Sam Bankman-Fried’s ‘young, eccentric billionaire’ shtick was just another part of the grift | Emma Brockes

As with Elizabeth Holmes and Billy McFarland, the story seemed too good to be true - because it was

Of all the surprising things to have come out of the build-up to the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now defunct FTX cryptocurrency exchange, the most surprising, perhaps, is just how thoroughly the world bought in to his rise. Bankman-Fried's guilt on multiple charges of, among other things, wire fraud, securities fraud, commodities fraud and money laundering has yet to be determined, but the presence of the 31-year-old former wunderkind in court at all, is, of course, part of a long history of feted boy geniuses falling to earth and seeming suddenly ludicrous.

Bankman-Fried fit precisely into the mould beloved of tech and wealth magazines for young men in the unicorn business space. Before he cut his hair and located a suit for this week's appearance in a Manhattan federal court, he was flamboyantly scruffy, a man worth, on paper at least, billions of dollars who nonetheless wore scabby old trainers and shapeless cargo shorts. He was spectacularly rude, playing video games while conducting live television interviews and failing to turn up to appointments set months in advance. Looked at through the lens of, as Forbes magazine described Bankman-Fried in 2021, the world's richest 29-year-old," all of these tics were received as charming indicators of brilliance. Regarded through the slightly less dewy goggles of seven conspiracy and fraud counts, they appear somewhat differently.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

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