The Patriot Post® · Mega Demo Donor and Crypto King Crashes and Burns
Ya hate to see it. Hate to see Sam Bankman-Fried go from Demo hero to crypto zero in the blink of an eye.
Bankman-Fried — or SBF, as he’s known in cryptocurrency circles — was worth $15 billion at the beginning of last week and $0 at the end of it. Such are the fortunes of the smug 30-year-old “digital entrepreneur” who entertained the likes of Bill Clinton, Tom Brady, Katy Perry, and others at his Bahamas headquarters and spoke of becoming the world’s first trillionaire.
According to the Federal Election Commission, the $38 million Bankman-Fried donated to Democrat-affiliated PACs and other organizations this election cycle put him second behind only America-hating socialist George Soros, who ponied up nearly $127 million to the cause of wrecking our country. Bankman-Fried also spent $10 million to help defeat Donald Trump and stick us with Joe Biden in 2020.
Leftist politics are in the blood of Bankman-Fried. As the New York Post’s Miranda Devine writes, “SBF’s mother, Stanford law professor Barbara Fried, also is co-founder of left-wing political action committee Mind The Gap, which has raised a reported $140 million to help Democrats win elections through the same ‘get-out-the-vote’ grift.”
Not surprisingly, the Great Resetters at the World Economic Forum made FTX a “corporate partner,” but, as Devine notes, “That page on the WEF website has vanished in the last 48 hours, leaving an error message.”
None of that leftist largess appears to have saved his house of cards. As Fox News reports: “A full-fledged liquidity crisis forced FTX to file for bankruptcy on Friday, and Bankman-Fried’s wealth, which was estimated to be $15.6 billion earlier [last] week, has sharply plummeted, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The index currently estimates Bankman-Fried has no material wealth.”
FTX’s collapse was felt far and wide. “The one-time industry titan FTX dragged down the rest of the crypto market with it,” Forbes reported, “sending the largest coins, bitcoin and ether, down 18% and 21% [last] week, respectively, while Coinbase shares tanked 23%.”
Wow. Who knew crypto could be such a risky business? Well, lots of sober-minded folks, actually — including our Mark Alexander, who had this to say about it back in June:
I have been fascinated by the pseudo-intellectual arguments for cryptos and their shady promoters, thus I have endured several marketing videos for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others. The closest comparison I can make to the cultish crypto marketing language and attraction is that it’s akin to the lunacy of L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology cult, with a dash of cult astrology thrown in for mass appeal.
Elon Musk was also suspicious back in March, when Bankman-Fried offered to help Musk buy Twitter. According to the New York Post, “Text messages show that Musk’s banker Michael Grimes told Musk that Bankman-Fried was offering ‘at least $3 billion’ to help Musk fund the Twitter deal.”
After the texts were leaked, Musk tweeted: “Accurate. He set off my bs detector, which is why I did not think he had $3B.”
Remarkably, though, some industry analysts apparently think anything of crypto’s volatility. “What’s shocking is the fall from grace, it was so rapid,” said crypto analyst Dan Dolev of Mizuho Securities, who must be the world’s dimmest analyst of any stripe. “We’re learning that value can evaporate within minutes in crypto, that’s the most shocking thing.”
We’re shocked that he’s shocked.
Bankman-Fried founded FTX in 2019, and it blew up, having been valued at $32 billion recently. The son of two Stanford professors, he naturally attracted investment from the Silicon Valley elite. He’s nothing if not eloquent, though, as evidenced by this Thursday morning tweet: “I’m sorry. That’s the biggest thing. I f***ed up, and should have done better.”
You’re telling us. SBF now joins fellow Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff and depraved sexual predators Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, and Ed Buck as major Democrat Party donors.
As for the blunderkind’s future, prosecutors may well focus on tweets he made last week, when he said FTX was “fine” and customer assets were safe — tweets he later deleted.
Will the Democrat Party refund the nearly $50 million SBF contributed to their cause, which came from investors who were sold on Bankman-Fried’s snake oil? Let’s just say we aren’t holding our breath.
UPDATE: Mark Hays, a senior policy analyst for Americans for Financial Reform had some strong words for gullible lawmakers like pro-crypto New York Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and others: “This is what happens when instead of doing robust public interest policy, you hitch your wagon to charismatic founder types who make a lot of promises they can’t ultimately deliver on. Sam may be one of the biggest and clearest examples of that kind of hubristic figure, but there have been many before him and will likely be many after him.”