About five years ago, he doesn’t even own a Bitcoin. Then Sam Bankman-Fried comes into millions as a crypto trader – by exploiting a loophole, a notable difference in the price of Bitcoin between Japan and the US. He ends up making $25 million in profits on one trade. With the money and generous funding from funds, he founds FTX in 2019. After just three years, it’s one of the most valuable and largest US crypto exchanges, with a gigantic war chest.

By his own account, he has created a bailout fund of over two billion US dollars. In June 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried lends over 250 million US dollars to the now insolvent crypto broker Voyager Digital, then buys the troubled crypto lender BlockFi at a bargain price (25 million instead of 4 billion), before that shares in the broker Robinhood. His latest object of desire: Bithumb, one of South Korea’s leading crypto exchanges. A takeover is under discussion, according to Bloomberg.

Vegan with a gambler’s heart who forgoes luxury

Sam Bankman-Fried is born on the campus of Stanford in 1992, the son of two law professors at the elite university. After graduating from a private high school in the Bay Area, he studies physics at MIT for four years. Most of his time, however, is spent playing video games like “Starcraft” and “League of Legends.” He loves the rush of making quick decisions under time pressure: “When playing chess or other games, he always insisted on playing with a timer,” a fellow student once said about him in an interview.

Despite his billion-dollar fortune, Bankman-Fried eschews luxury. He is a vegan by conviction, wears baggy clothes and drives a Toyota Corolla over the streets of the Bahamas, where he has lived since 2021. At night, he sleeps in his office, on a beanbag chair. Less than five hours a night. Employees can wake him at any time if they seek advice. At university, he discovers the doctrine of “effective altruism.” And aligns his life accordingly.

So far, Sam Bankman-Fried hardly ever donates to charity

The movement is founded in 2011 by two Oxford philosophers. Their maxim: use one’s time and resources to bring about the greatest possible good for the greatest number of people. Sam Bankman-Fried plans to donate 99 percent of his wealth when the time comes. Keeping only $100,000 a year. He has not yet put any of this into practice. According to Forbes, he has so far donated only 25 million U.S. dollars, about 0.1 percent of his wealth. Less than any other billionaire among the world’s richest 400 people. In other words, Sam Bankman-Fried first has to profit a little from the crisis before he can then briefly save the world.

What he is currently spending a lot of money on: Marketing, investment deals and lobbying. In 2020, Bankman-Fried becomes the second largest donor to the Biden campaign with over five million US dollars, right after Michael Bloomberg. For the 2024 election, he announced that he would support the Democrats with up to one billion US dollars to prevent a victory by Donald Trump. This would make him the largest donor in U.S. history.

For the sponsorship rights of the Miami Heat basketball arena he invests 135 million US dollars, he butters hundreds of millions into e-sports deals and the Mercedes Formula 1 team. Most of his wealth is in shares of FTX – and various cryptocurrencies, such as Solana (SOL). The 31-year-old star entrepreneur’s bet: If he keeps riding the crypto wave, he can increase his fortune by 900 times. And with it, later, his donations.