This crypto billionaire sleeps on a beanbag and wants to donate his $20 billion fortune

Published on Apr 11, 2022 at 11:25 AM (UTC+4)
by Ben Welham

Last updated on Jul 26, 2023 at 3:31 AM (UTC+4)
Edited by Kate Bain

This crypto billionaire sleeps on a beanbag and wants to donate his $20 billion fortune

Sam Bankman-Fried is one of the world’s wealthiest people in crypto but he wants to give away his $20 billion-plus fortune because he believes others will benefit from it more.

After seeing the rise of Bitcoin in 2019, the 30-year-old set up FTX – one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.

Following this venture, Bankman-Fried is worth more than $20 billion, according to Bloomberg, and his Bahama-based corporation and its US counterpart are said to be valued at more than $40 billion.

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When he was younger, the billionaire always wanted to be wealthy but has now come to the realisation that he doesn’t need as much money as he thought he did.

Bankman-Fried discovered this when he realised he needed just one per cent ($100,000) of his overall wealth to live comfortably.

Therefore, he feels it is best that others have his billion-dollar fortune. WikiCrypto

“You pretty quickly run out of really effective ways to make yourself happier by spending money,” Bankman-Fried told Bloomberg.

“I don’t want a yacht.”

He told Yahoo Finance Live superyachts exist “because a lot of people literally can’t figure out anything else to do with their money”.

“When you think about yourself personally, about spending money on yourself, how much can you spend usefully on yourself?” Bankman-Fried said.

“You can buy nice food. You’re talking about hundreds of thousands a year, right? You get to millions a year with fancy things, but after the 10th car, it’s not fair what you’re doing.”

The billionaire who sleeps on a beanbag

Most billionaire CEOs would cringe at the thought of sleeping on a beanbag next to their desk and driving a Toyota Corolla, but for Bankman-Fried that is the norm.

He even lives with 10 others in the same penthouse, which for someone with that much cash, may seem a bit odd from an outsiders’ perspective.

The 30-year-old is the son of two law professors at Stanford and is an alumni of MIT, according to Forbes.

His dream mentor is Tesla and Space X founder Elon Musk.

He believes in effective altruism, which is the idea of using evidence to figure out how to do as much good as possible for the most amount of people.

If you’re interested in unique and expensive collectibles, check out Logan Paul’s latest venture: turning the most expensive Pokémon card in the world into an NFT.


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Ben Welham

Ben is a freelance motoring journalist who studied Journalism and previously produced daily content at DriveTribe. He has a worrying obsession with Tudor watches, and his dream car is the Porsche GT3 Touring.