Non-fiction · 2017–2026

FTX

Customer money, a line of code, and when the world found out

Sam Bankman-Fried founded the trading firm Alameda Research in 2017 and the FTX exchange in 2019. From the start, customer dollar deposits flowed into Alameda's bank accounts, and exchange code let Alameda run negative balances with a borrowing limit that reached $65 billion. None of this was public until after a CoinDesk story on Alameda's balance sheet set off a run in November 2022 and FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11. This map shows those privileges, the near-absence of any board or meaningful audit, the public reassurances given days before the collapse, and the path to Bankman-Fried's 2023 conviction, 25-year sentence and 2026 appeal loss.