Apple’s record breaking check shows Hollywood’s ongoing interest in grifter tales—think of Hulu’s The Dropout about Elizabeth Holmes and Netflix’s Inventing Anna about fake heiress Anna Delvey, among others. This reflects the public’s fascination with celebrity criminals and also indicates there is a lot of money to be made for publishers and studios in telling their stories.

Sam Bankman-Fried appears to be the motherlode. As The Ankler notes, he has spawned eight separate film projects (including one with Mark Wahlberg and Fortune) and at least three books. Lewis’s work is set to drop on October 3 right after Number Go Up, a broader crypto book that features Bankman-Fried on the cover. The book’s author, Bloomberg journalist Zeke Faux, published an excerpt this week and sniped at Lewis on X (fomerly Twitter) for a fawning interview with his subject that seemed “inappropriate for a journalist.”

While all of this reflects just another example of America’s celebrity-industrial complex, it also raises interesting questions about Sam Bankman-Fried himself. Namely, how long until the grifter extraordinaire seeks to get a piece of all this action for himself?

Bankman-Fried had decided to cool his heels in a Brooklyn prison rather than plead guilty—a decision that is looking increasingly foolish as everyone in his inner circle at FTX, including his former girlfriend, have decided to cut a deal that likely involves throwing him under the bus. Still, by the time his trial set for October concludes, Bankman-Fried will be even more famous than he is now and, in America, fame means money and celebrity.

Even convicted “pharma bro” Martin Shrkeli, who got out of prison in 2022 after serving five years, has found a schtick as a minor celebrity on social media—becoming, as a colleague noted in our Slack channel, the most relevant irrelevant person ever. In the case of Bankman-Fried, it feels like his insatiable appetite for money and attention will lead him to figure out a way to cash out on his notoriety.

The problem, of course, is that ruthlessly stealing billions of dollars under the guise of altruism means Bankman-Fried is poised to serve decades, and potentially a lifetime, in the slammer—meaning that, if he does parlay his infamy into big money, he may never get a chance to enjoy it.

Jeff John Roberts
[email protected]
@jeffjohnroberts

DECENTRALIZED NEWS

JP Morgan plans to launch a stablecoin-like "deposit token," pending regulators' approval, that will use blockchain to transfer digital dollars between banks. (Bloomberg)

Ryan Salame is the latest top lieutenant to Sam Bankman-Fried to plead guilty, making him a likely witness in the fast-approaching trial of the FTX founder. (Fortune)

The IMF and FSB published a policy paper warning against blanket bans on crypto, and stating that stablecoins could "transmit volatility" rapidly across borders. (CoinDesk)

The FBI says North Korea's Lazarus hacker group was responsible for this week's $41 million heist from crypto gambling platform Stake. (The Block)

Crypto mining giant Riot made $8.9 million selling 333 Bitcoins in August but $31.7 million in energy credits it earned from Texas's state power regulator for cutting its power during a heatwave. (CNBC)

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