Going Infinite summary

Bankman-Fried took his million dollar bonus from Jane Street Capital and quit the firm. He had a hunch about cryptocurrency, a new digital currency that started out as a niche trading commodity yet was turning into a semi-serious financial market. The big draw was that crypto existed as entirely separate from other financial markets. It was a new frontier. The year was 2017 and the value of all crypto was booming, having gone from $15 billion to $760 billion.

After leaving Jane Street Capital, he started Alameda Research, a trading company specializing in cryptocurrency. He then moved to Hong Kong, where the crypto scene was really taking off, and created the first crypto futures exchange, called FTX. Alameda Research would provide the technology and the existing exchanges within the Asian markets would supply the customer trust.

The beginning of the end can be traced to two reports in late 2022, one by Bloomberg, and another by CoinDesk. Both questioned the relationship between Alameda Research and FTX. CoinDesk pointed out that it seemed like over a third of Alameda’s assets, which totaled around $14.6 billion, were FTT tokens. At first, this didn’t seem like catastrophic news, but it soon became apparent to everyone in Bankman-Fried’s orbit that something was amiss. Everyone knew he was spending like crazy. He’d purchased dozens of smaller companies over the past couple years and was spending vast amounts of money on investments in other companies. Whether he was spending his own money, or money from Alameda or FTX – it was hard for anyone to tell. This, along with the possible illegal transfer of assets between FTX and Alameda, was about to send the precarious house of cards tumbling down.

The news struck a nerve, and in a matter of days, $200 million a day was fleeing the exchange. As the crisis deepened, the price of FTT token plummeted from $22 to a mere $7. Quickly, Sam was scrambling to try and cover $5 billion in customer withdrawals. But the money just wasn’t there.