The most powerful people in crypto
Four very different billionaires
THE HONG KONG den of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, is where high finance meets teenage chaos. It is 7.30pm and staffers in shorts and T-shirts are still arriving for work, slaloming among desks fitted with six screens each. Booze, boxes and general junk, from guitars to badminton shuttles, lie everywhere. A buffet of delivery food tempts the peckish; traders and developers face off on wooden chess boards. Art casting Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s founder, as the King of Clubs or Uncle Sam in the trenches adorns the walls. When bitcoin prices are booming, poker tournaments often take place in a cluttered meeting room (tonight the house is closed).
This article appeared in the Christmas Specials section of the print edition under the headline “Ride to freedom”
Christmas Specials December 18th 2021
- A Zimbabwean archaeologist retells the story of a civilisation
- Does good parenting in Hong Kong mean submitting to the Party?
- An economic history of restaurants
- The rise and rise of corrugated iron
- The mathematical method that could offer a fairer way to vote
- How to prevent conflict on the way to Mars
- Scenes from an almost vanished Singapore
- Retracing Julius Caesar’s path through France
From the December 18th 2021 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
Inside the last true political machine in America
What a town is like when one family runs everything
AI is stalking the last lions of Hollywood
The first actors to lose their jobs to artificial intelligence are four-legged
The truth about the passenger jet Putin’s men shot down
Investigating MH17, the crime that presaged the war in Ukraine
Meet the boffins and buccaneers drilling for hydrogen
The search is on for a clean fuel that could one day replace oil
The best sailors in the world
Why the vaka, vehicle for the extraordinary story of the peopling of Oceania, is enjoying a revival
Oceania’s wayfinding skills
The art of getting a vessel and its occupants from one place on a vast ocean to another