The Endless Downfall of a Crypto Power Couple
Ryan Salame, an FTX executive, and Michelle Bond, a crypto policy advocate, were once a Washington power couple. Now they both face prison time.
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David Yaffe-Bellany, who has extensively covered FTX’s collapse, reported from Potomac, Md.
He was a wealthy cryptocurrency executive with a shiny white Porsche and a luxury condo in the Bahamas. She was a crypto policy expert with political ambitions, advocating for the industry in Washington.
A romance blossomed after they were brought together by an unlikely matchmaker: Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed FTX crypto exchange.
Two years ago, the FTX executive Ryan Salame and the crypto advocate Michelle Bond were an industry power couple. Mr. Salame gave tens of millions of dollars to conservative politicians, who celebrated him as a “budding Republican megadonor,” while Ms. Bond ran for Congress, drawing support from Donald Trump Jr.
But this tale of crypto boy meets crypto girl has turned into a legal nightmare. Mr. Salame, 31, once a top lieutenant to Mr. Bankman-Fried, is set to report to federal prison in Maryland on Friday to start a sentence of seven and a half years, after he pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud. In August, Ms. Bond, 45, who lives with Mr. Salame and their infant son in Potomac, Md., was also charged with campaign finance violations linked to FTX.
The two were married last month in a small ceremony in Nevada. But their $4 million house in Potomac, purchased in 2022 at the height of FTX’s success, is set to be sold, with all the proceeds surrendered. Mr. Salame has gone from meeting with politicians to skirmishing on X with anonymous trolls. After FTX failed in late 2022, Ms. Bond resigned as the head of a prominent crypto trade group and became a target of federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, the same office that pursued her husband.
“Being in a relationship with me was going to be a problem,” Mr. Salame said in an interview at their house in September. “It hasn’t been great for her, having me in her life.”
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David Yaffe-Bellany writes about the crypto industry from San Francisco. He can be reached at davidyb@nytimes.com. More about David Yaffe-Bellany
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