Arthur Hayes Believes the Public was Mislead by SBF’s Demeanor

BitMex founder, Arthur Hayes, has shared his perception about Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) fall from grace to grass. In a YouTube session with the team at “The Chopping Block”, Hayes noted that many victims of SBF got attracted to him because of the things they knew about him at ‘face value’.

According to Hayes, a glance at SBF’s resume would portray him as someone with the capacity to deliver in the field. He noted that SBF was embraced by the establishment, despite not being able to prosecute a real business.

Hayes said that SBF smartly built an allure that he was a good trader, a narrative that the public believed without proper research. That he went to MIT, worked at Jane Street, and had parents who are professors who contributed to the public buying into his story.

Hayes said:

Testament to humanity and our lack of researching things, because we read the headline of something and take that as gospel, everybody said he went to the right school and worked at a successful Chicago prop shop, he is from California, his parents are professors, he must know what he is doing.

According to Hayes, SBF latched onto that narrative and channeled it into appealing to a particular segment of the world that would easily buy into it. He believes that SBF applied that as his edge and appealed to the establishment, who already know that crypto is here to stay but are looking for one of their own to ride with as a way to take over the industry.

From the crypto side, Hayes noted that SBF got a lot of buy-ins because several users saw him as a channel to engage with the establishment. They saw it as an opportunity to get into the mainstream. Hence, the level of acceptance SBF got among the crypto industry while his adventure lasted.

SBF became the villain after his crypto exchange, FTX, collapsed in late 2022, with billions of dollars in customers’ funds going down the drain. He is currently under house arrest at his parent’s home as the industry awaits the outcome of an investigation and eventual ruling by the court.