How Much Did SBF Lose in Real Money?: Paul J. Davies

Now that Samuel Bankman-Fried has been detained in the Bahamas, US authorities are preparing to finally put the question that everyone’s been trying to ask the chief executive of collapsed crypto exchange FTX: “Where’s the money, Sam?”

But there’s another mystery that faces the Securities and Exchange Commission, which charged Bankman-Fried with fraud on Tuesday: How much real money was ever involved?

Even die-hard crypto bros will have to admit they know what I mean by “real money”: it’s that flimsy, magical construct backed by government imprimatur that we all call fiat currency. Actual dollars, euros and yen. To me, ...