Sam Bankman-Fried is an American entrepreneur, founder, and CEO of FTX, one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges. He is also known for his role as the “father” of Alameda Research, a quantitative cryptocurrency trading company founded in October 2017.
Above all, Sam is the wealthiest self-made billionaire under the age of 30 and ranked 32nd on the Forbes 400 list in 2021.
There is no denying that Sam Bankman-Fried is one of the most “powerful” KOLs in the crypto sector when his name and influence have a wide range of coverage in this market.
Sam Bankman-Fried was born on March 6, 1992, on the campus of Stanford University, California, USA. His parents were two professors at Stanford Law School, Barbara Fried, and Joseph Bankman. But Sam has quite particular personality traits because he once shared that “School is not for me.”
The billionaire’s strange features began to show up when he was 14 years old, and that’s when Sam’s mother realized that her son had a natural penchant for utilitarianism, which means doing what’s best for most people. Later, it was also profoundly embedded and closely associated with Sam’s lifestyle and work.
The FTX boss once attended Mathcamp Canada/USA – an educational program for high school students who are talented in mathematics. Then from 2010 to 2014, Sam Bankman-Fried continued his education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He lives in a dormitory called Epsilon Theta with many of his closest friends. In particular, some members of the ET team later became associates of FTX CEO in the field of crypto.
During his years at MIT, although he was not very passionate about his studies, he also completed the program and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in physics & mathematics in 2014. Besides, Sam still does not neglect what he loves because, since 2012, he has started writing blogs about utilitarianism, baseball, and politics.
After graduation, Sam realizes that he has a particular interest in finances. Perhaps this rising spark has led to Sam Bankman-Fried’s relationship with Jane Street Capital, a Wall Street quantitative business. Your career started here too.
The FTX boss has been with Jane Street for three years, from an intern to a full-time trader. Here, Sam developed models to analyze profits from individual donations instead of managing customer accounts.
However, perhaps the most impressive thing about this is the compassion. He has spent half of the money he earns at this company on charity, helping those in need.
By 2017, he had left his job to start his own business with Alameda Research after seeing many potential opportunities in the still-nascent cryptocurrency sector. Just two years later, in 2019, Sam launched his “second child,” which is FTX – cryptocurrency derivatives exchange with colleagues at Alameda.
The driving force behind his big decision was his strong passion for unlocking the potential of the crypto space and frustration with the poor-quality exchanges operating in the market. FTX, under the leadership of Sam and many qualified developers at Alameda, has achieved many achievements since its launch and has since grown and gone up like kites to the wind.
Every famous KOLs in a particular field possesses a unique feature of themselves. In this regard, perhaps what we can’t help but be impressed with is Sam Bankman-Fried’s lifestyle.
A simple way of living
Unlike other billionaires, wearing the familiar luxury lifestyle, Sam has created for himself a simple lifestyle, a strangely ordinary life. Everyone must be surprised to learn of an illustrious FTX boss who is vegetarian all year round, wearing a shorts shirt to work and sharing a rented apartment with his best friend.
Multitasking and “addiction” to work
In addition, Sam has described himself as a workaholic and has strict self-discipline. He spent most nights at the office and only returned home when the staff was “fed up with my presence.”
Sam also said he never drinks alcohol or goes to resorts because it’s “like idle software, which makes your brain work less efficiently after a long break.” This was shared honestly in a previous interview.
The unique feature of Sam is also his crazy passion for work and other superpowers compared to the average person. First of all, it must be mentioned the ability of FTX bosses to multitask when it is possible to combine to do many things simultaneously. Caroline Ellison, co-CEO of Alameda Research, once said:
“You’ll notice he used to watch football on one screen, turn on YouTube videos like Rihanna’s on another screen, reply to messages on the third screen, transact on the fourth screen, and make calls on the fifth screen. They all happen at the same time.”
Sam is also famous for sleeping only 4 hours a night in a lazy chair next to his desk. The versatile man can still wake up at 3 a.m. to take calls from customers and investors. There were even times when he stayed awake for 30 hours straight.
His relentless hard work and intense passion for work were the driving forces that motivated him to have the great success he has today. It’s probably worthy of a man as hardworking as you.
Make money to give.
However, not only that, a point that dominates quite a lot about lifestyle, Sam’s job is the philosophy of “make money to give,” stemming from his utilitarianism.
It seems that the great motivation for him to work and give his all is to “do what is best for the most people” in hopes of helping the people in need out there. It is easy to see that Sam has not often donated to charity with a massive amount of money so far.
According to a Fortune report, Sam Bankman-Fried has donated to charities $35 million. FTX has previously set up a charitable foundation, which has given more than $11 million to organizations such as Oxygen for India, the Lighthouse Foundation, and GiveDirectly, a poverty relief organization.
In addition, according to the young billionaire, many FTX employees have donated about $ 10 million. In particular, Sam is also the one who pledges to donate the majority of his wealth to charities worldwide, which is perhaps the most eloquent testament to his beautiful, compassionate, altruistic lifestyle.
It is not natural that the FTX boss has been dubbed the wealthiest self-made billionaire in the world under the age of 30, but it must be thanks to his vast wealth. On October 5, 2021, Sam was named one of the 400 wealthiest billionaires in America by Forbes magazine.
Sam Bankman-Fried became the richest cryptocurrency billionaire (in 2021) at his youngest age when he was only 29 years old but had a fortune of $22.5 billion. This figure does not include the coins/tokens he holds and other unaccounted assets. He is also rated as the third most influential person in the cryptocurrency market in 2020.
Sam’s wealth is tied to the development and expansion of the FTX exchange. Although launched after some other competitors in the market, FTX has quickly reached essential milestones with trading volume, and the number of users is not tiny.
Primarily, it is worth mentioning that the acquisition and fundraising cooperation of this platform has contributed to the bustle and excitement in the crypto space. It is ftx encroaching on sports and appearing in famous arenas such as Miami Heat, Major League, and North American League (LCS).
At the end of January 2022, FTX completed its latest round of funding worth $400 million, raising the company’s valuation to a whopping $32 billion. That same month, the exchange announced the creation of the $2 billion FTX Ventures investment fund, which focuses on Web3 projects and Blockchain gaming. FTX is increasingly asserting its position and is not inferior to other leading exchanges. This means that Sam’s immense fortune will have the potential to increase much in the future.
Expecting Sam’s further success in the future, Noah Dummett, a former trader at FTX, shared that:
“In 10 years, I expect Sam to be one of the richest people in the world, solving some of humanity’s most important problems. Sam’s career in politics won’t surprise me either – he’s in a good position and the right motivation behind him to make that happen.”
It must be said that Sam’s success and wealth are the dreams of many young people like him. Even for many other billionaires worldwide, career maturity is achieved at an older age.
After quitting his job at Jane Street in November 2017, Sam gave birth to his “first child” called Alameda Research, even though he didn’t have much in-depth knowledge of cryptocurrencies. At one point, Sam shared that he didn’t know much about crypto:
“At first, I didn’t know anything about cryptocurrencies, I didn’t even understand blockchain. However, when I got involved, I caught everything pretty quickly.”
But it was because of his ability to catch up quickly with the market flow that Sam discovered Kimchi Premium, an arbitrage trading opportunity with massive demand for Bitcoin from South Korea. Especially there is a period when BTC price is 50% higher than in the US.
This has brought high returns and low risk to cryptocurrency traders. Not only that, but with Sam’s agility, he also sought similar opportunities in other markets, including Japan, even though the difference was more minor.
Despite encountering many difficulties in the business process, the company made about $ 20 million before the price of BTC in both the US and Japan no longer had much difference in early 2018.
With an intense passion for finance, especially the attraction of many potential opportunities in the cryptocurrency industry, in 2019, Sam quickly founded FTX – one of the world’s leading major exchanges.
Unlike Coinbase, FTX is known for its derivatives trading products, similar to investment banks, including futures, options, volatility indices, and leveraged tokens. Since the operations take place almost without fees, the profit margin of the floor is very high, about 50%.
With Sam’s creative leadership and quick-witted mind, after just two years of launch, FTX has grown stronger with an average daily derivatives trading volume of $11.5 billion, the fourth largest behind only Bybit ($12.5 billion), OKEx ($15.5 billion) and led by Binance ($61.5 billion). Furthermore, in July 2021, Bankman-Fried quickly acquired Binance’s stake for $2.3 billion.
FTX’s trading volume reached more than 400 billion in April 2021, about 20 times higher than in 2020. Most recently, in March, Sam, in turn, announced the expansion of FTX branches. The US and FTX Australia aim to fulfill their global coverage ambitions and acquire the world’s crypto market.
Sam has previously said that the company’s challenge is a threat from Hong Kong regulators, such as the proposed restrictions on trading only for professional investors. Moreover, cryptocurrencies are also involved in illegal activities of money laundering or fraud and manipulation of financial markets. However, he remains optimistic when he insists that these issues will be resolved soon.
FTX is the only platform that avoids legal troubles compared to many other major exchanges. This is probably because the conversation always strives to comply with the law in the best way and is willing to cooperate closely with the regulatory authorities. Sam was even one of President Biden’s most prominent donors during the 2020 campaign.
In early December 2021, Sam testified before Congress about digital assets and the future of the financial industry. Last December, the FTX CEO also emphasized the role of crypto to humanity, that is, “cryptocurrencies with great potential in improving people’s lives.”
In addition, many people have compared Sam Bankman-Fried to Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg when commenting on the future of FTX because they think that there are similarities between the two billionaires. The Facebook founder is the one who led the community to the technological era, with the age of Web 2.0. Zuckerberg has repeatedly faced questions about data privacy or the ineffective information control process on the app.
Meanwhile, Sam is one of the pioneers in crypto, the era of digital assets, with a new wave of Metaverse or Web 3.0. Crypto is also facing regulatory factors in many parts of the world. Will Sam solve this problem? This is probably not certain, but in fact, the FTX boss always strives to be closest and friendliest to the regulators. That’s why this exchange has never been in the headlines before.
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