Reading Time: 3 min Sam Bankman-Fried and Bernie Madoff are two of the most notorious financial criminals of all time. Both men ran Ponzi schemes, which are fraudulent investment operations that pay early investors with money from new investors. However, there are some key differences between the two cases.

Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was more overt, as he promised investors unrealistic returns and fabricated account statements. Bankman-Fried’s scheme was more complex, as he used his cryptocurrency exchange FTX to funnel customer funds to his hedge fund, Alameda Research.