alameda Research and FTX. Promptly following this news, users were unexpectedly denied access to their funds as withdrawal requests went unanswered by FTX.

FAQ

How old is Sam Bankman-Fried?

Sam Bankman-Fried was born on March 6, 1992, at Stanford. As of 2022, he is 30 Years old.

Sam Bankman-Fried Networth?

On October 2022, his estimated net worth hit the stratosphere with an astonishing amount between around 20 billion. However, by November of that same year, it had taken a steep dive and plummeted to less than six figures, according to reports from social media released personally by him.