The Smartest Person I Know

Mon Jun 05 2023

Baja Mar Resort and Crypto Bahamas Event

The Baja Mar Resort is a large hotel on a beautiful stretch of beachfront.
Tegan, a crypto entrepreneur and influencer, attended the invite-only Crypto Bahamas event at the resort.
Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom were also in attendance.
Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder and CEO of FTX, was the star of the event and spoke with Michael Lewis about his success in the crypto world.
Sam's awkwardness was seen as charming by his audience who were captivated by his good intentions to give away all of his wealth to charity.
FTX was processing $12.5 billion worth of transactions each day at one point.
However, behind the scenes, Sam's closest advisors were abandoning him and Bloomberg published stories about issues within FTX.
By year's end, FTX was bankrupt with $8 billion missing and Sam was arrested.

Spellcaster is a six-part series about the fall of Sam Bankman Freed
Caroline Ellison, co-CEO of Alameda Research, was described as the smartest person by her friend and colleague Hannah Miller
Alameda Research is a powerful crypto trading firm owned by Sam Bankman Fried's crypto empire
Caroline was in charge of trading billions of dollars in crypto and had been co-CEO of Alameda for less than a year at 27 years old
Caroline enjoyed writing larks (live action role play)
Sam and Caroline had broken up the month before Hannah interviewed Caroline about their relationship and its impact on Alameda's operations
FTX and Alameda were both owned by Sam but supposed to be completely separate entities due to potential conflicts of interest between an exchange and a trading firm with the same owner

FTX and Alameda have a Chinese wall between them to ensure that no one gets customer information from FTX or special treatment from FTX.
FTX and Alameda share the same office food delivery people, but they have separated legal and compliance teams.
Alameda's venture capital operation had been moved over to FTX, which undermines the company line that everything was separate.
Sam Bankman-Fried came out swinging on Twitter after Caroline Hyde's article about Alameda Research and FTX was published.
Sam Bankman-Fried claimed there wasn't much of a relationship between Sweet Alameda STX and FTX as of today, but it wasn't as simple as what he was claiming.
Sam Bankman-Fried seemed casual during his interview with Bloomberg reporters despite being combative in previous interviews.
Sam Bankman-Fried gave puzzling answers when asked about where he lived.

Sam Bankman Fried gave puzzling answers about employees living together.
Questions were raised about the relationship between FTX and Alameda Research.
An article was published about Alameda's operations and Sam and Caroline's living arrangements.
A leaked Excel spreadsheet raised questions about Sam's work.
People started questioning how a group of 20-somethings gained so much power in the industry.
Sam had unchecked power over billions of dollars, but his company lost millions of dollars at once.
'Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman Freed' is a podcast series hosted by Hannah Miller.