After the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, Wall Street Journal reporter Elliott Brown

and his colleagues started looking into a big question.

Where did all the money go?

When we were kind of in the throes of the FTX coverage in November, a colleague, Caitlin

Ostrov got a spreadsheet that listed all of the venture capital and startup investments

that Sam Bankman freed from FTX made.

And when we sorted it by amount, the top one by far was this company I had never heard

of called Genesis Digital Assets.

Finding out what Genesis Digital Assets was and why FTX founder Bankman freed had invested

in it would take Elliott on a month's long journey leading him around the world to

Kazakhstan.

Genesis Digital Assets is a place that they spent a lot of money.

He had something like 150 plus startup investments and the vast majority of those were $600,000,

a million, four million.

And then you look at the spreadsheet and here's this thing for $1.1 billion, which is

now one of the largest assets left in the bankruptcy estate.

Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business and power.

I'm Kate Limbaugh, it's Thursday, January 19th.

Coming up on the show, Sam Bankman freed Big Bed on Bitcoin mining in Kazakhstan.

In December 2021, as Sam Bankman freed was gaining a reputation as crypto's golden boy,

he went on a trip to Kazakhstan.

And while he was there, he visited the presidential palace.

...