FTX / Sam Bankman-Fried

FTX's November 2022 collapse was the crypto industry's Lehman Brothers moment. The Bahamas-based exchange, once valued at $32 billion, was secretly using customer funds to cover trading losses at its sister hedge fund Alameda Research. An estimated $8 billion in customer deposits vanished overnight. Founder Sam Bankman-Fried, once celebrated as crypto's golden boy and a leading political donor, was convicted on seven counts of fraud in 2023 and sentenced to 25 years in prison.