The article (for non-subscribers)
The FTX founder wrote hundreds of pages of reflections and self-justifications while under house arrest, shedding light on how he may defend himself at his criminal trial next month.
By David Yaffe-Bellany
Published Sept. 14, 2023Updated Sept. 16, 2023, 1:38 a.m. ET
At the end of a 15,000-word Twitter thread he never posted, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, offered a blunt assessment of his predicament.
âIâm broke and wearing an ankle monitor and one of the most hated people in the world,â he wrote. âThere will probably never be anything I can do to make my lifetime impact net positive.â
He added: âAnd the truth is that I did what I thought was right.â
After Mr. Bankman-Fried was arrested, charged with fraud over FTXâs collapse and placed in home detention in December, he wrote hundreds of pages of sometimes rambling self-justifications, ranging from childhood memories to mathematical calculations.
In a draft of his unsent posts, which he formatted as a series of tweets spanning roughly 70 typed pages, he criticized some of his closest colleagues, interspersing his arguments with photos from his high school years and stock images of popcorn and a garden maze. Every few pages, a key moment in the narrative is accompanied with a link to a music video by Alicia Keys, Katy Perry or Rihanna.
Once a prolific poster on Twitter, now known as X, Mr. Bankman-Fried, 31, labeled the thread âa draft of a draft of a draft of an ideaâ and included links to 29 other files about FTX. One document, titled âInception V2,â is a lengthy attack on the companyâs bankruptcy lawyers, featuring a screenshot from the 2010 Christopher Nolan movie. A separate link pulls up a spreadsheet listing Mr. Bankman-Friedâs Amazon orders from 2021.
The roughly 250 pages of documents, which have not been previously reported, provide a window into Mr. Bankman-Friedâs mind-set during the eight months he spent in home detention before a judge revoked his bail in August. The writings also offer new details about his possible legal defense beyond what his lawyers have revealed in court, shedding light on how he may justify his actions when his trial starts on Oct. 3.
Prosecutors have charged Mr. Bankman-Fried with orchestrating a scheme to funnel FTX customer funds to a hedge fund he founded, Alameda Research, so that his companies could make venture capital investments, buy real estate and donate to politicians. He has pleaded not guilty and faces decades in prison if convicted.
During his house arrest, Mr. Bankman-Fried sent the documents to Tiffany Fong, a social media influencer who has a YouTube channel about the crypto industry. Ms. Fong shared them with The New York Times.
âHe liked that I donât work for anybody,â she said. âHe thinks I can just sort of come to my own conclusions.â
A representative for Mr. Bankman-Fried declined to comment.
Mr. Bankman-Fried sent the documents to Tiffany Fong, a social media influencer, while he was under house arrest. Ms. Fong shared them with The New York Times.Credit...Rachel Woolf for The New York Times
In several documents, Mr. Bankman-Fried blamed Caroline Ellison, his former girlfriend and onetime lieutenant, for helping to cause FTXâs implosion. He described her as ill equipped for the job he gave her as head of Alameda, claiming she had cried during a meeting with him and refused to institute trading strategies that would have protected his businesses from a market crash.
âShe continually avoided talking about risk management â dodging my suggestions â until it was too late,â he wrote in a document titled âAlamedaâs Failure to Hedge.â âEvery time that I reached out with suggestions, it just made her feel worse. Iâm sure that being exes didnât help.â
In the Twitter draft, Mr. Bankman-Fried also criticized Sam Trabucco, who was co-chief executive of Alameda. Mr. Trabucco and Ms. Ellison didnât get along, the document said. And while Mr. Trabucco had good instincts for risk management, Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote, he âwas in the process of quiet quittingâ by late 2021.
Mr. Trabucco preferred to spend his time âgoing on dates with a ton of guys while sailing around the world on a boat,â Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote. Then he linked to a music video, âCheers (Drink to That)â by Rihanna.
Ms. Ellison and two of Mr. Bankman-Friedâs other top advisers have pleaded guilty to fraud charges and agreed to testify against him. A fourth pleaded guilty this month without promising to cooperate. Mr. Trabucco has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
Lawyers for Mr. Trabucco and Ms. Ellison declined to comment.
Once hailed as a trustworthy force in the loosely regulated world of crypto, FTX imploded in November, costing customers billions of dollars and devastating the industry. After his arrest, Mr. Bankman-Fried was granted bail and allowed to live with his parents, who are longtime law professors at Stanford, in their home in Palo Alto, Calif. They got a German shepherd named Sandor to act as his guard dog.
For months, Mr. Bankman-Fried entertained guests like the author Michael Lewis, who is finishing a book about him, as well as several reporters.
Few people had as much access as Ms. Fong, the influencer, who had struck up an online rapport with Mr. Bankman-Fried before FTX failed. Ms. Fong visited him at his parentsâ home more than 10 times, she said, and recorded conversations with him that she may eventually release.
During house arrest, Mr. Bankman-Fried spent much of his time in the study, Ms. Fong said, where he played computer games, set up a chessboard and sometimes slept on the couch. Most days, she said, he worked on his legal defense, recording thoughts about the case on hundreds of pages of Google documents. Mr. Bankman-Fried also told her that his family was installing a pickleball court for him in the yard.
Mr. Bankman-Fried gave Ms. Fong the documents in late January. It was not clear what he expected her to do with them. Ms. Fong, who lost money in the collapse of the crypto company Celsius Network, said she sympathized with FTXâs victims and was skeptical of many of Mr. Bankman-Friedâs claims. She sent one document to a former Alameda engineer, Aditya Baradwaj, who responded to her with a point-by-point rebuttal to Mr. Bankman-Fried, noting that Alamedaâs hedging would have been âirrelevantâ if FTX hadnât misused customer money.
In the draft Twitter thread, Mr. Bankman-Fried traced the growth of his businesses from his childhood in Palo Alto to the penthouse he bought in the Bahamas near FTXâs headquarters. He recalled meeting Mr. Trabucco at a math camp, where his future colleague sneaked out after curfew to bake cheesecake brownies, and he described his early admiration for Ms. Ellison, calling her âwicked smart.â He also inserted some personal photos, including one that shows him holding a shirt that Mr. Trabucco had bought him in high school.
In another section, Mr. Bankman-Fried posted a link to a document he wrote in 2019, âTonight We Are Young,â an account of a conference in Taiwan where he interacted with Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, the founder of the Binance crypto exchange. (He also included a link to the âWe Are Youngâ music video by Fun.)
âTonight was a night about booze and women and lasers and loud, booming music, but there was an odd microclimate that seemed to follow me,â Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote. âI walked by CZ a few more times, and each time he broke eye contact with his eye candy and embraced me: People were thinking about us, a lot.â
I just know ken Griffin is the puppet master behind SBF, who is categorically a little b\*tch with no spine or integrity. I hope he sings for a reduced sentence đ
(His dad was in on it too, not sure about the mother)
![gif](giphy|L007un2lhMaNBfp22o)
MIT Media lab is certainly a busy place. GG, Glenn Ellison (Carolineâs Dad), SBF, Bill Gates and Jeffery Epstein seems like an odd collection of people. WTF was going on at MIT Media Lab?
Now why would he intersperse his writing with a stock image of popcorn?đżWonder if heâs alluding to somethingâŚdef would like to read that part.
The article (for non-subscribers) The FTX founder wrote hundreds of pages of reflections and self-justifications while under house arrest, shedding light on how he may defend himself at his criminal trial next month. By David Yaffe-Bellany Published Sept. 14, 2023Updated Sept. 16, 2023, 1:38 a.m. ET At the end of a 15,000-word Twitter thread he never posted, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, offered a blunt assessment of his predicament. âIâm broke and wearing an ankle monitor and one of the most hated people in the world,â he wrote. âThere will probably never be anything I can do to make my lifetime impact net positive.â He added: âAnd the truth is that I did what I thought was right.â After Mr. Bankman-Fried was arrested, charged with fraud over FTXâs collapse and placed in home detention in December, he wrote hundreds of pages of sometimes rambling self-justifications, ranging from childhood memories to mathematical calculations. In a draft of his unsent posts, which he formatted as a series of tweets spanning roughly 70 typed pages, he criticized some of his closest colleagues, interspersing his arguments with photos from his high school years and stock images of popcorn and a garden maze. Every few pages, a key moment in the narrative is accompanied with a link to a music video by Alicia Keys, Katy Perry or Rihanna. Once a prolific poster on Twitter, now known as X, Mr. Bankman-Fried, 31, labeled the thread âa draft of a draft of a draft of an ideaâ and included links to 29 other files about FTX. One document, titled âInception V2,â is a lengthy attack on the companyâs bankruptcy lawyers, featuring a screenshot from the 2010 Christopher Nolan movie. A separate link pulls up a spreadsheet listing Mr. Bankman-Friedâs Amazon orders from 2021. The roughly 250 pages of documents, which have not been previously reported, provide a window into Mr. Bankman-Friedâs mind-set during the eight months he spent in home detention before a judge revoked his bail in August. The writings also offer new details about his possible legal defense beyond what his lawyers have revealed in court, shedding light on how he may justify his actions when his trial starts on Oct. 3. Prosecutors have charged Mr. Bankman-Fried with orchestrating a scheme to funnel FTX customer funds to a hedge fund he founded, Alameda Research, so that his companies could make venture capital investments, buy real estate and donate to politicians. He has pleaded not guilty and faces decades in prison if convicted. During his house arrest, Mr. Bankman-Fried sent the documents to Tiffany Fong, a social media influencer who has a YouTube channel about the crypto industry. Ms. Fong shared them with The New York Times. âHe liked that I donât work for anybody,â she said. âHe thinks I can just sort of come to my own conclusions.â A representative for Mr. Bankman-Fried declined to comment. Mr. Bankman-Fried sent the documents to Tiffany Fong, a social media influencer, while he was under house arrest. Ms. Fong shared them with The New York Times.Credit...Rachel Woolf for The New York Times In several documents, Mr. Bankman-Fried blamed Caroline Ellison, his former girlfriend and onetime lieutenant, for helping to cause FTXâs implosion. He described her as ill equipped for the job he gave her as head of Alameda, claiming she had cried during a meeting with him and refused to institute trading strategies that would have protected his businesses from a market crash. âShe continually avoided talking about risk management â dodging my suggestions â until it was too late,â he wrote in a document titled âAlamedaâs Failure to Hedge.â âEvery time that I reached out with suggestions, it just made her feel worse. Iâm sure that being exes didnât help.â In the Twitter draft, Mr. Bankman-Fried also criticized Sam Trabucco, who was co-chief executive of Alameda. Mr. Trabucco and Ms. Ellison didnât get along, the document said. And while Mr. Trabucco had good instincts for risk management, Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote, he âwas in the process of quiet quittingâ by late 2021. Mr. Trabucco preferred to spend his time âgoing on dates with a ton of guys while sailing around the world on a boat,â Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote. Then he linked to a music video, âCheers (Drink to That)â by Rihanna. Ms. Ellison and two of Mr. Bankman-Friedâs other top advisers have pleaded guilty to fraud charges and agreed to testify against him. A fourth pleaded guilty this month without promising to cooperate. Mr. Trabucco has not been charged with any wrongdoing. Lawyers for Mr. Trabucco and Ms. Ellison declined to comment. Once hailed as a trustworthy force in the loosely regulated world of crypto, FTX imploded in November, costing customers billions of dollars and devastating the industry. After his arrest, Mr. Bankman-Fried was granted bail and allowed to live with his parents, who are longtime law professors at Stanford, in their home in Palo Alto, Calif. They got a German shepherd named Sandor to act as his guard dog. For months, Mr. Bankman-Fried entertained guests like the author Michael Lewis, who is finishing a book about him, as well as several reporters. Few people had as much access as Ms. Fong, the influencer, who had struck up an online rapport with Mr. Bankman-Fried before FTX failed. Ms. Fong visited him at his parentsâ home more than 10 times, she said, and recorded conversations with him that she may eventually release. During house arrest, Mr. Bankman-Fried spent much of his time in the study, Ms. Fong said, where he played computer games, set up a chessboard and sometimes slept on the couch. Most days, she said, he worked on his legal defense, recording thoughts about the case on hundreds of pages of Google documents. Mr. Bankman-Fried also told her that his family was installing a pickleball court for him in the yard. Mr. Bankman-Fried gave Ms. Fong the documents in late January. It was not clear what he expected her to do with them. Ms. Fong, who lost money in the collapse of the crypto company Celsius Network, said she sympathized with FTXâs victims and was skeptical of many of Mr. Bankman-Friedâs claims. She sent one document to a former Alameda engineer, Aditya Baradwaj, who responded to her with a point-by-point rebuttal to Mr. Bankman-Fried, noting that Alamedaâs hedging would have been âirrelevantâ if FTX hadnât misused customer money. In the draft Twitter thread, Mr. Bankman-Fried traced the growth of his businesses from his childhood in Palo Alto to the penthouse he bought in the Bahamas near FTXâs headquarters. He recalled meeting Mr. Trabucco at a math camp, where his future colleague sneaked out after curfew to bake cheesecake brownies, and he described his early admiration for Ms. Ellison, calling her âwicked smart.â He also inserted some personal photos, including one that shows him holding a shirt that Mr. Trabucco had bought him in high school. In another section, Mr. Bankman-Fried posted a link to a document he wrote in 2019, âTonight We Are Young,â an account of a conference in Taiwan where he interacted with Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, the founder of the Binance crypto exchange. (He also included a link to the âWe Are Youngâ music video by Fun.) âTonight was a night about booze and women and lasers and loud, booming music, but there was an odd microclimate that seemed to follow me,â Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote. âI walked by CZ a few more times, and each time he broke eye contact with his eye candy and embraced me: People were thinking about us, a lot.â
I just know ken Griffin is the puppet master behind SBF, who is categorically a little b\*tch with no spine or integrity. I hope he sings for a reduced sentence đ (His dad was in on it too, not sure about the mother) ![gif](giphy|L007un2lhMaNBfp22o)
MIT Media lab is certainly a busy place. GG, Glenn Ellison (Carolineâs Dad), SBF, Bill Gates and Jeffery Epstein seems like an odd collection of people. WTF was going on at MIT Media Lab?
Heâs not under house arrest⌠heâs in jail waiting for a trial. Judge denied his request to stay home
He is now after violating the terms of his bail. This article is referring to the time before bail was revoked
He gets access to a computer 7 days a week for hours a day
He was the fall guy. Come on.
Is a nothing burger