Why Silicon Valley Falls for Frauds
Aditiya Baradwaj joined crypto-trading firm Alameda Research when it was run out of an anonymous first-floor office in downtown Berkeley, California. It was September 2021, and...
The Global Victims of FTX’s Collapse Won’t Get their Day in Court
At first, Anand thought it was just a glitch. He’d read a few tweets saying that withdrawals from FTX—then the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world—had...
The Trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, Explained
Spooked by the revelation and perhaps sensing an opportunity to deal a blow to his rival, Zhao announced that Binance would sell off its own sizable...
Can FTX Be Revived—Without Sam Bankman-Fried?
In 2017, Bankman-Fried started his own trading outfit, Alameda Research, taking seed funding from effective-altruist donors. Early employees were mostly EAs too; it was all about...
Idris Elba Is Ready to Talk About Crypto
Idris Elba learned about crypto at the same time as almost everyone else: when prices went through the roof. The British actor and filmmaker, best known...
The ‘Budget Ryan Reynolds’ Taking Bitcoin FC to the Big Leagues
A melt, a muppet, a fraud, a bungler, a Judas, a taker of bribes. A good boy, a lad, a maestro, a beauty. To the crowd...
I Looked Into Sam Altman’s Orb and All I Got Was This Lousy Crypto
“We don’t take ID or anything. So long as you look over 18, we scan your iris,” said Ana Howard, the contractor hired to lead onboarding...
A Crypto Micronation’s Future Hangs on a Border Dispute
Shooed away, the Liberty parked up on the opposite riverbank, on the Serbian side, just outside Liberland territory. Its passengers disembarked on a makeshift ramp made...
Fintech Unicorn Revolut Needs a Plan B
This year was supposed to be one big victory lap for Revolut, the UK’s largest fintech. The firm trumpeted its first ever year of profitability in March,...
Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great
As cryptocurrencies rise and fall, there’s one number that just keeps going up. Whenever somebody loses money to a crypto scam or hack, the Grift Counter...