Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the CEO of Alameda Research and FTX exchange, has amassed a fortune through crypto-assets over the past few years, as stated by New York Magazine.
It has been reported that SBF spoke to the publication about his journey into the crypto industry since 2018. During the interview, he estimated his own net worth at $10 billion, mostly in illiquid assets.
However, the former Wall Street quant trader got into crypto trading in 2018 after noticing significant arbitrage opportunities and worked out a way to take advantage of the ‘Kimchi premium’ that was the difference in Bitcoin price between Korea and the rest of the world.
The report said that he ended up in Japan due to restrictions in Korea and moved up to $25 million per day through intermediaries and local banks at the height of the price discrepancy.
The @FTX_Official exchange’s Sam Bankman-Fried just dropped a bombshell, revealing he’s amassed $10 billion in crypto. The only downside might be that most of it is in illiquid assets. https://t.co/HcA1XK5DBj — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) February 5, 2021
It has been analyzed that his crypto empire, under the umbrella of Alameda Research, currently turns over $2 billion per day meaning it has significant market power, as SBF focuses on developing the FTX crypto derivatives exchange and DeFi project Serum based on the Solana blockchain.
SBF came to mainstream media attention last year after making a $5.2 million donation to Joe Biden’s political election campaign in November, the top contributor after billionaire Michael Bloomberg. The transaction he claims said that he was motivated by the Biden team’s “generic stability and decision-making process.”
FTX, which recently created a Wall Street Bets index including GME, AMC, and DOGE, also offers prediction markets, and over $100 million in bets were placed on the exchange on election night.
Thus, SBF compares his own memory to computer RAM:
“One side advantage of the bean bags: if I sleep in the office, my mind stays in work mode, and I don’t have to reload everything the next day.”
7) I'm (in)famous for playing League of Legends while on phone calls. I'll also try to avoid restarting my RAM if possible. One side advantage of the bean bags: if I sleep in the office, my mind stays in work mode, and I don't have to reload everything the next day. pic.twitter.com/AKlQm7wneI — SBF (@SBF_Alameda) February 4, 2021
Source: Cointelegraph