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Author: Benjamin Wallace
Translator: Odaily Azuma
Translator: Odaily Azuma
In January 2018, at the age of 25, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), who had just left Wall Street, spotted an incredible arbitrage opportunity when trading cryptocurrencies—the Japanese market’s Bitcoin price has a 10% premium compared to the US.
At the time, the rest of the crypto market was being distracted by something even more astounding — Bitcoin in South Korea had a 30% price differential compared to the U.S. (the so-called “kimchi premium”), but South Korea restricted Sexual monetary policy makes it difficult for Korean won to be converted into US dollars. SBF himself thought about taking advantage of this opportunity in the past. He even once calculated whether it would be feasible to build a plane full of people and fly to Seoul to buy Bitcoin directly.
After discovering the opportunities in the Japanese market, SBF decided to make a move. Executing arbitrage at scale is complex enough that SBF and his friends, who founded a Berkeley, California-based trading firm called Alameda Research, hooked up a series of intermediaries, including small banks in rural Japan, with month-long Arbitrage the regional premium phenomenon and earn as much as $25 million per day.
Describing those days, SBF said: "You can do the math, it's the craziest deal I've ever seen."
I (Benjamin Wallace) and I FaceTimed with SBF the other day, it was 10pm, and the night city was visible through the windows of SBF's high-rise office, where he was managing a fledgling Crypto Empire.
With a daily trading volume of over $2 billion, Alameda Research ranks 10th on the list of most profitable trading accounts on BitMEX. Now SBF spends most of his time on his second business, FTX, a high-volume, low-fee derivatives trading platform that Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz calls "the most innovative exchange".
SBF's eyes were wandering off the screen, and there was a constant crackling sound from the end of the video. At first I thought he was replying to an email, until he pulled out a FTX 1st anniversary coin that he had been transferring, and A deck of cards he's been shuffling.
"I have OCD," he said to me.
SBF is wearing a gray hoodie, and his hair is not as thick as in the photo. He shares an apartment with other roommates, and he made a large donation to the Biden campaign last fall, confounding many observers of American politics. According to SBF's own estimates, his net worth is about $10 billion.
The rapid accumulation of SBF's wealth stems from its long-standing utilitarian worldview. His father was a law professor with great public spirit at Stanford University. SBF was long recognized by Benthamites (Benthamite, a branch of European utilitarianism in the 18th and 19th centuries, and it is also the most widely spread theory. ) ideal of providing the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people.
When thinking about factory farming, SBF lived out the idea for the first time in his life, becoming a vegetarian. "There's no point in a chicken being tortured for six to eight weeks just for people to spend half an hour eating it," he said.
Later, SBF stumbled upon the Effective Altruism movement and came across an offshoot that embraced the Earning to Give credo. The creed advocates pursuing lucrative careers so that more money can be given away.
To that end, after SBF graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he became a securities analyst at Jane Street Capital, which allowed him to donate to a number of organizations working on issues of animal welfare and the potential threat of artificial intelligence.Eventually, SBF resigned. for a family namedCenter for Effective Altruism (literal translation "effective altruism center")
He became a full-time cryptocurrency investor after a stint working for a UK-based charity. At the time, cryptocurrency was an unavoidable topic within Wall Street, an immature and inefficient industry. A year after Alameda Research launched its Japanese trading operation, SBF has identified another huge opportunity it believes will bring some discipline to a chaotic market. So at the end of 2018, SBF started to start FTX.
Until then, the SBF's involvement in politics was limited. In 2012, he wrote some blogs about his thoughts on the value of votes in swing states after being inspired by Nate Silver (Nate Silver, a statistician who successfully predicted the results of the general election twice); in 2016 , the SBF spent a day canvassing in Pennsylvania, expecting to see gratitude when heading to the homes of registered Democrats, but the opposite was the result.
"These people's eyes were like, Fxxk you," recalls SBF. "Those who could say everything basically said, 'I hate these two candidates, I hate you for making me choose, I hate you For forcing me to say these things, I want my privacy back. I don't want me to live in a swing state'."
In 2020, SBF can do far more than door visits. After doing some more math, SBF once again quantified the value of votes in swing states and assessed the most effective ways to make an impact. SBF approached Future Forward USA, a super PAC linked to Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. SBF donated more than $5 million to Biden and groups supporting him, helping Biden launch a nine-figure, eleven-hour television ad campaign at the last minute.
The funding puts SBF at No. 2 on the Wall Street Journal's list of CEOs backing Biden. SBF said it was the "overall stability and decision-making process" of the Biden team that convinced him, rather than a specific reason.
Being one of the biggest donors doesn't do SBF any particular favors. As a result of the funding, SBF participated in a unique Zoom event, in which 20 strangers listened to a lecture together and fumbled at trying to ask questions. SBF, who has never spoken to Biden, said: "I think it's going to be really cool. I've got a lot to say, a lot of things I could blah blah blah blah blah, but I'm sure he doesn't care."
On election night, the SBF was as nervous as most Biden voters when more than $100 million was wagered on the election outcome via FTX's 2020 US presidential election prediction market. That night, SBF believed that Trump had a 30% chance of winning. After Miami's Dade County unexpectedly turned to Trump, he believed that the probability of both sides winning was 50-50 in "rationality", but "emotionally" Already 99% sure Trump will win. (SBF also conducted prediction market transactions on FTX, whether for or against Trump, and he has netted a "heavy" profit at different points in time.)
