Sam Bankman-Fried’s net worth just a few days ago was nearly $16 billion. The FTX founder and CEO ranked among the 500 richest people in the world as of this week.
SBF, as he’s fondly known in the crypto circles, indeed wasn’t that far off the net worth of Changpeng Zhao, the founder and CEO of Binance – the company that’s looking to acquire FTX following this week’s stunning turn of events.
But as it turns out, what’s a sad turn of events for crypto could be even more painful for SBF: his fortune is on the brink of suffering a 94% evisceration. And to help make this happen is FTX’s first investor Binance.
Binance’s deal for FTX and what it means for SBF
While a deal for FTX would arguably make CZ the de facto crypto billionare and probably the foremost figure in crypto today, the opposite would be true for SBF. You can get a deep dive into what happened at FTX to understand why this is no good news for Sam Bankman-Fried.
Sadly, he could move from being one of the faces of the crypto world, especially in Washington, to one that epitomizes the shortcomings of an industry still navigating the many tricky steps to maturity. That’s now the story of the crypto wonderkid christened the ‘JP Morgan’ of crypto.
In terms of his fortune and why it’s likely to be wiped out as so, the reason is simple: Bankman-Fried had more than half of his wealth in FTX and the rest in his trading platform Alameda Research (read FTX token). At the peak of his wealth, Forbes estimated SBF to be worth over $24 billion.
However, with crypto winter and all that, it dropped to about $16 billion by this week.
Now Bloomberg says the FTX CEO’s fortune could have shrunk to $1 billion overnight Tuesday. According to the publication, SBF is out of the top 500 richest people list as shown on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Although Forbes Rich List still shows SBF at $16 billion as of Wednesday 9 November, the outlook is that Binance’s bailout spells a wipeout for Bankman-Fried, with his potential 94% wealth loss pushing him out of the top 500 global billionaires club.
In comparison, CZ is 87th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with over $16.4 billion. However, he’s down $79 billion year-to-date.