The 30 year old billionaire head of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), never aspired to be rich. In fact, as a young trader on Wall St out of college, SBF donated half of his annual salary to different charities. The young entrepreneur studied physics, attended MIT and graduating in 2014. 

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) originally made his own money on Bitcoin arbitrage prices between US and Japan markets. After attending a Bitcoin conference in 2019, him and his associates decided to launch the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

SBF, CEO of FTX

FTX is an exchange that now does over $10 billion in volume a day and has over a million users. The exchange has gained notoriety lately as SBF has offered bailouts to several failing companies in the space and signed many celebrities. Sam Bankman-Fried bailed out BlockFi and acquired Liquid, while working alongside Voyager during the bankruptcy filing. 

Revenue for 2021 recently beat expectations and came in at more than 10 times the revenue for 2020. The company has over two billion dollars of cash on hand and operates at a 27% profit margin. Sam Bankman-Fried’s trading firm, Alameda Research makes up 6% of the FTX volume.FTX Exchange has a policy of donating 1% of revenue to charity every year. Coinbase recently posted 2021 earnings as well, and despite revenue almost seven times that of FTX, reported a loss of over one billion dollars. 

FTX has becoem synonymous with celebrities like Kevin Oleary, Shaq, Tom Brady, Steph Curry, Trevor Lawrence and Gisele Bundchen. The Miami Heat play at FTX Arena and UC Berkeley just inked a deal to rename the football field, FTX Field. Riot Games, The Golden State Warriors, the MLB and Mercedes-AMG F1 are all partners of the growing platform.

Sam Bankman-Fried & Alameda Research

Alameda Research is an investment arm of Sam Bankman-Fried’s companies that he used to help bail out the blockchain industry. It is important to note that he provided loans and working capital to bankrupt and near bankrupt businesses. He did this with very little financial incentive, if any, in most cases. 

Sam Bankman-Fried truly believes in the longevity of the blockchain space and his actions prove it. Alameda Research was the result of the arbitrage trading and is integrated, but separate, from FTX. Both are owned by SBF although operate as unique entities. This is, unless SBF is offering these famous bailouts and acquisitions. 

Sam Bankman-Fried is Good For Web3 & Finance

Straight out of MIT, Sam bankman-Fried had half his salary written to charities. Charitable donations continued as he has become known as a “mega-donor” and has also signed The Giving Pledge. This means all his wealth will be donated to charity after his death. 

SBF has also continued his college-like lifestyle, despite being one of the worlds newest billionaires. He still lives with roomates, sleeps on a beam bag chair and often drives an old Toyota Corolla. 

Sam Bankman-Fried, the generous and unique cryptocurrency billionaire, is not done being in the headlines. 

If you enjoyed this article check out Tech Leaders Joining Web3, GRT: The Web3 Version of Google, how NFT Gaming is Driving Innovation  or Cryptocurrency Credit Cards.

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