As Google searches for FTX's former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) shot through the roof in November 2022, it appears that the company's collapse had the greatest effect on the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Major media coverage, enormous losses, and political linkages are some of the trends strongest motivators.
On November 2, SBF's company Alameda Research was discovered to be in possession of a sizeable number of FTX Token (FTT), an asset issued by FTX, and as a result, SBF's credibility was damaged. In the two weeks that followed, the cryptosphere looked into the matter and determined that SBF had been deceiving and stealing consumers' money. As a result, the empire of almost 130 enterprises he had amassed fell.
SBF and his allies, especially Caroline Ellison, came under harsh criticism from the crypto community on the one hand. However, mainstream media released "puff pieces" to downplay SBF's wrongdoings, which were denounced by executives from Tesla and Binance, among others, including Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance.
Crypto Twitter fiercely resisted attempts by the mainstream media to twist the story surrounding SBF, which piqued people's interest and made them DYOR (do your own research) into the topic.
Google searches for the topic "Sam Bankman-Fried" consequently increased in November. Do Kwon, co-founder and CEO of Terraform Labs; Su Zhu, co-founder and CEO of Three Arrows Capital; and Craig Wright, a Satoshi Nakamoto imposter, were overtaken by the interest in SBF.
Searches for SBF are 185.7% higher now than they were for Do Kwon when Terra (LUNA) fell in May 2022, according to Google Trends data. Up until SBF overtook LUNA six months later, the collapse of LUNA was regarded as the worst mistake in cryptocurrency history.
The financial crimes investigative board in Turkey, MASAK, confiscated SBF's assets in the midst of ongoing investigations, thus the FTX dust has not yet settled.
After discovering criminal suspicion of FTX's failure to securely hold user funds, theft of client assets, and market manipulation, the seizure was made.
