The founder of failed crypto exchange FTX, Sam Bankman Fried (SBF), has become controversial in the crypto space. In a recent report by Rolling Stone, reporter Tracy Wang looked at his $40 million penthouse in his former home in the Bahamas.
Sam Bankman Fried Life In The Tiger Wood Own Condo
Bankman Fried’s home was located in the marina of Albany, Bahamas, the report claims. The property was one of the many built-in private luxury condominiums owned by golf legend Tiger Woods and pop singer Justin Timberlake.
Wang visited the luxury complex, which also operated as living quarters for some of FTX’s staff, two months before the company went bankrupt. At that time, Sam Bankman Fried was still a champion for the industry and a poster boy for “effective altruism” and the “next Warren Buffer,” as the report stated.
The report met with SBF at a luxury restaurant in the Bahamas where “avocado toast runs $22” and was left to pick up the tab. On the crypto founder’s luxury life, Wang claims that it could shift from that of a billionaire to that of an undergrad student:
Bankman-Fried’s lifestyle was luxurious, but it didn’t fit the image of the Lamborghini-driving exchange founder (…) Bankman-Fried and his nine roommates could’ve had a private chef — and they did, a corporate chef catered meals to the office — but their home freezer was stuffed with Trader Joe’s $2.99 microwavable vegetable biryani, flown in from Miami.
The report points out that life at the luxury condo was isolated, so the company purchased additional units to host visitors and staff’s friends. In addition, the reporter witnessed the unusual working hours of the executives and the way personal lives mixed with the work environment:
(I saw no evidence of a “polycule,” a network of polyamorous relationships, which some media reports speculated had occurred at FTX.) In all, it was a company led by an executive who seemed to thrive off of blurred lines and the lack of boundaries: social, professional, and romantic.
Under the new FTX administration, led by John Ray III, the company is trying to recover assets to make its creditors whole. The trading venue filed for bankruptcy in late 2022 after a crash in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies led to a bank run on the platform.
The crypto exchange was allegedly co-mingling its customers’ assets with that of its trading arm, Alameda Research. SBF is set to stand trial for fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
In months, the crypto founder went from living in a $40 million penthouse to possibly spending over a century in a US prison if he is convicted of the charges.
Cover image from Unsplash, chart from Tradingview