CRYPTO LOSES ITS COOL

INFORMATION ABOUT THE MARKETS AND YOUR MONEY.

- MARK SOLHEIM

In Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing, Jacob Goldstein writes about the introduction of bitcoin during the financial crisis: “At a moment when trust was at a low point, bitcoin seemed to solve the problem of trusting other people to make money work. All you had to do was trust the code. But in the end, bitcoin would prove as dependent on the messiness of humans as every other kind of money.”

The spectacular collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX was due to the messiness of one individual who helped make billions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency go poof.

A quick review: FTX was the world’s second-largest crypto exchange, where people bought, sold and stored cryptocurrency. It was founded and led by 30-year-old Sam BankmanFried. Bankman-Fried courted venture capitalists, politicians, regulators, athletes and celebrities. He paid $135 million to rename the stadium where the NBA’s Miami Heat play and paid for a Super Bowl spot featuring comedian Larry David.