Sam Bankman-Fried: The crypto king who lost it all

Once seen as a bulwark against the shadier sides of the cryptocurrency world, the tech entrepreneur is now a pariah, writes Bevan Hurley

Bankman-Fried’s $16bn fortune plummeted by an estimated 94 per cent in one day (Getty)

This week, Sam Bankman-Fried will appear alongside Mark Zuckerberg, Mike Pence, Ben Affleck and Volodymyr Zelensky at the New York Times DealBook Summit.

That the man known universally by his initials “SBF” is receiving star billing at the annual gathering of powerbrokers from the worlds of politics, tech and entertainment has enraged many in the crypto community, who believe the floppy-haired founder of the fallen FTX empire should already be behind bars.

“If SBF isn’t arrested and charged with fraud, wire-fraud, theft, and possibly money laundering before [the DealBook Summit] and instead gets to spew out his bulls*** narrative, our system of justice has been compromised,” former US attorney and founder of Crypto-Law US John Deaton wrote on Twitter.