Sam Bankman-Fried Whisperer Tiffany Fong Spills Some Tea

A pivotal figure in the Sam Bankman-Fried case discusses how she became the onetime crypto mogul’s confidante, including whether she ever had a romantic relationship with him.

Nov 24, 2023

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ABOUT

Tiffany Fong has had an unusual route to crypto fame. After losing most of her life savings in the Celsius bankruptcy, she began posting on YouTube about her experiences and eventually received some leaked documents, which she shared with The New York Times and on her channel. The leaks gave her some visibility, and that’s when Sam Bankman-Fried began following her on Twitter.

Fong unexpectedly managed to carve out a relationship with the one-time crypto mogul, and after he was arrested last November, she chatted often and even met with him while he was under house arrest. From there, she became known for posting details of her conversations with Bankman-Fried and documents he shared with her, and went on to attend every day of his trial in person and do videos on them.

On this episode of Unchained, Fong shares why she thinks SBF opened up to her, whether she ever had a romantic relationship with him, her unpleasant encounter with Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother at the trial, why she doesn’t really consider herself a crypto influencer, and what her plans are now that the trial is over.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Show highlights |

What Tiffany did before getting into crypto
How Tiffany lost most of her life savings in the Celsius bankruptcy and how that jumpstarted her journey into the content creation space
How did she get in touch with Sam Bankman-Fried and get him to speak with her after FTX’s collapse?
The conversations Tiffany had with SBF during his house arrest
Tiffany's response to the rumors about a romantic relationship with SBF
How Tiffany reacted to the DOJ reaching out to her for information before the SBF trial
Why did she decide to go to the courtroom every day during the SBF trial
Tiffany’s unpleasant encounter with SBF's mom, Barbara Fried
How Tiffany feels about crypto, and why she doesn’t consider herself a "crypto influencer"
What Tiffany’s career plans are now that the SBF trial is over

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Guest |

Tiffany Fong, Crypto content creator

Links |

RollingStone: The Crypto Whistleblower at the Center of the Sam Bankman-Fried Storm

Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC. Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz.

HOST

Laura Shin

Laura Shin is a crypto journalist, host of the Unchained podcast, and author of “The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze” (Public Affairs, 2022). Formerly a senior editor at Forbes, she was the first mainstream journalist to cover crypto full-time, and her podcasts and videos have had more than 15 million downloads and views. Shin has spoken about cryptocurrency at places such as TEDx San Francisco, the International Monetary Fund, Singularity University and the Oslo Freedom Forum.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors from Stanford University and has a master of arts from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. She lives in New York City.