Former FTX COO Constance Wang expressed displeasure with Netflix's depiction of the cryptocurrency exchange's collapse, saying the trailer upset her immediately. "The first 30 seconds were enough to upset me," Wang told Cointelegraph during an episode of the Chain Reaction X spaces show published Monday, adding that she stopped watching after that point.
Wang said the Netflix series, titled The Altruists, misrepresented several former FTX executives. She noted that the portrayal of Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison didn't align with her personal experience and that former FTX co-founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried came across as more "socially awkward" in real life than in the show's depiction.
FTX collapsed in November 2022 following the discovery that customer funds had been misappropriated, resulting in an $8.9 billion shortfall. Bankman-Fried had transferred FTX customer funds without consent to Alameda Research, the exchange's sister trading firm, to cover trading losses. Netflix released the trailer for the eight-episode series in early October, with the drama set to premiere globally on November 19, 2026.
Following FTX's collapse, Wang founded Pacifica in early 2025, a crypto trading platform initially launched as a Solana-based perpetual futures decentralized exchange. Wang said she bootstrapped the venture without external funding, noting that some institutional investors faced compliance restrictions when engaging with former FTX personnel while bankruptcy proceedings were ongoing. She plans to add artificial intelligence capabilities to the platform to create intelligent trading infrastructure with strategic tools for investors.
Bankman-Fried was convicted on seven felony counts and sentenced to 25 years in prison in March 2024. In September, his lawyers asked the Supreme Court to overturn his fraud conviction, and he has also applied for a pardon from US President Donald Trump. Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison accepted a plea deal to testify against Bankman-Fried and was released from prison in January after serving 440 days of a two-year sentence.
