Unchained - Sam Bankman-Fried Whisperer Tiffany Fong Spills Some Tea - Ep. 574

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Tiffany Fong has had an unusual route to crypto fame. After losing most of her life savings in the Celsius bankruptcy, she began posting on YouTube about her experiences and eventually received some leaked documents, which she shared with The New York Times and on her channel. The leaks gave her some visibility, and that’s when Sam Bankman-Fried began following her on Twitter.   Fong unexpectedly managed to carve out a relationship with the one-time crypto mogul, and after he was arrested last November, she chatted often and even met with him while he was under house arrest. From there, she became known for posting details of her conversations with Bankman-Fried and documents he shared with her, and went on to attend every day of his trial in person and do videos on them.   On this episode of Unchained, Fong shares why she thinks SBF opened up to her, whether she ever had a romantic relationship with him, her unpleasant encounter with Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother at the trial, why she doesn’t really consider herself a crypto influencer, and what her plans are now that the trial is over.  Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights: what Tiffany did before getting into crypto how Tiffany lost most of her life savings in the Celsius bankruptcy and how that jumpstarted her journey into the content creation space how she got in touch with Sam Bankman-Fried and got him to speak with her after FTX’s collapse the conversations Tiffany had with SBF during his house arrest  Tiffany's response to the rumors about a romantic relationship with SBF how Tiffany reacted to the DOJ reaching out to her for information before the SBF trial  why she decided to go to the courtroom every day during the SBF trial Tiffany’s unpleasant encounter with SBF's mom, Barbara Fried how Tiffany feels about crypto, and why she doesn’t consider herself a "crypto influencer" what Tiffany’s career plans are now that the SBF trial is over Thank you to our sponsors! Arbitrum Foundation Popcorn Network Phemex Guest Tiffany Fong, Crypto content creator Links Unchained:  RollingStone: The Crypto Whistleblower at the Center of the Sam Bankman-Fried Storm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yeah, I think that we, I would say that we became friends and we talked about more than just the case and everything. We did talk quite a bit about his mental health and just, you know, things like his insecurities growing up and a bit about his family and his relationships and things like that. So I think that I got to know him really well over those house arrest months. And obviously it's not a very popular thing to say to call Sam Bakeman Preet a friend. Probably won't get received too well. but I would be lying if I said that I didn't consider him a friend. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained, you're a no-hype resource for all things Crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin, author of The Cotopians. I started covering crypto eight years ago, and as a senior editor of Forbes, was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full-time. This is November 24th, 2023 episode of Unchained. Femex, a leading cryptocurrency exchange,

is celebrating its fourth year anniversary and preparing to give back to the community by sharing a portion of its revenue. Curious about how? Join Femex's Web 3.0 Revolution and secure your stake in the future. Happy birthday, Femex. Valtcraft by Popcorn is your no-code DeFi toolkit for building automated, non-custodial yield strategies. Learn more on vaulcraft.io about how you can supercharge your crypto portfolio. Arbitrum's leading layer-2 scaling solution offers you ultra-cheap and lightning-fast transaction. all with security rooted on Ethereum. Visit arbitram.io today. Today's guest is Tiffany Fong, Crypto Content Creator.

Welcome, Tiffany. Hi, Laura. I'm so excited to be on your show. I'm so excited to have you. You started out as a customer of Celsius, and you, sadly, lost the majority of your life savings when it went bankrupt. And now you have become this pivotal character in this Sam Bankment-Free case.

You've told the FTX saga to legions of people. You've even become a central player in terms of leaking documents to the New York Times, which, you know, might have landed SPF in jail. But before we get to all that, I have long been wondering what it is that you did before all these adventures in crypto. God. I mean, yeah, this is like not a super interesting answer, but I never worked a full-time nine to five job. I went to college at USC and I technically ended up studying communications, which is, I guess, in the realm of journalism, but I had no intention of being a journalist or, I guess, crypto content creator. I actually originally got into USC as an architecture major, but I just switched to communications

because it was easier. And yeah, I was just mostly lazy. Like, I mostly wanted to, like, socialize. But after college, I just ended up backpacking and staying in hostels for a couple of years. And I met a bunch of digital nomads who taught me how to sort of set up online stuff. stores. So I actually just set up a bunch of online stores during that period after college, and a lot of those are still running. And a lot of them are still making me passive income, which allows me to sort of have the free time to be focusing on all this crypto fraud.

Oh, wow. Okay. And so the Rolling Stone magazine said that you just are doing these stores that are kind of print on demand. So they don't actually really take much work from you. Yeah. So it's basically making a bunch of silly little designs. I mean, you can make designs of anything, just on Photoshop or whatever, and basically upload the PNG files onto whatever item you want to sell so it can be T-shirts or mugs or anything you want. And you can end up, I don't know, you can set it up on the back end to where these products show up on stores like Etsy, eBay, Red Bubble, et cetera. And when a customer places an order, it just prints automatically onto the the item and sends to the customer. So you basically don't have to do anything. Like I haven't logged

into these stores in probably over a year, and I'm still making some money on them. Also, this sounds like a pitch, like I'm selling some course. I'm not selling a course on print on demand, but I'm just saying that this is just what I did after college and how I'm able to still like do this without having to, I don't know, work a full-time job on the side. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. So then, as we mentioned, you became a customer of Celsius. You, you know, sat to say lost most of your life savings. and then you started leaking some Celsius documents. How did that happen and why did you start doing it? Yeah. So back in June 2022, Celsius Network halted withdrawals. And at the time, I was going through a breakup already. So I was already just really depressed. I was in one of the lowest periods and points

of my life already. And then Celsius shuts down and I left 3.1 bitcoins, 11.60, somematic, some Ave, et cetera, which was worth well over $200,000 at the time I deposited it. But at today's prices, it's like in the $100,000 or so range. Which is still a lot of money, but anyway. Still a lot of money, yes. And I was just incredibly depressed. I didn't know what to do with myself. I was just like pretty much immobile in bed for months and months. And I was just need, I felt a lot of anxiety. And I was like, I need to just start doing things. I need to try getting out of bed and doing stuff. So one of those things that I tried doing was just starting a YouTube channel and starting to post on Twitter. I really didn't think anyone was going to watch my first

YouTube video. It was my first video was literally me talking about how I lost almost $200,000 or around $200,000. And I posted it and I figured no one's going to watch this. Like I have zero subscribers here. It's pretty much just going into the ether, but it felt somewhat therapeutic to just post about what I was really sad about. Well, part of it, because also my personal life was sad too. But yeah, it was mostly therapeutic and I actually got a bigger response than I anticipated. I think it got, I think it's sitting at like 80,000 views and it was my very first video and I expected zero views. So I kind of was just like, hey, I guess people are interested in this stuff. And I got a lot of comments from other customers who had lost money and they were

all kind of like sharing their despair and all were asking what's happening with Celsius. So I just ended up posting continual updates on the Celsius bankruptcy just for other people who had lost their money and might be looking this up every day like I was. And that turned into apparently employees inside of Celsius watching my YouTube channel and watching my Twitter account. So an employee reached out to me out of the blue and just said like, hey, I really like your YouTube channel. And I feel like there's some things that you should really know about and that maybe other customers should know about something along those lines. And he ended up sending me an audio file of an internal all-hand meeting. So when I first received, like when I first, like when I first,

got his messages, I was like, this is probably some, like, troll. This isn't a scammer. Like, I don't know what this is. But when I listened to the audio file, I could hear Alex Mishinsky's voice. And it was basically this secretly recorded file of a meeting. So I kind of freaked out about what to do, but I also knew that other customers should hear this audio, because it was them kind of describing their potential restructuring plans. So basically what they wanted to do with all of our funds that were trapped in Celsius. So to me, it was really important for other people to know about it. But I didn't know what to do with it. So after a few days of thinking about it, I actually ended up sharing it with the New York Times. So the New York Times

did a story on the audio and I ended up leaking the entire audio on my YouTube channel. And that actually, I guess, led to the second half of my story because Sam Baikman-Fried started following me on Twitter because of my Celsius leak. Yeah. So tell us about kind of that moment when you first, you know, made contact with them and how it evolved into eventually becoming an important leaker and content Freeder in the SVF trial and the FTX case. Yeah. So I was obviously like at the time that I posted that first week, I really wasn't prominent and I didn't have much of a following at the time. And I just saw a follow from Sam Bakeman Fried, who I honestly didn't know that much about. I just knew that he was a big shot in crypto. I knew that he had been on the cover of magazines,

but I didn't like, I wasn't even following him and I hadn't watched any of his interviews. So I vaguely knew that he was just a big deal. So I saw the follow and I just messaged him, thanks for the follow. I think that was my first like sort of noteworthy follower I had got. And we chatted really, really briefly that day. He just said, oh, I thought it was interesting that you posted that Celsius audio, something along those lines. And then we went several months without actually directly messaging. He commented on a couple of my other posts. And he also, I think, tweeted that he was following me because of my Celsius leaks, because I ended up posting a lot of other leaked, or a lot of, a lot more leaked information that other employees had sent me

over the next couple of months. So we went to a couple of months without directly speaking. But then once FTX just suddenly collapsed and everyone was in shock, I just remembered, oh, I've chatted with this guy once before in DMs. So we still have our DMs open. Might as well just contact him and say, like, hey, would you be willing to tell me your side of the story? So I messaged him on November 11th asking him if he'd be willing to chat with me. And you've actually chatted with him as well, haven't you? Yeah, yeah, of course. He's been on my show and, yeah, I'm working on a book about FTX. Oh, right. So you ended up hearing from him. So tell us, yeah, how you, how that relationship evolved.

Yeah. So when I messaged Sam on November 11, that was the day that FTC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. I really genuinely was not expecting him to respond to me. I mean, people in his position just shouldn't be talking to anyone in the first place. Like, I had watched FTC, or Celsius go down prior to this. And Alex Mishinke shut his mouth and just kind of disappeared off social media. But so I already wasn't expecting a response because of that. And I also figured I bet every major publication and every reporter in the world is trying to get a hold of sand. He's not going to respond to me. I'm basically like nobody.

So I just moved on with my life for a few days and just wasn't expecting a response. But five days after I sent that message at I think around like 1230 a.m. So like in the middle of the night, I was out on a date, I was out for drinks, and I just suddenly got a message from Sam Bakeman Free that said, yeah, I'd be happy to chat free for the next hour or so for what it's worth. And he sent me his phone number. So I just kind of scurried home from a date and hopped on the phone with Sam and didn't have any questions prepared, didn't even know that much about what really had happened at FTX or Alameda and just kind of tipsy, like hopped on the phone call. Yeah, so that phone call is posted on my YouTube.

video and I guess one bit of that phone call that ended up getting a lot of press attention was Sam Bankman-Fried sort of admitting that he donated a lot of money dark to Republicans. So that ended up sort of blowing up in the media as well as getting cited in the original FEC complaint against him. I honestly wasn't expect, I didn't know that that was going to be such a huge deal. I didn't actually know that that was a scoop when he was telling me because I hadn't listened to any of Sam's interviews prior to this. So I didn't know what things were public, were not public. So I didn't actually think that much of it when I posted it. But that that That sort of blew up in Sam's face a bit without me even intending to do so.

And then we hopped on another phone call on November 20th. So we had two phone calls before he was arrested in the Bahamas and thrown into prison. All right. So we're going to learn a little bit more about how Tiffany's relationship with SVF evolved. But first, a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible. Embark on an exciting journey with Femex, a top-tier exchange, celebrating its fourth year anniversary. Join and immerse yourself in a thriving community. early access and exclusive benefits await. Step beyond being just a trader and tap into

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Propel your project and community forward by visiting Arbitrum.io today. Back to my conversation with Tiffany. So what's so interesting is that you might be one of the people that had the most contact with SVF after he got arrested, well, actually was released on bail. So tell us about your relationship with SBF. You know, during that time when you were visiting him, did you feel like you were more like a friend or a quasi-journalist or, you know, how would you kind of describe what your relationship was like? Yeah. I guess it was a bit of both.

I mean, so to be honest, after I had released our first two interviews, and like I mentioned, that like the first interview actually kind of blew up in his face and got got him into, I guess, sort of some trouble since it got cited in his FEC complaint. I just wasn't expecting to ever speak to Sam again. I figured he was probably not pleased with how that turned out, and I was expecting to just move on with my life and not talk to him. And he would, yeah, like we mentioned, he was extradited to the United States, was released onto house arrest on a $250 million personal recontas had spawned. And the day, I believe, or the night that he touched back down at his parents' house

in Palo Alto, California, he texted me at, I think it was 3 a.m. And he just said, hey, finally back online. And I woke up to that message because I received him and I was asleep. And I just woke up and I was like, Sam Bickman-free texted me like, what? Like, I was not expecting to ever hear from him again. So I just, like we sent a few messages back and forth. And I just decided to sort of take a gamble once again and ask him if he was allowed visitors while he was on house arrest.

And once again, was not expecting him to say yes. because personally, I don't know too much about how house arrest works. I don't have a lot of other criminal friends or other friends facing any of this. So I just was expecting him to say no. But to my surprise, he just said, yeah, I'm a lot of visitors. I'd love to see you. So that was surprising to me. And that turned into my first visit to Sam's house on like December or 27th,

so a couple days after Christmas. Yeah, how would I describe our relationship? I mean, I obviously interviewed Sam throughout all of this. So certainly, like, it was a journalistic, whatever, I guess, relationship. I don't know what the correct word is, since I don't work for anybody. But I would also say that we did become friends. Like, I spent a lot of time talking to Sam over house arrest. And I did go into those conversations with a very open mind, to be honest.

I know a lot of people already sort of wanted to call him guilty before the trial. But at that point, we hadn't actually seen. any of the evidence. We hadn't heard all this witness testimony that both you and I were able to watch in person at trial. So, you know, obviously there were allegations against him, but I was actually genuinely open to at least hearing out his side of the story, you know, innocent until proven guilty, all that. So I was, I was open to it. And I was, you know, receptive at that point to at least giving him the possibility that what he was saying was potentially the truth. Yeah, I think that we, I would say that we became,

friends and we talked about more than just the case and everything. We did talk quite a bit about his mental health and just, you know, things like his insecurities growing up and a bit about his family and his relationships and things like that. So I think that I got to know him really well over those house arrest months. And obviously it's not a very popular thing to say to call Sam Bakeman Preet a friend. Probably won't get received too well. But I would be lying if I said that I didn't consider him a friend. And hopefully people don't get too mad at that statement, but I'm sure some people will. Yeah. I mean, it felt though, you know, I haven't read like literally every single one of your discussions or listened to them all, but it often felt like you were asking questions. And then

you would, you know, offer up your personal experience, but definitely felt like he was really doing a lot more of the talking. I mean, granted, I'm, you know, I know you haven't released every single thing. So yeah, maybe it's just held back some of those. This is true. And I, and I, I guess this is something like, I haven't actually read Michael Lewis's book going infinite, but I think I saw him on like some podcast or some interview. And Michael Lewis mentioned that Sam Bigman-Fried, like, never asked him a single question about himself. And I do think that that wasn't necessarily the exact case for Sam and I. I think he would ask me questions about myself.

But the ratio of the questions that I was asking Sam versus what he was asking me, it was certainly mostly me asking him questions, et cetera. But I would offer up things about my personal life. I mean, Sam now knows my dating history. And Sam, it was like, my depression, like the way that I struggle with depression. So it was certainly conversational. It wasn't like me just kind of holding the mic up to him. I was certainly, it was certainly back and forth.

And I talked to him about like my experiences with depression and everything. So, yeah, in that way, I would say that I would have called him a friend around that house arrest, period. And what do you think his motivation was in talking with you so much? And also, you know, like giving you documents and things like that. Yeah, I think there's, it's probably a bit complex and there's probably a few different things that play into it. But I asked Sam even on our very first phone call, why are you talking to me? I'm not even a big reporter. And he basically just chalked it up to, well, I'm sort of just following a gut instinct, which is sort of vague. And he also said that he throughout our conversations, he's mentioned that he actually likes that I don't work for a publication, that I don't work for some mainstream media, you know, New York Times or whatever. because he said that meant that I don't have an editor, and that means that I can actually say exactly what I think and say what I want and don't have to be hold into an editor

or the views of the publication. So he's mentioned that that's something that he likes, and he said that he generally just wanted to talk to not people who were necessarily going to be sympathetic to him. That's what he said, but people who were free thinkers and just said what they really thought. So that's what he's said. Obviously, I don't know if that was completely the real reason

why he wanted to talk. But I would say that, like, I assume just using common sense that he hoped that I would ultimately say positive things about him. And I also think that he was just really lonely at that time. I mean, I remember on one of our first phone calls, and I don't even think that I posted this part, because on our second phone call, we actually ended up talking on the phone for several hours, and we just ended up sort of talking about our personal lives. So I didn't post that stuff. But he said that, like, his only friends for the past several years, years were the people that he worked with. And I would imagine that his closest friends were the people that testified against him and were the star witnesses. So I guess obviously he was

certainly lacking in the, actually he said that he was lacking in the social life department. So I think he was definitely lonely. And I don't think he's necessarily the kind of person, as I guess a lot of men aren't. I don't think he's the kind of guy who wants to necessarily constantly talk about their emotions. But I think there is a degree of him wanting to sort of vent didn't have listening here during that time. And I was that. And I, since I'm someone who also struggles with depression and things like that, I was very sensitive to those issues and asked him quite a bit about, like, how he was doing mentally and emotionally. So he probably needed that during that time period. Yeah. So I'm sure that this question may be a little bit annoying,

but it is something that's out there. And you gave a great quote to Rolling Stone about this, which I will reference in a moment. But I do have to ask, like, do you think part of the appeal for him, too, was that he was, attracted to you? Sam has never explicitly, like, said anything about my appearance. In fact, like, he's never even commented on my appearance and he's never, like, been, like, weird or anything like that towards me. He's always been really, really polite, but I've also talked to him about, like, his past relationships and his taste in women and things like that. And he said that he just really doesn't even care about, like, someone's appearance at all, which I guess, you know,

I guess we can look at his dating history. I don't know if he, like, necessarily seems to be. to go for like, they're headed supermodels, I guess, you know, you could say, like most, a lot of billionaires would. He's actually never, like, noted my appearance at all in our conversations to, like, expressing that he was attracted to me. So, I mean, but I'm very aware of, very aware of the rumors. So I. Yeah, which, by the way, people, if you haven't read the Rolling Stone article, it's so funny

because when the reporter, which is Tracy Wang, by the way, from formerly of Coin Desk, in case you don't know, Tiffany, fun. I'm just going to let people's imagination run wild, which I thought was the best answer. I just loved it. That has been my go-to response. I mean, because honestly, the rumors, okay, those rumors started even before I met Sam in person. So, I think, I think that even before we had our first phone call, I was, like, tweeting at him when he was, this is probably a really insensitive, these were insensitive tweets, but he was tweeting about FTCS, like, kind of shutting down. And I was, like, are you breaking up with me? I don't know. It was, stupid, those were stupid tweets, but I was just being silly. So that's, that started. And then,

I think there were rumors. Actually, there were rumors even when Sam initially followed me on Twitter, because at the time, I think I had like less than 5,000 followers. And people were like, why is Sam Batesman-Fried now following Tiffany Fong? They thought there was some like weird, like relationship happening. So those rumors started really early on. And I just have been running with them. Like, on social media, I've made Sam a Valentine's Day. I made him a Valentine's Day post. Like there's this picture. Maybe we can find it for your, for your show. But there's a picture that of like someone holding a sea urchin, but it really looks like Sam Bakeman Free just in a swimming pool naked. Sounds weird to describe it. But I've been reposting that for Valentine's. Wait, the sea urchin. It looks like a sea urchin. It's like someone holding a sea urchin. If you see the picture, you'll know what I'm talking about. That's why I feel stupid describing it. But it looks like Sam. But I've been posting it for Valentine's Day. I made it happy Valentine's Day, my love to the SBF Sea Orch. And so I've been running with it. So I'm going to let everyone just wonder what is happening with Sam and I threw a little wink.

Okay. Well, you know, so just a couple of things on that. So first of all, people probably know that famously there was a journalist that was covering Martin Schrelli while he actually, it was before he went to prison. And then when he was in prison, they fell in love and became boyfriend and girlfriend. and then she wrote all about it in like L or something, I think. And I remember because, you know, I'm a journalist. I was like, what the? And then what I thought was so funny was that like one of the early days of the trial,

you took a photo with Martin Schroly and he tweeted something like, Oh, she's mine now, SPF or whatever. Yeah, whatever it was. Yeah, I tweeted new boyfriend and Martin Schrelly tweeted something. I'm just collecting all the criminals. But anyway, so it does happen. It does happen. Yeah.

I'm going to collect all the white-collar criminals, and they're all my boyfriends. So, yeah. Great. And maybe you can, you know, get Elizabeth Holmes, too, if you like. She's married, but, you know, knows. Oh, my God. I'm so unhinged. I say so many bad things on social media.

But, oh, well. So I'm going to ask you about something else that it's not something that started as a rumor, but I'm sure there are now rumors about it because there's not a lot of details. So the Department of Justice reached out to you for, information before the trial. So tell us about that. What happened there? That was very scary. Yeah, the DOJ reached out to me a couple of weeks before the trial began. And I freaked out. Like, I didn't know what to do. I was hoping that that wouldn't happen. And since so many months had gone by of me chatting with Sam and not receiving anything, I was like, I don't think that they're

going to reach out to me. I'm also like, who am I? Like, I'm this random girl on social media. I'm not that. Like, I'm not some big deal. And I'm also, um, I wasn't actually there during the actual FTX and Alameda collapse time. Like, I only got in touch with Sam after the collapse, really. So I wasn't really expecting it, expecting it at that point. So I have like a major freak out. I was just in bed anxious, so anxious every day. Because I was like, what do I do? Like, just getting a message with email being us, DOJ.gov. I was like, like, that is so, there's something just really nerve-wracking about that. And, um, yeah, I didn't know what to do. I think I, I honestly like ghosted them for like full week.

And then I just reached out to like a lot of people that I knew and would like, are there any lawyers you could connect me to? So ultimately I, I lawyered up and the lawyers handled that for me. So I didn't have to end up having to turn anything over to them, thankfully. Oh, they wanted like information that you got from Sam.

Yeah, I didn't actually like personally respond. So I don't know exactly what they were asking for, but they were requesting my records like related to Sam. So I don't know like if there was something specific they wanted. but I honestly just don't even want to go into a relationship where I'm sending information to the government. And it just, I don't know, I don't want to start off with that. Okay. Yeah. And you just felt uncomfortable what? Because like that might help convict him or like what was the exact thing you were concerned about?

I think there's probably a lot in there. Like part of me would feel like at that point before trial, like I said, I think that Sam trusted me and I would have called him a friend. And also, so that was a part of it. Like I would feel guilty if I was like sort of cooperating against him secretly behind his back. It would just feel sort of wrong for me morally. And although I know some people would probably be really happy for me to do anything in my power to get him more prison time. But just for me, it just wouldn't feel right. And I also just talked to other journalists. Like I reached to other journalists and I was like, what would you, what do you do in this situation?

Have this ever happened to you? And most journalists I spoke with were like, like, oh, you just say no, that you're a journalist. You don't send information. So that was the response I got from other journalists. And obviously, I've never been put in this position before, so I didn't know what I was supposed to say. Well, the interesting thing is I have a feeling that the DOJ wouldn't do it to a journalist because they know the response. But since you're in a great category, that's why I think they did. Completely. I think that's like when I was asking, yeah, I just feel like they're not, yeah. They're not reaching out to like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal.

When I was asking my like journalist friends at the New York Times, for example, they were like, like, oh, they would never even try to do that to us because they know what the response would be. And they're like, I figure they probably think you're naive. They probably think you're just going to like hand things over when you don't have to, like, if you're working in a journalistic capacity. So I like didn't know my rights at the time. And thank God I lawyered up. But yeah, I didn't want to necessarily like cooperate against someone that like had trusted me.

Like that would just feel wrong to me. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't. I ultimately got out of that. Thankfully. That scared. That scared me a lot.

And then so you attended the trial every day of SBF. and that was where we finally got to meet in person for the first time. Finally. And I was curious, like, why you decided to do that. Like, obviously, you know, for me, like, I kind of had to for various reasons. But, you know, you, you know, as we've been discussing, you don't really have, like, an official job. You kind of work friends with him. So, like, what, you know, what was your purpose or, like, why did you decide to do that?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I have been reluctant to label myself as anything. I don't necessarily call myself a journalist or an influence or whatever. Oh, I forgot to mention in the last question that the DOJ did call me a journalist in one of their bankruptcy filing. So I was kind of like, well, you already called me a journalist. You can't really take it back now. But anyway, so like I am reluctant to like label myself as anything.

So I mostly was just curious about the trial because it mostly was that I had talked to Sam so much. He'd obviously given me his side of the story to a really great extent. and I really wanted to see Caroline Ellison in person. I wanted to hear from everyone cooperating against him. I wanted to see who I really believe. Because I obviously didn't go into Sam and I's conversations just blindly believing everything he said. I was certainly open to hearing him out,

but I wasn't going to be like, this guy's, I'm sure, telling the truth. Like, that certainly wasn't the way that I was going into it. So I really wanted to hear any other evidence against him and wanted to compare what he had told me to what we heard in court. So that was one of the major things. And also, like, since, like I said, like Sam was sort of my friend, I obviously cared on a personal level about how everything turned out. And I was very curious as to how he'd react and respond and everything.

But I guess, as you've seen, he's not the most reactive and emotional person. So I guess we didn't see too much a, you know, crying or anything. But I was just really curious to see that all pan out. And this is just like the craziest detour my life has ever taken. like this is so interesting and I feel like the trial was like the culmination of everything that I'd been sort of listening to and reading about for an entire year. So I just knew I had to be there. Yeah. And I have to say your videos on it were amazing. And you know, you told me that you do all your videos yourself with no help from anybody else, which I was just like, wow, I don't know how

she does it. Thank you. So kudos to you for somehow like, yeah, because, you know, you figured out like you, you know, put little photos in your videos and you do that thing where you like cut your breaths out. So it's like cut, cut, cut. I know there's just like you clearly put a lot of effort in. And I'm like, how could you be in there for eight hours a day? And then also time to make these videos. They're amazing. Oh my God. Thank you. That is so nice. It's coming from you because you obviously put out really good stuff. But oh my God, it was that was like the most strenuous period of my life. Like I didn't know that I had that capacity in me to even do that because I mean, like, I, said, I haven't worked like a nine to five job. I haven't, I didn't know that I could put myself

through something like that, but that was a whole month. I mean, like you probably experienced, it was a month of like very little sleep. I was like, there was some nights where I probably got like one hour of sleep and was going to trial, sitting in trial all day like you and then trying to put out a video. And it was so, that was really stressful. I had a couple little mental breakdowns during that period off camera, but there were some moments where I was just like, I can't do this anymore. And then I'd get on camera, be like, okay, guys. So today at trial, let me tell you Caroline Luce. But I was having a lot of like mental breakdowns behind the scene because it was just so much to

deal with. I know, I know. I was, I was struggling. I was struggling. So speaking of struggling, this is,

you know, a sad thing, but I have to ask you about it. There was one day after trial where Barbara Fried, St. Bigman Fried's mother, yelled at you. Tell us what happened there.

You know, my heart goes out to the parents for sure. Yeah. Um, however, you know, there's, there's a lot of information out there about, you know, what, uh, kind of they also did. So anyway, but tell us your story. What was your interaction with her? Totally. I mean, so the thing is that I have obviously been to Barbara and Joe's house before, Sam's parents' house before. And I, Sam never explicitly told me that they disliked me. But also I think Sam is sort of a, I've noticed that Sam is very non-confrontational. Like he's never

confronted me about anything that I've ever said or posted about him, even though I don't know that I say the most flattering things about him. But he's always very polite and non-confrontational. So he's never told me they didn't like me. But during the visits to his house, I sort of got that sense. So for example, like I'd be talking to Sam in their study. We'd be sitting on like the couches and like his mom or dad would occasionally sort of pop their head into the room and try to say something to Sam about dinner or whatever. And then see that I was there and and they just sort of like immediately shut the door. Granted, I just figured, hey, they're lawyers.

They probably don't like the fact that he's talking to anyone. They probably know that they shouldn't like offer commentary into this conversation. So I didn't think too much of it. There were a couple of times that I tried to introduce myself and be like, hi, I'm Tiffany. And they did not take kindly to it. They kind of just shut the door. So I was like, okay, whatever, didn't take it personally. I was like, okay, move on with my life.

But I also just kind of got the sense that like oftentimes Sam would, I don't know, sometimes when he would say that he's free, he'd be like, oh, well, my parents are like kind of still like hanging around so maybe like come later. So I mean he kind of gave, I kind of was picking up on a sense like maybe they don't necessarily like me. But I actually had a one-on-one conversation with them nor been formally introduced to either of them. But there was one day that I was leaving court a little bit early and I was in line to pick up my electronics. As you know, you have to pick up your electronics after court. And Barbara freed, I saw her sort of heading in the same direction. And in my head I was like, okay, we're about to,

we're about to stand right next to each other. And I was like, okay, I've been to this lady's house before. I should probably say something. I'd probably say hi. I should probably be nice. And I actually, like you mentioned, I am sensitive to the fact that they're obviously going through the hardest time of their lives. Obviously, there are some allegations about them, but I don't want to accuse anyone of being

guilty of anything if they haven't actually been charged and we haven't seen evidence. So I wanted to approach her very nicely and timidly and meekly. So I was nervous. We were standing next to each other. And I just, in like the softest voice possible, was like, hi, I know you must be going through a really, really hard time. And I just wanted to say, I'm sorry. My name's Tiff.

I don't even think I introduced myself. I think I just stopped there and just said that you must be going through really hard time. And I'm so sorry. And then Barbara just kind of immediately snapped at me and was like, who are you? And I was like, oh, my name is Tiffany. I've actually visited theater house before. And then she was like, oh, I know who you are.

And then she just sort of very loudly began accusing me of having written a very unfortunate article about Sam. As much as I make these YouTube videos and I, like, I have a substack where I've posted some of Sam's conversations. Like, I don't know if she's referring to one of those, but she said I wrote a very unfortunate article about Sam about our conversations. And I was just really flustered and I kept asking her for clarification. I was like, wait, sorry, are you talking about videos? Which article are you talking about? And she just kept repeating that really loudly. It was basically like just yelling at me at that point, like as we were exiting the courthouse.

And she started trying to pull something up on her phone. And then we just kind of left in a huff and was like, I can't even talk to you right now. And I guess my retelling isn't as necessarily dramatic as it was in person because there were a couple of people who witnessed it all happen as we were exiting the courthouse and they were standing outside. And a couple people approached me and were like, oh my God, are you okay? Like, why was that woman yelling at you so much? And they didn't actually know that it was Barbara Freed. So I had to like awkwardly be like, that was Sam Bickman's free to. mother and she like hates me. So yeah, I don't know if that was the most extinct or effective way of

telling that story, but apparently she's not my biggest fan. And I haven't actually spoken to Joe one-on-one, but Barbara doesn't like me. Yeah, I mean, so you and I text a little bit about this when it happened, and I think, I don't know, this is just my opinion, but since you were actually there, you can tell me if you think it's correct. That was the day when the Vox article, where Sam was talking about how, you know, a lot of like what he said was just lies. That came out in court.

And so since she kept talking about this article, I didn't know she thought that you were the Vox reporter. Because the handle that the Vox reporter has, it's Kelsey Twok, T-U-O-C, which just sounds like an Asian last name. She's not an Asian person. I don't know why it's. I don't even know if Twok is like an Asian thing, but it just sounds like it is.

Right. It kind of does sound like an Asian last thing. Well, I would have loved for that to be the reason. But actually, the time in which Barbara and I left court that day, it was before they brought up the Kelsey Piper article. So that actually hadn't come up yet. And like the fact that I told her that I'd visited her house and I don't think Kelsey Piper had visited Sam since Sam was not pleased with her after her article. Like Sam told me that that was the only interview that he regretted giving because he didn't mean to give that interview. I even asked him, like, were you upset that I posted about the political donation? And he was like, it's fine. Like, he seemed a little bit reluctant to say it was fine. But he was like, it's fine. Like, Sam is so non-confrontational that he told me it was fine. And he's never expressed that he was upset at anything that I had said. So that's why I was really taken aback by the parents. But yeah, I would love for that to be the reason. And I obviously, I think Sam was really upset at Kelsey Piper. But yeah, I didn't know that there was this much resentment towards me. But I guess the mom is not pleased. And I mean, granted, during my trial coverage, I wasn't necessarily like vouching for Sam's innocence. Innocence, I certainly was trying to cover the things that came out in court.

So a lot of things that came out in court were not great for Sam. So I'm not sure if it had anything to do with that. But I also was like, I kind of doubt that Barbara Fried is sitting around watching my YouTube channel. And she kept saying that it was about an article. So I am still a little bit confused by that interaction. I hope she was mixing my, like, some other article up for my. article, but I don't know. That was an awkward situation. Yeah, because, yeah, you mostly do videos. So unclear. Maybe at some point this will, yeah, we'll find out the truth or what it was

that she meant. Maybe. So one other thing that I just needed to ask you about is you recently tweeted that you find it ironic that people call you a crypto influencer because you think crypto's dumb. Can you explain that? Oh, my God. So, I mean, I got into crypto really early, but, not because I found crypto at a young age and thought this was like going to change my life. I got into crypto because one of my relatives was Bitcoin mining back in 2010. And he gave me my very first Bitcoin in 2011. So I've been holding Bitcoin for a really long time. But when I received that as a Christmas gift, I was still in high school.

And he, like, I was expecting like a normal gift that a high school would want. And he handed me some, I think, I don't remember he handed me. He basically, there was like a paper that he wrote like, I'm giving, give you a, a Bitcoin. And I was like, what the fuck? I probably can't curse. I was like, what the hell is the Bitcoin? And he was like, well, it's worth like, I think it was worth like, definitely under $100. I think it was maybe it was worth like $20. I don't know. Don't quote me on the exact price of what it was. Something where I was not super impressed by the gift. And he was, um, he was just like, well, hold on to it. And you'll be happy. You have it. And I did hold on to it. And I am glad that I

have held Bitcoin for so long. Granted, that Bitcoin is now inseltheist network, so it's no longer with me. But obviously, I'm very pleased to see the price go up. I'm pleased about all of that. But I never got into crypto initially because I found out about it and became very enthusiastic about it. So I think it sort of fits with my personality. And I'd say that the main thing I was excited about crypto and Bitcoin was the fact that the price was going up. So I can't, I'm not going to lie and say that I'm someone who's like in it for the tech. I'm not in it for the tech. I'm mostly in it for the number to go up. I can see some use cases and I can understand the arguments and I understand. And I still hold some crypto and I still think that it's a good part of it's

diversified portfolio. But I'm certainly not someone who is evangelical about it. If my friends asked me for investment advice, I wouldn't tell them to go yellow at all into crypto or Bitcoin. So I just like that to be known because I think that when people, hear the word crypto influencer. People think of someone who is shilling crypto or is evangelical about it or is promoting like tokens or whatever and those aren't things that I do. So I do try to every once in a while separate myself from the, I guess, idea of a crypto influencer as most people probably think of it in their head. So it's mostly that. I don't actually like hate crypto. I'm happy to keep holding it. I'm happy to like I guess maybe check out some new projects potentially, but I'm not

evangelical and sometimes I just make that very very well-known on Twitter. Okay, okay. Well, now I have to ask you, of course, since the SVF trial is over, what are your plans? You, you know, found yourself at the middle of this huge saga and one of the, at least one of the big milestones is over. So what are your next steps? Oh my God. I feel like I'm going to have a little existential crisis about all of this because, yeah, I feel like even my YouTube channel, I didn't start YouTube because I expected to make it big on YouTube. I'm still, I haven't made it big on YouTube, but I'm just saying I didn't expect it to go anywhere. It was more me trying to vent and just get out some emotions at that time. So I didn't have plans for my YouTube channel, turned into covering

Celsius and it turned into me getting all these leaks, which I never would have expected in the first place, and then turned into me getting a front row seat to the biggest financial fraud scandal of our generation with Sam Bickman-free. So all of this was unexpected, and I didn't have a plan going into any of this. And it did sort of take over my entire life for the past, I guess, a year or a year and a half. I've really enjoyed doing all of this. It's been like the most exciting and unexpected period of my life. But yeah, now I don't, I didn't have some big plan to do after this. So it's sort of bittersweet now that the trial is over because I feel like I've been obviously talking to Sam and trying to learn about this case and was wondering what was going to end up

happening with Sam and his criminal trial. And now that it's over, I do feel a little bit lost. Obviously, I think a lot of people are just telling me, like, you need to keep making videos about crypto fraud, et cetera, which I guess is a possible option. It's just that, like, I feel like I had my whole heart in the Celsius story because I lost money. And I had, like, I was personally invested in what happened to Sam since I got to know him very well. So I'm just, like, wondering what thing is going to like really grab my attention from here on but um i don't plan on leaving i don't plan on like stopping doing anything i want to continue on with all of this i do need to figure out what to do i mean you've been doing this for such a long time so you

you've got this down path but i do feel a little bit lost right now and i'll probably have a little like crisis when i get back home for thanksgiving well i mean i think like it seems like you so it's what you're saying is you want to continue with the content creation yeah Yeah, I just don't know what direction I want to go. Even like when I think about the crypto fraud stuff, I'm kind of, I don't know if the people who are interested in that stuff are necessarily people that I like necessarily agree with or would get along with in real life. I feel like some people who watch the crypto fraud stuff are very like pitch for heavy people. Like personally, I obviously don't think Sam is, don't think Sam was innocent. And I've been trying, I've been relaying what I saw at trial pretty fairly.

I think, but I do get a lot of comments from people who are like, that man needs to, like, I hope he gets explicit, you know, like people want very explicit, like violent things to happen. And that's not something that I am excited about or agree with. So I'm kind of like, is that the audience that I want to cultivate? Like people who are that angry at life and would want violent, horrible things to happen to anybody out there. So I've been trying to think through, like,

if that's necessarily the path that I want to go down and continue, like, growing that next like that exact audience because I'm not I'm not someone who ever wishes like violence on anyone so it kind of scares me that it seems like a decent portion of my followers are that way and I guess also some people have like been reaching out to me on like doing a bigger project on FTX or whatever and I don't really know how to even do any of those kinds of things like I haven't really thought about all that stuff and I put all those conversations kind of on hold during trial so that's something I also need to think about but I don't have a plan and I don't have, I haven't come to a conclusion about what to do with that stuff either. So,

sort of at a weird limbo phase of my life now. Yeah, no, I get it. But it's, I think it's a good place to be where you, like I tweeted about this when I reached the 10 year anniversary of working for myself. And I talked about how just like when you pursue your own joy and passion, like things will unfold for you. And I think that's what you did. Like you found this story interesting. And then you got involved. And, you know, you know, when you, put your heart and soul into something, like, it just, yeah, creates good energy around you and that brings more good things. Totally. It has been, I really loved doing all this so far. Like, it's been really fun. So not planning on stopping, but I do need to think through what exactly

I want to do or if I want to pay date or anything like that. But yeah, it's been interesting. It's been a crazy year. Yeah, well, we will have to keep tabs on what you are up to next. So Tiffany, I have so enjoyed this conversation. It's been a pleasure having you on Unchained. Thank you. Thank you, Laura. You're the best. Thanks so much for joining us today. Unchained is produced by me, Laura Shin, without from Kevin Pukes, Matt Pilchard, Juan Arvanovich, Megan Gavis, Nelson Wong, Shoshank, and Market Couria. Thanks for listening. Unchained is now a part of the Coin Desk Podcast Network.

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