Gossip that top executives at bankrupt crypto giant FTX were enmeshed in a sex-fueled “polycule” is exaggerated at best, in response to a former worker — who claims they as an alternative spent their free time on nerdy pursuits like board games, hackathons and role-playing sessions.
Rumors of a polyamorous clique of crypto nerds at FTX have run rampant since last fall – particularly focused on Sam Bankman-Fried, the 31-year-old kingpin whose epic fraud trial is slated to start Monday in Manhattan federal court; and his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, the 28-year-old former boss of FTX’s hedge fund Alameda Research who is anticipated to testify against him.
Ellison — a bespectacled, Stanford-educated, self-professed “Harry Potter” fanatic — helped fuel the speculation by posting sentiments about polyamory online, declaring in a blog post that the “only acceptable type of poly” was an “imperial Chinese harem” where participants kept “a rating of their partners” and “vicious power struggles for the upper ranks.”
Nevertheless, Aditya Baradwaj, a former software engineer at FTX sister firm Alameda Research who reported on to Ellison, threw cold water on the hot-and-heavy gossip.
That features a November report that claimed Ellison and Bankman-Fried were a part of a “cabal of roommates” in a “luxury penthouse” within the Bahamas who all “are or was once, paired up in romantic relationships with one another.”
“If there have been orgies, I lived right round the corner,” Baradwaj told The Post. “I would have heard it from my balcony.”
Baradwaj added, “If you happen to gave them some alcohol and left them alone in a room, they would find yourself playing board games. I’m very confident that there was no polycule.”
Representatives for Bankman-Fried and Ellison declined to comment.
Bankman-Fried’s love life shall be picked apart through the ex-billionaire’s federal fraud trial.
Bankman-Fried was jailed last month after leaking Ellison’s personal writings to the press, including diary entries by which she fretted the pair were “making things weird” and “causing drama” on the office.
Baradwaj, nevertheless, said the couple — despite Bankman-Fried revealing he felt “claustrophobic” towards the tip, in response to court documents — caused “no awkwardness or drama within the office” despite their frequent breakups.
“It was known that that they had a thing, but in the event you didn’t know that information through gossip, you wouldn’t see that,” Baradwaj said. “There was no PDA, there have been no lovers’ quarrels – a minimum of not in public. It was never something that spilled over into work.”
In keeping with Baradwaj, five couples lived within the $40 million penthouse, often known as The Orchid, including Bankman-Fried and Ellison, who shared a room when their relationship was intact.
Others who lived there with their girlfriends were FTX engineering chief Nishad Singh and FTX chief technology officer Gary Wang.
Like Ellison, Singh and Wang have pleaded guilty to fraud charges and are set to testify during Bankman-Fried’s trial.
The penthouse on the Albany complex served as a “company social space,” in response to Baradwaj.
Employees had the access code and will freely enter, which would have made it difficult for FTX’s leaders to hide a polycule from the staff.
“It’s possible that Caroline was polyamorous prior to now and possibly even then,” Baradwaj added. “But when she was, it was not a giant polycule thing.”
As an alternative of untamed sex orgies, Baradwaj said Ellison liked to stage live-action role-playing games, also often known as LARPS – a type of improv performance where participants are assigned roles and act them out.
On one occasion, Ellison created a “LARP” that Baradwaj described as a revisionist history re-enactment of the founding of the Baha Mar resort within the Bahamas.
Employees impersonated historical figures who lived within the Bahamas, including Ernest Hemingway and Bahamian journalist Étienne Dupuch.
“We had hackathons at Orchid. We had social events and dinners at Orchid,” Baradwaj said. “Caroline’s LARP was there. Also, we knew all of those people. I do know for a incontrovertible fact that these folks weren’t having orgies.”
Bankman-Fried, meanwhile, is a video game fanatic who has a well-known habit of playing “League of Legends” in the midst of meetings, in response to various media reports.
Baradwaj — who previously told The Post that he felt Bankman-Fried was “definitely guilty” of the federal charges — blamed the polyamory rumors on what he described as “a game of telephone between different arms of the media.”
His account matches that of Dr. George K. Lerner, a psychiatrist who reportedly served as an adviser at FTX and as a therapist to a few of the company’s employees.
Last December, Lerner rejected the notion that Bankman-Fried, Ellison and other FTX leaders were a part of a polycule and described the corporate’s “higher-ups” as “undersexed, if anything.”
Media scrutiny over whether FTX executives were polyamorous irritated Bankman-Fried, who grumbled concerning the situation last November.
“We, as a society, have, for my part, in my humble opinion, have spent about enough time this week attempting to determine whether anyone living in Albany was polyamorous,” Bankman-Fried said during a call with influencer Tiffany Fong. “I feel like I’ve answered that query rather a lot, and the reply is simply too boring for people to, like, consider.”
Ellison has already pleaded guilty to fraud charges and is anticipated to be a key witness for the feds, who alleged that Bankman-Fried stole billions in FTX customer funds – a few of which was used to prop up dangerous bets at Alameda.