You Can Forget About Crypto Now

When I Sam Bankman-Fried three weeks ago, he was crypto’s golden boy. Worth about $15 billion, this quirky 30-year-old led one of the industry’s largest empires. Over the past few years, he’s palled around with Bill Clinton, graced the cover of magazine, and turned himself into a three-letter initialism: SBF. Toward the end of our rambling, 90-minute interview, Bankman-Fried dropped a casual hint at the state of his finances. “The truth is,” he said, “most of my wealth is not liquid right now.” As for why his once-generous political donations had dried up over the previous few months, he offered up a mysterious koan: “There’s constraints on what I can give, short-term.”