Sam Bankman-Fried on his office beanbag chair, where he sleeps most nights.
IN JANUARY 2018, Sam BankmanFried, then a mathy 25-year-old who had recently left Wall Street to try his hand at buying and selling cryptocurrency, spotted a fabulous arbitrage: Because of a faddish surge of interest in Japan, bitcoin was trading for 10 percent more there than in America. Much of the rest of the cryptosphere was distracted by something even shinier—the 30 percent price gap between Korean and American bitcoin, known as the kimchee premium. But Korea has a restricted currency that’s hard to turn back into dollars; Bankman-Fried had tried to crack that trade, at one point calculating whether it made sense to get an airplane, fill it with people, and fly to Seoul to all buy bitcoin in person. Instead, he settled for Japan. It was still complex (or “quite annoying,” in his words) to execute at scale, but BankmanFried and some friends, with whom he had founded a trading firm in Berkeley called Alameda Research, cobbled together a chain of intermediaries, including obscure banks in rural Japan, to take advantage of the monthlong price discrepancy. They moved up to $25 million a day. “You can do the math,” said Bankman-Fried. “That was the craziest trade I’ve ever seen.”
Denne historien er fra February 1-14, 2021-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra February 1-14, 2021-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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THE BEST ART SHOWS OF THE YEAR
IN NOVEMBER, Sotheby's made history when it sold for a million bucks a painting made by artificial intelligence. Ai-Da, \"the first humanoid robot artist to have an artwork auctioned by a major auction house,\" created a portrait of Alan Turing that resembles nothing more than a bad Francis Bacon rip-off. Still, the auction house described the sale as \"a new frontier in the global art market.\"
THE BIGGEST PODCAST MOMENTS OF THE YEAR
A STRANGE THING happened with podcasts in 2024: The industry was repeatedly thrust into the spotlight owing to a preponderance of head-turning events and a presidential-election cycle that radically foregrounded the medium's consequential nature. To reflect this, we've carved out a list of ten big moments from the year as refracted through podcasting.
THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - BEST BOOKS
THE BEST THEATER OF THE YEAR
IT'S BEEN a year of successful straight plays, even measured by a metric at which they usually do poorly: ticket sales. Partially that's owed to Hollywood stars: Jeremy Strong, Jim Parsons, Rachel Zegler, Rachel McAdams (to my mind, the most compelling).
THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
2024 WAS one big stress test that presented artists with a choice: Face uncomfortable realities or serve distractions to the audience. Pop music turned inward while hip-hop weathered court cases and incalculable losses. Country struggled to reconcile conservative interests with a much wider base of artists. But the year's best music offered a reprieve.
THE BEST TELEVISION OF THE YEAR
IT WAS SURPRISING how much 2024 felt like an uneventful wake for the Peak TV era. There was still great television, but there was much more mid or meh television and far fewer moments when a critical mass of viewers seemed equally excited about the same series.
THE BEST COMEDY SPECIALS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - COMEDY SPECIALS
THE BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR
PEOPLE LOVED Megalopolis, hated it, puzzled over it, clipped it into memes, and tried to astroturf it into a camp classic, but, most important, they cared about it even though it featured none of the qualities you'd expect of a breakthrough work in these noisy times.
A Truly Great Time
This was the year our city's new restaurants loosened up.
The Art of the Well-Stuffed Stocking
THE CHRISTMAS ENTHUSIASTS on the Strategist team gathered to discuss the oversize socks they drape on their couches and what they put inside them.
