FTX: Sam Bankman-Fried ‘in talks with Hollywood’s The Big Short author Michael Lewis’
Former FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried met with ‘The Big Short’ writer Michael Lewis during house arrest, a report has claimed.
The fallen crypto-tycoon is currently on bail under $250m and his parents Californian home on the edge of Standford University.
However, after being charged with eight criminal offences, including wire fraud, conspiracy, and misusing customer funds, Bankman-Fried was visited by bestselling author Michael Lewis.
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Lewis is the author of 'The Big Short', which was made into a 2015 movie of the same name and is based upon the 2008 sub-prime mortgage financial crisis.
Could the dramatic collapse of the Bahama-based FTX cryptocurrency exchange be turned into a Hollywood blockbuster?
According to sources who spoke to the New York Post, the The Big Short and Moneyball author spent several hours inside the family residence where Bankman-Fried is currently awaiting his next court appearance.
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According to the report Lewis has been following the 30-year-old former-billionaire for the past six months, even before the allegedly fraudulent activity at the FTX exchange and Alameda Research came to light.
Now Bankman-Fried has fallen from grace and US prosecutors have accused him of perpetrating “one of the biggest frauds in American history” and facing a possible 115-year jail sentence.
The New York Post also claimed that after FTX’s collapse in November, the entertainment newsletter The Ankler leaked a note from Lewis’ publishing agency pitching a book about the rise and fall of the FTX exchange to potential movie rights buyers.
Read more: FTX bankruptcy sees 80,000 UK crypto investors lose funds
The Ankler newsletter stated: "With the stunning collapse of crypto exchange FTX still rippling through the financial markets, the entertainment industry sprang into action over the weekend with a far more pressing concern: Who’s going to nab the rights to this story?
"We now know at least one part of how this plays out. The town was abuzz Saturday after an email spread that revealed that Michael Lewis, the most talented and successful non-fiction writer working today, had embedded with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried for the past six months and was making the collapsing cryptocurrency exchange the centrepiece of his next book."
Michael Lewis has been contacted for a statement but has yet to reply.
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