The process of FTX's rise, prosperity and collapse has been a high-level participant in Taiwan's crypto community; Michael Lewis, the author of "The Big Short", has recorded FTX up close for a long time. ", suddenly became the novel of "Digital Financial Crisis" - Going Infinite. The original text has been well received since its publication. In August this year, the Chinese version of "Infinite Storm" was officially published, giving more Chinese readers the opportunity to get a glimpse of the truth of the storm from the perspectives of different main characters in the FTX incident.
( "Infinite Storm: Symphony of the Rise and Fall of the FTX Empire" e-book order link )
Table of contents
ToggleSo angry! "The devil wearing Prada" was defeated by him! (book excerpt)
Growing up in Taiwan, Tian Wenxin came from a middle-class family. Her parents' only hope for her was to find a rich husband. She is petite, very friendly and not suitable for rebellion. She still habitually covers her mouth when she laughs. However, she is determined to prove to her parents that they underestimated her.
After graduating from college, she started looking for a job instead of a husband. She has always been anxious about her ambitions, so before each interview, she would write down what she wanted to talk about during the interview, and then memorize it by heart. She found her first regular job at an English training company, but it was boring as hell. However, in 2018, at the age of 28, she discovered cryptocurrency.
In June 2020, Tian Wenxin heard about a job opening at FTX, and she was working at another Asian cryptocurrency exchange at the time. Just like other exchanges, FTX quickly decided to hire her after an interview, and she became the 49th employee of FTX.
When Sam was interviewed for the first time, Tian Wenxin sat at her desk and watched. But then she walked behind Sam to confirm one thing: yes, the reason why Sam's eyes moved around frequently was because he was playing video games. And it’s still live on TV right now!
Sam will be interviewed on live TV, playing video games, responding to messages, editing articles, and tweeting. When reporters asked him questions, Sam would say, "Ah, that's an interesting question." But he never found those questions interesting. Tian Wenxin knew that he was just buying time so that he could pause the game he was playing and re-enter the conversation. Although Tian Wenxin doesn't know how a person should behave normally on live TV, it shouldn't be like Sam.
Video chatting with "The Devil Wears Prada" while playing video games
On February 14th, the hotel room looked like he had never used it. The sheets are still clean and flat, the pillows are wrinkle-free, the trash can is empty, and the bathroom is spotless.
The only sign of human activity in the room was Sam "SBF" himself, sitting at his desk wearing the same wrinkled T-shirt and baggy cargo shorts he wore on the plane. As always, he was doing several things at the same time: checking his phone, applying lip balm on his permanently dry lips, opening and closing the window on his laptop, all while his knees were shaking at a rate of four beats per second. . His current task is to participate in a Zoom video conference. Tian Wenxin reminded him the night before and reminded him again this morning.
In fact, he was already late, but this important person who really wanted to see him was waiting for him on his laptop.
"Hi, I'm Sam!" Sam said into the laptop, and the Zoom window opened.
Anna, editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine. Anna Wintour appears on his screen.
Wintu was wearing a fitted yellow dress, delicate makeup, and a neat bob head. The hair on both sides was like two sickle blades, hanging on her cheeks and curving inward.
"It's nice to finally meet you!" she said.
"Hi, nice to meet you too!" Sam responded.
Sam actually didn't know much about Wintu's background.
Tian Wenxin and others briefed him, but he didn't listen carefully. He only knew that Wintour was the editor-in-chief of a magazine, and he may or may not know that Mellie. Streep played her in The Devil Wears Prada, and Wintour has been shaping the ever-changing world of women's fashion since before Sam was born.
Wintu is fashionably dressed, but to Sam, her aristocratic attire, like all art, is a fool's errand. Every time you asked Sam to describe someone's appearance, even if that person had slept with him, he would say, "I don't really know how to describe it. I'm not good at judging other people's looks."
Just as Wintu began to speak, he pressed a button on the keyboard, and Wintu disappeared from his screen, replaced by his favorite video game " Storybook Brawl." He only had a few seconds to choose a character, so he quickly chose Hoard Dragon, his favorite video game protagonist.
He could still hear Wintu's voice through his headphones. No matter what Wintu said, Sam always responded, "Yup!" Unless Wintu looked him in the eyes, she had no reason to suspect that Sam was distracted. Sam didn't mean to be rude, he just felt that while he was involved in any game in real life, he also needed to play the game in the virtual world. As the billionaire golden boy that everyone most wants to know, this new social role requires him to do all kinds of stupid things. His head needed something else to think about besides what he should be thinking about. So, oddly enough, the more important he was in the world, the more important these video games became to him.
Brawl has all the things Sam loves about games: playing against real opponents and making a lot of decisions quickly. He feels that video games without time limits are boring, and this game requires you to form your own troops (including dwarves, witches, monsters, princesses, etc.) within the time limit. The passage of time makes him very exciting. Each character has two numbers: how much damage it can do to other characters, and how much damage it can take. In addition to these basic attributes, each character has more complex traits, such as the ability to cast random spells, or the ability to interact in special ways with specific treasures collected along the way, or the ability to strengthen allies in some quantifiable way.
This game is too complex to know exactly the best way to play it. Players need skill and luck. He needs to estimate probabilities, and he needs to speculate. This is important because Sam doesn't like games like chess. In chess, the player is in control, and in theory the player can estimate the best move. He would like chess even more if it had a built-in robot voice that randomly announced game rule changes during the game. For example, a sudden announcement: "Knights are now castles! All bishops must leave the board! Soldiers can now fly!" Or any change would be fine - as long as the new rules force all players to abandon their original strategies and have to improvise and come up with new ones. Just a good strategy. Sam likes games where the player doesn't have a complete view of the game, only a partial view of the situation. Cryptocurrency trading is like that.
ABMedia Exclusive Interview with Natalie
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( "Infinite Storm: Symphony of the Rise and Fall of the FTX Empire" e-book order link )
