Founder and former head of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried tried his best to explain the implosion of the cryptocurrency exchange company now in bankruptcy during a recent interview with Andrew Ross-Sorkin of The New York Times that has been viral since last week. Clearly flustered by the line of questioning that consisted of him being asked what he will do about the many investors decrying FTX for unfairly wiping out their entire life’s savings, Bankman-Fried cautiously churned out politically correct answers that left many still puzzled about the sudden fall of a multi-billion dollar company.
Watch The New York Times Interview:
The 30-year-old entrepreneur agreed to sit in front of the House Financial Services Committee to testify on FTX’s demise on Tuesday (Dec. 13). Several days later, criminal charges ranging from wire and securities fraud to money laundering were filed against the ex-CEO, leading to him being detained.
On Monday (Dec. 12), Bahamian officials arrested Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas on a sealed indictment that requires him to be extradited back to the States.
“Bahamian authorities arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried at the request of the U.S. Government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY (Southern District of New York). We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time,” read a Twitter statement from Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney of the SDNY.
Once the face of the crypto wave, Bankman-Fried has now been relegated to a mastermind of one of the greatest Ponzi schemes of this generation. While that makes for an uncertain future for Bankman-Fried, the compelling story has Hollywood scrambling for rights to produce documentaries, television series, and feature films about the fallen hero.
Word on Hollywood Blvd. is that scribe Michael Lewis of The Big Short fame is concocting a potential award-winning project about the legendary rise and fall of the crypto empire. Some other contenders that could possibly pen an entertaining adaptation? Terence Winter, who killed with The Wolf of Wall Street screenplay, Abby Ajayi, who contributed to Shonda Rhimes’ Inventing Anna and wrote the magnificent TV series Riches, and Robert Siegel, who penned the TV miniseries Welcome to Chippendales and the classic business film, The Founder.
No matter who nabs the screenplay first, it’s one adaptation (or many) we’re pining to see!
