Transcript: Understanding the Collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's Crypto Empire
Understanding FTX and Alameda
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and chief executive officer of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, center, following a Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022.
Photographer: Sarah Silbiger/BloombergThe collapse of the Sam Bankman-Fried empire is gigantic, sprawling and fast moving. While details are still coming out, it already ranks among the most prominent corporate disasters of all time and has left the entire crypto community reeling. To better understand the role that FTX played in the industry and how the exchange started to unravel, we speak with two guests on this episode. First, we have Evgeny Gaevoy, the founder and CEO of the crypto market-making firm Wintermute, to explain how he used the FTX platform and how he understood its relationship with SBF's trading firm, Alameda Research. Then we speak with independent researcher James Block, author of the Dirty Bubble Media newsletter, and one of the first observers to blow the whistle on the FTX disaster. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.