In just a few years, Sam Bankman-Fried went from being a relative nobody to the architect of a cryptocurrency empire whose net worth neared $30 billion. But, even quicker than his empire burst onto the scene, it crumbled in November 2022 with the news that his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, had lost nearly $10 billion of its clients’ money. In Going Infinite (2023), financial journalist Michael Lewis provides a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Bankman-Fried’s meteoric rise and fall. And although Bankman-Fried has been convicted of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy, Lewis suggests that the case against Bankman-Fried is less damning than outsiders believe.

In this guide, we’ll break down Going Infinite into three main parts, first examining Lewis’s portrayal of the enigmatic Bankman-Fried himself before proceeding to the rise and precipitous collapse of his cryptocurrency empire. We’ll also discuss alternative accounts of Bankman-Fried’s actions at FTX and dive deeper into the nature of cryptocurrency that lay at the heart of FTX.