Microstrategy founder and bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor had some strong words about fallen FTX founder and one-time billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF).
"I think this [crypto] crash accelerates regulatory intervention," Saylor said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "I mean, in fact, in a sense, SBF is like the Jordan Belfort of the crypto era. Instead of 'The Wolf of Wall Street,' they'll make a movie called 'The King of Crypto.'"
Belfort famously was found guilty of stock market manipulation in 1999 and spent 22 months in prison. He was then portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2013 movie "The Wolf of Wall Street."
Bankman-Fried has given plenty of fodder to his haters within the past week, helping to trigger a crypto crisis that could turn out to be another movie-making event.
Late last week, FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following a failed takeover by rival Binance. Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO after engineering a liquidity hole of billions and allegedly using customer funds to make other bets in the crypto space.
Bankman-Fried subsequently said that he will be working as an adviser to the firm during the leadership transition and will try to bring "liquidity" to the platform's users.
Bankman-Fried "was using counterfeit money and stolen money to lobby against all of the virtues in the industry — against proof of work, against bitcoin," Saylor said. "He was working to corrupt regulations and corrupt the political process. When you have actors that use corrupt counterfeit stolen money in order to undermine the industry, it's not good for anybody. So yeah, I mean I think that people need to decipher this."
The ensuing fallout has sent crypto markets into a spiral, with Bitcoin prices tanking 20% in the last week.
"It's a black swan event," Wedbush Tech Analyst Dan Ives said on Yahoo Finance Live. "It's a cautionary tale for what you see in sectors, and unfortunately, many will feel the pain."
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
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