- The youngest billionaire in the world thanks to cryptocurrencies, Sam Bankman-Fried, wants to give away his fortune.
- According to Forbes, the young man, under the age of 29, has assets that exceed $22 billion.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the young American billionaire who has managed to amass a fortune valued at more than $22.5 billion by taking advantage of the cryptocurrency boom, has promised to donate all of his money.
The CEO and co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange company FTX and Alameda Research, Sam Bankman-Fried, claims that he wants to keep making a lot of money so he can spread it out. Although he has not yet said how, when or to whom he will donate the money.
The young investor, who is already ranked 32nd on this year’s Forbes 400 list, does not confess himself to be a faithful believer in cryptocurrencies, but rather as someone who has taken advantage of the opportunity to earn an immense fortune from buying and selling crypto.
“I got involved in cryptocurrencies without having a clue”
Forbes rather lists him as a “mercenary,” dedicated to crypto finance for now. He just wants to keep expanding his saddlebags and then donate the proceeds. In his place, if I had to sell oranges to keep growing, I would do it too.
"I got involved in cryptocurrencies with no idea what cryptocurrencies were," he admits.
"It seemed like there were a lot of good trades to do." He found himself frustrated with the poor quality of the available exchanges, so he decided to create his own.
Unlike other billionaires, like Steve Jobs, whose obsession was to simplify and make his products more elegant, or Elon Musk who does business “to save humanity,” Bankman-Fried says he wants to “win to give” and “have an impact.”
His parents are two Stanford law professors and he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in physics in 2014. Following his graduation, Bankman-Fried worked on ETF exchanges for the quantitative company Jane Street Capital, where he discovered his passion for philanthropic causes, donating a portion of his six-figure salary.
There Was a Lot to Do in the Market
At the end of 2017, when Bitcoin began its first bull run, surging from a value of $2,500, to almost $20,000 in just six months, Bankman-Fried had a premonition and decided to act on the opportunity. He realized that there was a lot to do in the burgeoning crypto market, and that he could buy bitcoin in the U.S. and sell it in Japan for up to 30% profit.
In order to garner less attention from the U.S. government, in 2018, he had to move to Hong Kong, and then to The Bahamas more recently. From there he runs his business, FTX, the cryptocurrency buying and selling platform which managed to raise US $900 million in July from Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) Ventures and SoftBank.
To reach his goal of continuous growth in the industry, the young vegan, lover of video games and of Harry Potter, will have to circumvent a legion of merchants from around the world and adapt his business according to government regulations.
On The Flipside
- So far the young millionaire has only given away 0.1% of his fortune, about $25 million, which makes him the least charitable of all the Forbes 400 millionaires.
- However, he has promised that he will multiply his charity by a factor of at least 900 if his finances continue to grow. He explains that donations “are not a short-term goal. It’s a long-term one. “
Why You Should Care?
- Sam Bankman-Fried has built his fortune by analyzing the cryptocurrency movement and the industry as a whole.
- Bankman-Fried is competing with Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), as the youngest billionaire in history.
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