Netflix Drops First Trailer for FTX Crypto Scandal Miniseries ‘The Altruists’

Sam Bankman-Fried still has over 20 years left on his prison sentence, but Netflix is already bringing his story to the small screen.

On Thursday, the streaming giant dropped the first trailer for its upcoming miniseries The Altruists. The show dramatizes the real-life story of Bankman-Fried and his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, who were at the center of a multibillion-dollar fraud scandal that brought down FTX, once one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.

Netflix’s telling of the story appears to be taking a more sympathetic approach, portraying Bankman-Fried, played by Anthony Boyle, and Ellison, played by Julia Garner, as modern-day Silicon Valley versions of Bonnie and Clyde who initially set out to do good.

“I genuinely believe that both Sam and Caroline were deeply committed altruists from day one, who set out to do as much good for as many people as they could in their lives,” said series creator Graham Moore in a Netflix blog post. “Over the course of the years that our show depicts, Sam and Caroline, with the very best of intentions, talked each other and themselves into committing a number of terrible crimes.”

For anyone who needs a refresher, Bankman-Fried and Ellison, along with other executives, were involved in a scheme to misuse billions of dollars in customer funds deposited on FTX.