The Altruists traces how FTX grew then collapsed in eight episodes

The FTX Netflix miniseries follows Bankman-Fried and Ellison from their early days as idealists who believed in earning big to give the money away, a philosophy known as effective altruism, to the moment an $8 billion hole opened up in FTX’s books. Netflix’s own description paints them as Gen Z’s Bonnie and Clyde.

Creator Graham Moore, who wrote The Imitation Game, says he believes both were committed altruists from the start. In his telling, the pair talked themselves and each other into serious crimes while meaning well, starting with a small lie that kept growing. Co-showrunner Jacqueline Hoyt says the two dared and pushed each other into building a company they thought would change the world.

The show draws on New York Magazine’s reporting on the scandal. The Obamas’ company, Higher Ground, helped produce it. Moore and Hoyt share writing and showrunning duties, and James Ponsoldt directed the first episode.

Anthony Boyle plays Bankman-Fried and Julia Garner plays Ellison, the former CEO of the trading firm Alameda Research. The wider cast includes:

• Eugene Young as FTX cofounder Gary Wang, and Karan Soni as Nishad Singh
• Matt Rife as Ryan Salame, and Alex Lawther as Sam Trabucco
• Paul Reiser and Robin Weigert as Bankman-Fried’s parents, Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried
• Jennifer Grey as Ellison’s mother, and Terry Chen as Binance founder Changpeng Zhao

Moore told the leads not to do impressions. Boyle had a large archive of videos, audio and TikToks of Bankman-Fried to study, while Garner had only two recordings of Ellison. The trailer, released on October 8, drew 4.2 million views in its first seven hours.

Not everyone who was there recognizes it. Constance Wang, FTX’s former chief operating officer, said the workplace she knew looked nothing like the trailer’s mix of partying, romance and executive feuds.

Wang said FTX had fewer than 200 staff, many of whom routinely worked 16- to 18-hour days. She said she never saw Ellison behave as aggressively as the trailer suggests, and that many employees did not even know Ellison and Bankman-Fried had been in a relationship until reports came out after the bankruptcy. She also lost all the money she kept on FTX, and after Bankman-Fried’s extradition she stayed on in the Bahamas longer than any other staffer.

Her objection is not about the fraud itself, which is a matter of court record. It is about whether a love story crowds out how the money actually went missing.

FTX was once one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, handling around $10 billion in trades a day. In November 2022 its own token crashed, customers rushed to withdraw, and it emerged that about $8 billion of their money was gone. The company went bankrupt, and Bankman-Fried was arrested the next month.

Prosecutors showed that customer deposits were funneled to Alameda Research, which had special access to FTX’s systems and could withdraw far more than an ordinary customer. The money paid for investments, political donations, property and Alameda’s loan repayments, while customers were told their funds were safe. Ellison testified that Bankman-Fried directed her to use the money that way.

A jury convicted Bankman-Fried in November 2023 on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. He was sentenced to 25 years and ordered to forfeit more than $11 billion. Ellison pleaded guilty, cooperated with prosecutors and received a two-year sentence.

The legal story is not over. A federal appeals court upheld Bankman-Fried’s conviction in June, and in September he asked the Supreme Court to review it along with the forfeiture order. He still denies committing fraud and has asked the White House for clemency, though President Trump said in January he had no plans to pardon him. The bankruptcy estate is also still unwinding FTX’s holdings and paying creditors.

For everyday crypto users, the case changed what you should expect from an exchange: that your assets are kept separate from the company’s own money, and that the firm can prove it holds what it owes customers. Whatever you make of the drama, those questions are worth asking of any platform where you keep crypto.

All eight episodes arrive on Netflix on November 19.