From the New York Times, I'm Serena Taverny-Sea, and this is The Daily.

Sam Bankman-Freed, the fallen golden boy of crypto, goes on trial starting today.

For what prosecutors say was the largest financial fraud in recent history.

My colleague, David Yaffe Bellany, on the trial of the man who was supposed to save crypto,

and what its verdict could tell us about why he didn't.

It's Tuesday, October 3rd.

David, welcome back to the show.

Thanks so much for having me.

So the last time you were on the show, David, that was almost 10 months ago,

we talked about the spectacular rise in pretty incredible fall of the crypto firm FTX.

And of course, it's founder Sam Bankman-Freed.

And as a way to remind people, FTX and Bankman-Freed weren't just another crypto firm.

They were the crypto firm that was going to legitimize crypto,

make it mainstream. But then it turned out that what we thought was the success,

and this example, this model, was actually smoking mirrors.

Yeah, to refresh all your memories, Sam Bankman-Freed was the kind of figurehead of the crypto industry.

The Michael Jordan of crypto, if you will.

His parents were Stanford law professors. He had this kind of fancy academic background.

He drives a Toyota Corolla to FTX's offices.

In the Bahamas, he lives with 10 roommates and a Golden Doodle, named Gofer.

And he was saying all the right things.

Maybe I should try Ernie Giff, which is to say, try seeing how much I could get to be able to donate.

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