Squint and you might think that not much has changed for Sam Bankman-Fried. The 30-year-old crypto tycoon spends his days hanging out at his parents’ $4 million home near Stanford University, in a neighbourhood populated by fellow academics employed by the renowned institution. He can relax by the pool and is visited by the occasional crypto influencer, or Michael Lewis, the Moneyball author who has been shadowing the boy-genius for months.
Look closer, though, and you will see that the street is barricaded, with security checking IDs to ensure the press can’t get through. Bankman-Fried is fitted with an ankle monitor — a condition of his house arrest — and on Tuesday, he will appear in a Manhattan court to face eight criminal charges related to what the government has dubbed an “epic fraud”. The stakes are very high: he could be sent to prison for at least 30 years, and his family might be left financially ruined.
