Sam Bankman-Fried cut an unlikely figure as he took the stage on the final morning of this year’s big derivatives-industry conference in Boca Raton, Florida. Sporting a grey T-shirt, khaki shorts and sneakers, his mane of curly hair untamed, the 30-year-old chief executive of FTX looked more like a student who had just rolled out of bed to grab breakfast at his college cafeteria than the boss of an international cryptocurrency exchange valued at $32bn.
Adding to incongruity at the Futures Industry Association event was that Bankman-Fried was engaging in a one-on-one chat with Alex Rodriguez, the retired American baseball star, broadcaster and business executive known as A-Rod. Standing a good six inches taller than his interlocutor and still fit at 46, the one-time fiancé of Jennifer Lopez was every inch a red-carpet celebrity in his dark suit, white shirt and power tie.
But it was A-Rod who was out of his league.