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Sam Bankman-Fried

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Sam Bankman-Fried
Sam Bankman-Fried pictured from the shoulders up
Sam Bankman-Fried in 2021
Born (1992-03-06) March 6, 1992 (age 32)
Stanford, California, U.S.
EducationMassachusetts Institute of Technology (BS)
OccupationEntrepreneur
Known forCEO of FTX
Parents

Samuel Bankman-Fried[1] (born March 6, 1992[2]), also known by his initials SBF,[3] is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, billionaire and investor. He is the founder and CEO of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange[4][5], and FTX.US, its U.S. affiliate.[6] As of February 2022, the exchange averages $10 billion of daily trading volume[7] and has over one million users.[8] He also manages assets through Alameda Research, a quantitative cryptocurrency trading firm he founded in October 2017.

He was ranked 60th on the 2022 Forbes billionaires list with a net worth of US$24 billion.[9] However, as cryptocurrency prices fell in mid-2022, his net worth reduced to approximately $8 billion.[10]

Early life and education

Bankman-Fried was born in 1992 on the campus of Stanford University, the son of Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, both professors at Stanford Law School.[2] He attended Canada/USA Mathcamp, a summer program for mathematically talented high school students.[2]

From 2010 to 2014, Bankman-Fried attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[2] There, he lived in a coeducational group house called Epsilon Theta.[2] In 2012, he blogged about utilitarianism, baseball, and politics.[5][2] In 2014, he graduated with a degree in physics and a minor in mathematics.[2][11][12]

Career

In the summer of 2013, Bankman-Fried began working at Jane Street Capital, a proprietary trading firm,[2] trading international ETFs.[13] Initially an intern, he returned there full-time after graduating.[2]

In September 2017, Bankman-Fried quit Jane Street and moved to Berkeley, where he worked briefly at the Centre for Effective Altruism as director of development from October to November 2017.[2][14] In November 2017, he founded Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm.[2] As of 2021, Bankman-Fried owns approximately 90% of Alameda Research.[2] In January 2018, Bankman-Fried organized an arbitrage trade, moving up to $25M per day, to take advantage of the higher price of bitcoin in Japan compared to in America.[2][14] After attending a late 2018 cryptocurrency conference in Macau, and while also inspired by the concurrent fork of Bitcoin Cash, he moved to Hong Kong.[2][15] He founded FTX, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, in April 2019, and it then launched the following month.[2]

On December 8, 2021, Bankman-Fried, along with other industry executives, testified before the Committee on Financial Services in relation to regulating the cryptocurrency industry.[16][17]

On May 12, 2022, it was revealed that Emergent Fidelity Technologies Ltd., which is majority owned by Bankman-Fried, had bought 7.6% of Robinhood Markets Inc. stock.[18][19]

Bankman-Fried is a supporter of effective altruism and pursues earning to give as an altruistic career.[20] He is a member of Giving What We Can and has claimed that he plans to donate the great majority of his wealth to effective charities over the course of his life.[4] His company FTX has a policy of donating 1% of its revenue to charity.[20][21] The company has founded the philanthropic foundation FTX Foundation, which includes the philanthropic fund Future Fund, which has a goal of deploying over $100 million in 2022 and over $1 billion over the next years.[22]

Politics

Bankman-Fried said in February 2022 that his political contributions were not aimed at influencing his policy goals for the cryptocurrency ecosystem; however, FTX was circulating a list of suggestions to policymakers at the time.[23] He said in an interview that he would prefer the Commodity Futures Trading Commission take a larger role in regulating and guiding the crypto industry.[23] The CFTC has a reputation for favoring relatively relaxed regulations for the industry, when contrasted with other regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission.[24]

Bankman-Fried made few political donations as a student, the exception being a $1000 contribution to Michael Bennet at the age of eighteen.[23] In the 2020 election cycle, he contributed $5.2 million to two super PACs that supported the Biden campaign.[23] He was the second-largest individual donor to Joe Biden in the 2020 election cycle, personally donating $5.2 million,[25] second to only Michael Bloomberg.[20][26]

Contributions for June 2021 through February 2022 went to members of both parties. They included direct donations to the Republican campaigns of senators Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Ben Sasse of Nebraska.[23]

In 2022, Bankman-Fried provided initial financial support for Protect Our Future PAC. Protect Our Future was launched as a Democratic political action committee with $10 million in initial funding aiming to support "lawmakers who play the long game on policymaking in areas like pandemic preparedness and planning", according to Politico.[27]

Personal life

Bankman-Fried is a vegan.[12][15] He lives in the Bahamas.[12]

References

  1. ^ "December 8, 2021, "Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: Understanding the Challenges and Benefits of Financial Innovation in the United States"" (PDF). financialservices.house.gov. December 3, 2021. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Parloff, Roger (August 12, 2021). "Portrait of a 29-year-old billionaire: Can Sam Bankman-Fried make his risky crypto business work?". Yahoo!Finance. Retrieved September 6, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ^ Turner, Matt; Rosen, Phil; Erb, Jordan Parker (December 19, 2021). "Sam Bankman-Fried went from relative obscurity to crypto billionaire in just 4 years. Insiders explain how he did it, and what's next". Business Insider. Retrieved December 27, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ^ a b Schleifer, Theodore (March 20, 2021). "How a crypto billionaire decided to become one of Biden's biggest donors". Vox.
  5. ^ a b Wallace, Benjamin (February 2, 2021). "The Mysterious Cryptocurrency Magnate Who Became One of Biden's Biggest Donors". Intelligencer.
  6. ^ "Crypto Exchange Competition Heats Up With FTX.US Growth Spurt". Bloomberg.com. July 29, 2021. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  7. ^ "FTX Volume Up $140B in Year-Over-Year High". BeInCrypto. April 15, 2022. Retrieved July 18, 2022.
  8. ^ Reuters (July 20, 2021). "Crypto firm FTX Trading's valuation rises to $18 bln after $900 mln investment". Reuters. Retrieved July 18, 2022. {{cite news}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  9. ^ "Sam Bankman-Fried". Forbes. Retrieved April 18, 2022.
  10. ^ "Crypto's last man standing". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved July 6, 2022.
  11. ^ "The Team". Alameda Research. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
  12. ^ a b c Chan, Michelle (June 25, 2021). "Hong Kong's 29-year-old crypto billionaire: FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried". Nikkei Asia. Retrieved September 6, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  13. ^ "The Ex-Trader Building a Multi-Billion Crypto Empire (Podcast)". Bloomberg. March 31, 2021. Retrieved October 1, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  14. ^ a b Wallace, Benjamin (February 2, 2021). "The Mysterious Cryptocurrency Magnate Who Became One of Biden's Biggest Donors". Intelligencer. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  15. ^ a b Lipton, Eric; Livni, Ephrat (August 19, 2021). "Crypto Nomads: Surfing the World for Risk and Profit". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  16. ^ Livni, Ephrat (December 8, 2021). "Congress gets a crash course on cryptocurrency". The New York Times. Retrieved December 25, 2021.
  17. ^ Kiernan, Paul (December 9, 2021). "Crypto Executives Defend Industry as Congress Considers Oversight". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 25, 2021.
  18. ^ https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1783879/000114036122018827/brhc10037465_sc13d.htm
  19. ^ Macheel, Tanaya (May 12, 2022). "Robinhood shares pop more than 20% after Sam Bankman-Fried buys 7.6% stake". CNBC.
  20. ^ a b c Osipovich, Alexander (April 16, 2021). "This Vegan Billionaire Disrupted the Crypto Markets. Stocks May Be Next". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on June 4, 2021.
  21. ^ "FTX". ftx.com. Retrieved May 3, 2021.
  22. ^ "FTX to deploy $1B through Future Fund for safer AI, reduced biorisk". Cointelegraph. Retrieved July 18, 2022.
  23. ^ a b c d e Sutton, Sam (February 8, 2022). "Crypto's aspiring Washington kingmaker". POLITICO. Retrieved May 13, 2022.
  24. ^ Yaffe-Bellany, David (May 14, 2022). "A Crypto Emperor's Vision: No Pants, His Rules". The New York Times. Retrieved May 14, 2022.
  25. ^ Schreckinger, Ben (January 16, 2022). "Bitcoin crashes the midterms". POLITICO. Retrieved May 13, 2022.
  26. ^ Lee, Georgina (July 1, 2021). "Crypto firm ropes in Gisele, Tom Brady to burnish green credentials". South China Morning Post. Retrieved July 28, 2021.
  27. ^ Anthony Adragna (January 27, 2022). "A new Democratic super PAC has entered the chat: Protect Our Future will invest $10 million in Democratic primaries for lawmakers who take "a long term view on policy planning."". Politico.
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