SBF (Sam Bankman-Fried)
Crypto's golden boy turned its biggest villain. 25 years in prison.
Known For
Founder of FTX — the exchange that stole billions in customer funds and triggered crypto's biggest scandal
Sam Bankman-Fried built FTX into the second-largest crypto exchange in the world, valued at $32 billion at its peak. He was the industry's poster child — meeting with regulators, donating to politicians, appearing on magazine covers, and bailing out failing companies. Behind the scenes, FTX was funneling billions in customer funds to his trading firm Alameda Research. In November 2022, a CoinDesk article revealed Alameda's balance sheet was largely composed of FTX's own FTT token. Binance's CZ announced he'd sell his FTT holdings, triggering a bank run FTX couldn't survive. Within days, FTX halted withdrawals, declared bankruptcy, and an estimated $8-10 billion in customer funds was missing. SBF was arrested in the Bahamas, extradited to the US, and convicted on seven criminal counts including fraud and money laundering. He was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. Coffeezilla's investigative interviews became some of the defining journalism of the collapse.
