How Sam Bankman Went From 0 To $27 Billion In 4 Years

TL;DR

Sam Bankman-Fried exploited a crypto arbitrage opportunity called the Japan premium (≈10% daily return on Bitcoin bought in the U.S. and sold in Japan) after the Korean kimchi premium proved logistically impossible. He spent roughly a year solving each leg of the trade—buying large volumes in the U.S.

Key insights

• The Korean kimchi premium (≈30% average) was widely known but effectively uncapturable because Korean regulators capped conversions of won back to dollars, making the trade appear like money launderin
• Bankman-Fried chose the less profitable Japan premium (≈10%) because it was actually executable, emphasizing feasibility over maximum theoretical return.
• He solved the trade by breaking it into small, discrete problems: securing high buying limits on a U.S. exchange with no track record, selling huge volumes in Japan, converting yen to dollars within t