At one point in 2022, cryptocurrency was an enormous, nearly trillion-dollar market. Crypto investments rocketed upward with the familiar euphoria of a typical capitalist market bubble, spawning a new genre of annoying commercials and cocky speculators. Soon enough, the crypto bubble burst, resulting in a giant crash that ruined millions of small investors.

Like other market booms, this one served to conceal a fair amount of outright fraud, the most prominent instance of which is the once enormous crypto exchange FTX and its former CEO, Samuel Bankman-Fried. Once worth $16 billion and a rising star on the Democratic Party donor circuit, “SBF” is now at the center of a major federal fraud indictment, facing seven charges alleging rampant fraud by the management of the exchange.

The ongoing trial has been morbidly fascinating. Despite Bankman-Fried’s personal eccentricities and the shamelessness of his fraudulent dealings, the episode exemplifies the particularly scammy brand of capitalism that we’ve come to associate with Silicon Valley.