- Michael Lewis is nearing completion of his book on Sam Bankman-Fried and the FTX collapse.
- In the book, he interviewed people close to Bankman-Fried and made more than 100 stories in Hong Kong and the Bahamas.
- Though he didn’t reveal many details, Lewis said it’s fascinating material and he hopes the release coincides with the start of the criminal trial against Bankman-Fried, originally scheduled for October 2023.
Michael Lewis, the financial journalist and author of “Moneyball” and “The Big Short,” told the Bitcoin 2023 conference that he has almost finished writing his book on Sam Bankman-Fried and the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.
Lewis said that for the book, he interviewed people from Bankman-Fried’s inner circle, employees, investors, Bahamian officials and US regulators.
The rights to the film are already held by Apple.
Lewis said he started the book before the exchange crashed and clarified that the project was started after an unexpected call in 2021 from a friend who ran a Wall Street company.
“It was a really weird call,” Lewis recounted at the Bitcoin 2023 conference. “He said, ‘I have a problem. I am about to make a deal in which I am going to exchange shares of my company with another company. It’s like a couple hundred million dollar deal. But I don’t know the guy who runs it: Sam Bankman-Fried.’”
Lewis said the friend asked him to look into Bankman-Fried and report back. That was the beginning of an odyssey that took him to Hong Kong and the Bahamas, and to more than 100 interviews.
What we know about the FTX book
While he didn’t elaborate too much on the book’s content, Lewis said it’s “great material.”
He told the story of how he broke into an office in Hong Kong and said that the office in the Bahamas looked like “Pompeii”.
“I want them to read the book as a work of fiction,” Lewis said. “If they didn’t know anything about cryptography. If they didn’t even know who Sam Bankman-Fried is. They might think ‘this is just a made up story. It’s an incredible story,” he added.
Lewis did not give a formal publication date, but said he wants the book’s release to coincide with the start of a criminal trial against Bankman-Fried.
Prosecutors set the original trial date for October 2023, though Bankman-Fried’s lawyers say the date could be pushed back.
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