Entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried's fall from grace has been sudden and from a great height.
At one point one of the world's wealthiest people SBF, as the 30-year-old is known, was arrested on Monday in the Bahamas.
For years he modelled himself as the friendly face of the blockchain, lobbying for greater regulation and guiding lawmakers through this new world of crypto-finance.
His arrest comes after his cryptocurrency exchange FTX, at one stage the second largest company of its type in the world, filed for bankruptcy in November with millions of people losing their savings along with it.
The company's collapse started when questions were asked about the close ties between FTX and another one of SBF's companies - trading firm Alameda Research - causing the crypto equivalent of a bank run.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission allege he orchestrated a years-long fraud by diverting investors’ funds to Alameda and using them to make venture investments, lavish real estate purchases and large political donations.
But who is the man behind this cataclysmic collapse?
SBF was born in 1992 on the campus of Stanford University where both his parents were professors at the Law School.
He was a gifted mathematician when he was at school being shipped off to USA Mathcamp before going to MIT to study Physics and Maths.
After graduating in 2013 he went to work at Jane Street Capital, a trading firm, before leaving in 2017 to set up cryptocurrency trader Alameda Research, the company at the heart of this latest storm.
Although clearly a gifted fundraiser (he described himself as the “world’s greatest”) and a man with big ideas when it came to crypto, he always positioned himself as a philanthropist.
As Alameda Research and FTX, which was founded in 2019, grew he continued to advocate for 'effective altruism', a social and philosophical movement that tries to find the best ways to help people.
He was also reported to have lived a polyamorous life as part of the 10 person bed-hopping band in a Caribbean penthouse.
He claimed he was earning money so he could later give it away and money was spread around to philanthropic organisations but also political parties.
In the 2021-22 election cycle, SBF was the second-largest individual donor to Democratic causes but also claimed he donated to the Republicans as well.
Cryptocurrency is a brave new and highly volatile world.
Because of this lawmakers advocate further regulation and SBF, perhaps strangely for someone who could stand to lose, supported this.
He pushed for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to take a larger role in regulating the whole industry.
Except since FTX's collapse, comments from SBF suggest his ethical business practices and advocacy might have been little more than "PR".
In an interview with a Vox journalist, SBF said: “F*** regulators. They make everything worse.”
He also admitted that he had to be “really good at talking about ethics, for someone who kind of saw it all as a game of winners and losers”.
In a final damning assessment of his actions he described them as moves in “a dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths and so everyone likes us”
According to court documents, prosecutors are charging SBF with eight counts. They are:
- Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud on Customers
- Wire Fraud on Customers
- Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud on Lenders
- Wire Fraud on Lenders
- Conspiracy to Commit Commodities Fraud
- Conspiracy to Commit Securities Fraud
- Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering
- Conspiracy to Defraud the United States and Violate Campaign Finance Laws
It's likely much of the dealings that led to FTX's collapse will be revealed in court.
But whatever form of justice, if any, awaits Bankman-Fried there is little chance that the millions who lost money will get their savings back.
