Campus crypto crib
Bankman-Fried manse attracts Stanford crowd
Stanford University students are reportedly “obsessed” with the ritzy mansion where disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried remains under house arrest.
Bankman-Fried is confined to his parents’ $4 million home on the edge of Stanford’s campus while awaiting trial for allegedly bilking FTX customers out of billions of dollars.
His parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, are longtime professors at Stanford Law School.
Located near student housing and the homes of other faculty members, the Bankman-Fried family estate “has become an unofficial campus landmark,” The Washington Post reported Saturday.
Stanford has closed off roads near the house as a security measure.
One Stanford student admitted to using wire cutters to steal a “path closed” sign located near the barriers set up to prevent access to BankmanFried’s home, according to the outlet.
The anonymous student said they managed to withdraw about $80,000 in cryptocurrency from FTX just before the platform imploded.
Tyler Benster, a 31-yearold doctoral candidate in neuroscience and a cryptocurrency investor, told The Washington Post he recently pointed out the Bankman-Fried house while walking on campus with a date.
“People spend years and years of their life working hard and preparing to then have the privilege of being here, using the resources, being in the heart of Silicon Valley,” Benster said. “And the idea that someone could end up sort of living on campus due to a massive uncovered fraud is fairly ironic.”
An unidentified sophomore said there was “a weird voyeurism” regarding the house and Bankman-Fried’s fall from grace.
“There’s a perverse desire to know what could have been, or knowing what you could have been,” the student said.
Representatives for Bankman-Fried and Stanford University didn’t respond to requests for comment.