Of all the scams that Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto bro behind the now-bankrupt FTX trading, managed to pull off, getting Larry David to promote his company might have been his most impressive move. But now that the digital wool has been pulled away from over people’s eyes, all that’s left is the schlubby 30-year old who managed to fool some pretty savvy investors — which Seth Meyers, for the life of him, cannot understand.
Meyers kicked off Wednesday night’s “A Closer Look” segment by tearing into the man known as SBF:
Even if you don’t know or don’t care that much about crypto, you’ve probably heard of this guy: Sam Bankman-Fried, who was — until recently — one of crypto’s rising stars. Maybe you heard about his crypto exchange, FTX, or his trading firm, Alameda Research. Or maybe you just caught wind of the fact that one of the biggest rising stars in tech and finance was a guy who looks the way Cheeto dust smells.
I mean, look at that. That guy looks like an Albuquerque dogwalker at 6 a.m. ‘Come on, Nacho, buddy. Do your business, bro.’ He looks like he should be playing Seth Rogen’s burnout son in a Judd Apatow movie. Somehow this guy tricked the world’s most influential people into believing that he was a crypto visionary. Most international criminals have ice water in their veins, not bong water, and yet he even managed to convince the likes of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair to appear on stage with him at a conference in the Bahamas, where FTX was based.
The Bahamas also happens to be where SBF was arrested after he refused repeated attempts to come to Washington, D.C. and testify before congress because, according to him, he was “overbooked.” Bad move, kid. Right now, it’s looking like the one-time oddly lauded crypto “guru” could be spending the next several years in prison. And if Meyers could offer one word of advice to anyone and everyone who fell for his shtick, it’s this: “If you ever find yourself sitting on a stage in the Bahamas in a suit and you look around and notice you’re sitting with someone who’s dressed like they forgot to change after gym class, that should be your first clue you f***ed up.”
You can watch the full clip above.