🤯 Bro, Literally… This Boy Played with Billions...

Sam wasn’t your suit-and-tie finance guy. He looked like someone who’d just rolled out of bed after a gaming marathon—wild hair, baggy T-shirt, sneakers. But somehow, he became the face of crypto. His exchange, FTX, was everywhere—Super Bowl ads, celebrity endorsements, even an NBA arena named after it. People trusted him. Big mistake.

Behind the scenes, billions of dollars in customer deposits weren’t sitting safely in FTX accounts. Instead, they were quietly funneled to his other company, Alameda Research, to make big, risky bets. At first, the system worked—until crypto prices tanked in 2022. Suddenly, the gap between what customers thought they had and what was actually left became impossible to hide.

Withdrawals started. Panic spread. Within a week, FTX went from “the safest place for your crypto” to a smoking crater. By the end, $8–11 billion was missing.

In court, Sam tried to frame it as a screw-up, not a scam. His exact words after the verdict:

> “I never set out to commit fraud. I made a series of bad decisions, and I failed to manage the risk. For that, I’m deeply sorry.”

The jury didn’t buy it. In 2024, he was handed 25 years in prison.

And just like that, the guy who was once the golden boy of crypto became the cautionary tale everyone uses when they say—“Don’t trust the hype.”

$BTC | $ETH | $GUN