When crypto exchange FTX went up in flames in 2022 it lost billions of investors’ money and forever altered the public’s view of digital currencies.
asserted
it → go → currencies
It quickly emerged company CEO and Effective Altruist Sam Bankman-Fried had illegally moved billions from the exchange to prop up his hedge fund, run — at least on paper — by his one-time girlfriend and co-worker Caroline Ellison.
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Fried → emerge → girlfriend
The incident has been made into new Netflix show “The Altruists,” billed as “a toxic love story inspired by a real fraud” which has appalled and gobsmacked those who had a ringside seat to the collapse.
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who → make → collapse
FTX’s former chief operating officer, Constance Wang, says trying to portray what happened through the lens of a love story is laughable.
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what → say → story
“[Bankman-Fried’s] entire goal was to change the world, make an impact, do good.
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goal → change → good
Love, relationship, family seemed a bit secondary to him.
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Love → seem → him
No f—ing way,” Wang told The Post in her first exclusive interview about FTX’s fall.
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Wang → tell → fall
Wang is even a character in the show, played by Madison Hu, but couldn’t even get through the trailer when a friend showed it her over breakfast.
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friend → play → breakfast
“I literally physically threw up because it just made me feel so uncomfortable,” after about 40 seconds, she said.
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she → throw → seconds
She also slams the romance storyline at the center of the show as laughable.
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She → slam → show
“For the longest time in the company we did not know they were dating, and we did not know Sam was capable of dating at all, because he was working all the time,” Wang said.
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Wang → know → dating
“I had a group chat with some of my close employees, and I was shocked.
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I → have → employees
I was like, ‘Do you guys know this?’
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guys → know → this
We thought you knew?’”
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you → think → ?
The show charts SBF, Ellison and their followers through their ill-fated journey to revolutionize the financial system along idealistic Effective Altruist lines, supposedly using their money and intelligence to make the world a better place.
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world → chart → money
However, SBF bought $35m party home in the Bahamas and took $8 billion of FTX investors’ money to use in Alameda Research, causing the whole project to collapse.
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project → buy → Research
As federal law doesn’t make allowances for people who claim they will do good later, he’s now serving a 25-year sentence for fraud and money laundering.
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he → make → fraud
Wang said she went to a couple of Effective Altruist parties thrown by SBF and the movement — also at the center of AI company Anthropic and other tech giants — wasn’t for her.
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she → say → her
They talk about math, physics, biology.
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They → talk → biology
If it’s a dinner gathering on a Friday or Saturday evening, I would prefer more relaxed topics.
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I → ’ → topics
“You can hang out once, twice.
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You → hang → ?
But for a long time, it becomes hard.”
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it → become → time
At the center of the operation were around 10 people who lived in the Bahamas with SBF and Ellison and were “all paired up in romantic relationships with each other,” at one point, according to industry news site Coindesk.com
Ellison — who was also federally prosecuted after the collapse — claimed she had been polyamorous in since-deleted Tumblr post from 2020, writing: “When I first started my foray into poly, I thought of it as a radical break from my trad past.
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I → live → past
But tbh I’ve come to decide the only acceptable style of poly is best characterised as something like ‘imperial Chinese harem.’
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style → come → harem
Such salacious behavior was never witnessed by Wang.
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behavior → witness → Wang
“I honestly did not know the word ‘orgy’ until I saw it in an article,” she said.
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she → know → article
“I had to Google it.”
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I → have → it
Instead, she claims “the company was a bunch of nerds” and parties she attended were mostly filled with “chess and board games.”
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she → claim → chess
It’s unclear which version of the parties Netflix — who did not respond to a request for comment — has dramatized in its series, but Wang claims from what she’s seen they’ve already taken significant artistic liberties.
She noted the SBF she knew could barely hold another person’s gaze — in stark contrast to the confident hustler in the trailer for “The Altruists,” played by Anthony Boyle.
“When I first met Sam in 2018 in Singapore, he was entirely incapable of looking at people’s eyes when talking to others,” she said.
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she → ’ → others
“He would look at the floor and then he’d shake his legs.”
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he → look → legs
Ellison, portrayed by Julia Garner on-screen, appears somewhat forward and aggressive in the trailer, but was “gentle” and “soft-spoken” in real life, Wang said.
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Wang → portray → life
“She’s never aggressive.
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She → ’ → ?
If you ask her a question, she will take a split second to think, and then start talking.”
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she → ask → second
Quinn Li, a former FTX marketing manager who also moved to the Bahamas to work alongside SBF thought the trailer was “very, very bad.”
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trailer → move → SBF
“It brings in so much romance and emotional drama, when there really wasn’t much of that.
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It → bring → that
The reality is that everyone was a very rational person,” Li told The Post.
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Li → tell → Post
“In the trailer, I didn’t see how smart Sam was, or how smart Caroline was.
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Caroline → see → trailer
It looked like two silly cats in love.”
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It → look → love
Wang recalled the fateful night in November 2022 when the exchange crashed.
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exchange → recall → November
Triggered by Binance founder Changpeng Zhao saying he would dump his FTX tokens, customers pulled about $6 billion from the exchange in 72 hours.
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customers → trigger → hours
…and 45 more, not listed.
The Aporia
