Move over GameStop, there’s a new financial scandal in town, and FTX’s collapse has proven to be so sensational thatAmazonhas ordered an eight-episode miniseries from AGBO, the production company founded by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo.
For those unaware, FTX was one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, one that suddenly went underwater this month after a series of insolvency rumors began circling around three weeks ago, until by November 9 the platform completely halted all customer withdrawals. It didn’t take long before FTX filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and its crypto poster boy CEO Sam Bankman-Fried resigned, after its main competitor, Binance, pulled the plug on an offer to acquire FTX’s outstanding debt — never mind all that, what probably promptedAmazonto go for this story is the series bizarre allegations that have come out surrounding the exchange’s downfall.
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Varietypicked up the news, noting that the Russo brothers were on board as FTX’s debacle is a tale “that crosses many sectors—celebrity, politics, academia, tech, criminality, sex, drugs, and the future of modern finance. At the center of it all sits an extremely mysterious figure with complex and potentially dangerous motivations,” in reference to Bankman-Fried, aka SBF. The Russo’s description of FTX as one the most brazen frauds ever executed lines up with the words of the man tasked with the company’s restructuring,John Ray, who despite handling the infamous Enron case, said “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information."
Although the landscape of FTX’s finances is rather complicated, the firm’s most heinous offenses include deliberate attempts to “conceal the misuse of customer funds”, listing assets the company did not hold, and declaring ownership of more FTT tokens (FTX’s native cryptocurrency) than were in circulation. Salacious details of SBF’s relationship with Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, a trading firm also founded by SBF have only made this entire story even more appealing for Amazon, who is planning to begin production in spring 2023.
As Ray noted, FTX’s case may involve all kinds of fraud, embezzlement, market manipulation and other financial crime that only became evident when thestruggling crypto market continued falling off this year, after a previous crisis that hadalready lowered GPU prices all over the world. The fallout from FTX sent shockwaves thorugh the industry, all but killing several other companies, as SBF may have mismanaged up to $10 billions worths of funds to prop up Alameda Research.
SBF had become ameme in crypto circles, perfect for GTA 6, due to his eccentric behavior, and even gained quite a reputation as a philanthropist in mainstream media, efforts that he’s called a “dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths so people will like us,” in the past couple of weeks. With reports of Bankman-Fried, Ellison and other FTX employees being heavy users of drugs like EMSAM patches, Amazon and theRusso brothers will plenty of crime, sex, and drugsthey’re looking for.
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