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How common are Ponzi schemes in crypto? Crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried weighs in
03:59 - Source: CNN Business
New York CNN Business  — 

Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto entrepreneur known for providing a financial lifeline to struggling firms in the industry, is now in need of a bailout himself.

Bankman-Fried, widely known as SBF, started this week firmly in the realm of billionaires, with an estimated fortune of more than $15 billion, according the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. After the collapse of his crypto exchange, FTX, in a matter of days he may find himself out of the club.

His most valuable assets were his stakes in FTX, the crypto exchange he founded, and Alameda, a crypto trading house.

The Bloomberg index assumes that SBF and all other investors in the exchange will be wiped out, and that FTX and Alameda will become suddenly worthless if they are bailed out by Binance. (Update: Binance said Thursday it was pulling out of the deal.)

That would leaves SBF’s net worth at about $1 billion — a 94% collapse and the biggest one-day loss by a person tracked by the index.