Brut.Big Picture: The Sam Bankman-Fried case

He became a billionaire in his 20s and lived his life in style. But some shady crypto dealings later, he possibly faced over a century in prison.

Transcript

00:00how this young billionaire lost everything and now faced up to 115 years in jail if convicted.

00:07This is Sam Bankman Freed, also known as SBF. He was 25 years old when he created Alameda Research.

00:14In 2019, he created FTX, a crypto exchange platform. It was a massive success.

00:19SBF became one of the most influential personalities in crypto. A multi-billionaire,

00:24he featured on different TV shows where he told people that he wanted to make the world

00:29a better place. Until some news outlets began doubting the stability of FTX.

00:34In November 2022, there were allegations that SBF used billions of dollars of FTX

00:40customer money. When word got out and customers started withdrawing billions of dollars from FTX,

00:46the withdrawals were halted. FTX's more than 1.2 million users were unable to access their wallet.

00:52The truth about SBF started tumbling out. He had bought more than 30 luxury villas,

00:58slept in $60,000-a-night hotel rooms. Since the FTX headquarters were in the Bahamas

01:04and Amazon couldn't deliver there, they had private jets transporting parcels from Miami.

01:09On 12 December 2022, SBF was arrested. He was charged with fraud and spent 10 days in jail.

01:16He was bailed out with $250 million paid by his parents and two unknown donors.

01:21He was sent back to the US where he was put under house arrest.

01:25His passport was revoked and he was now forbidden from talking to his former colleagues.