Sam Bankman-Fried co-founded Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm, in 2017. A few years later, Bankman-Fried decided to start a cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, in order to fund Alameda Research's initiatives. In time, FTX became one of the world's top three crypto exchanges. However, the misuse of its customers' funds led to a serious crisis that has been compared to the notorious Enron scandal.
The collapse of FTX has stunned the crypto world and left its supporters, including celebrity athletes, red-faced. It also shook confidence in the technology and left many to wonder why bad people happen to good things. Conservative media has seized on the opportunity to criticize Bankman-Fried, who was a Democrat super-donor and had funded progressive media outlets.
Bankman-Fried had made multi-million dollar donations to progressive media firms and causes favored by the left through what he called "effective altruism". However, his comments on being a "woke westerner" playing a "dumb game" in a recent interview with Vox, one of the outlets whose work he had helped to fund, has put in question the statements he had made on issues such as social justice and fighting climate change.