Crypto News Site CoinDesk Wins Prestigious Polk Award for Sam Bankman-Fried Scoops

CoinDesk’s Ian Allison and Tracy Wang won the financial reporting award, Long Island University, home of the awards, announced Monday. Past winners in that category include The Wall Street Journal’s series on Theranos and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ stories on the so-called Panama Papers.

Established in 1949 to honor murdered war correspondent George Polk, the Polk Awards are among the most prestigious awards in journalism and emphasize “investigative work that is original, resourceful and thought-provoking.” The trio of honored CoinDesk stories exemplified these qualities.

“This is an important milestone not only for CoinDesk, but for crypto media in general,” said Michael Casey, CoinDesk’s Chief Content Officer. “For all that Ian and Tracy’s incredible reporting revealed – and the fallout it unleashed – the crypto industry will continue to have a significant impact on the world. It’s important that it is covered with the kind of investigative, well-informed, professional journalism embodied by these two the reporters and their attentive, dedicated editors.”

The industry-shattering Nov. 2 story from Allison, a senior reporter, came from a source’s tip that Sam Bankman-Fried’s close trading firm, Alameda Research, was on shakier financial footing than was widely known. Allison set to work finding evidence and nailed it by getting the company’s balance sheet, which was not a public document.

It showed that a significant portion of Alameda’s billions of dollars in assets secretly consisted of FTT, a kind of digital monopoly money issued by Bankman-Fried’s better-known FTX crypto exchange.

The resulting story raised concerns about the stability of Alameda and FTX, questioning Bankman-Fried’s image as a white knight capable of stopping struggling companies and as an “adult in the room” in a field notorious for flight -by-night outfit. and fraudsters. The article debuted into a world where FTX quickly became a household name thanks to a marketing blitz featuring Larry David, Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen.

Within days, the price of FTT fell and Bankman-Fried agreed to a bailout from rival exchange Binance. Almost immediately, Binance got cold feet, as revealed by another Polk-winning scoop from Allison that instantly drove down prices throughout the crypto market. Hours later, Binance confirmed it was withdrawing from the deal.

Wang, a deputy managing editor, provided the third CoinDesk scoop honored by the Polk Awards: A story revealing that Bankman-Fried and nine associates lived together in a luxury condominium in the Bahamas and at times dated each other while running his companies — including the fact that Bankman-Fried and Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison had once been a couple. The piece raised concerns about nepotism, secrecy and conflicts of interest, and previewed the tone of a scathing report issued soon after about FTX’s extremely lax administrative procedures.

Nine days after Allison’s first story, Bankman-Fried’s companies filed for bankruptcy protection. Not long after, Bankman-Fried was arrested and the US Congress held hearings.

“As great an honor as the George Polk Award is, I have to say that Ian and Tracy deserve it for some of the best journalism I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing,” said Kevin Reynolds, editor-in-chief of CoinDesk. “They and the work they did is absolutely fantastic. I also have to give a shout out to Deputy Editor-in-Chief Nick Baker, who was a key partner to Ian and Tracy in bringing these market-shaking stories to life, and to the rest of the CoinDesk news team, who kicked off to cover the maelstrom that resulted from Ian and Tracy’s incredible scoops.”