RAMNIK ARORA was one of Sam Bankman Fried’s closest associates at FTX before the crypto exchange’s spectacular collapse.
Charged with investor relations he knew more about the finances of the company than almost anyone else.
But what is the story behind Ramnik Arora? And what is his net worth?
Who is Ramnik Arora?
Ramnik Arora was born in India in 1987.
He studied at Kanpur university in his home country before moving to the US to study a master’s degree in mathematics and computer science at Stamford’s Indian Institute of Technology.
Upon graduating he started working at quant trading firm IV Capital in New York.
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However, he lasted just nine months there before taking on a role at Goldman Sachs in 2012.
After two and a half years at the investment strategy group he made the leap to crypto, joining Facebook. In June 2015
He was tasked with working on the social media company’s blockchain-based Liba token, spending a total of four years at the firm. However, in 2020 he was ready for a change.
In a media interview he admitted to being frustrated at Facebook and its work culture.
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“After some point of time you start re-evaluating things in life and I was at that stage where I was doing that, and there were some other personal issues which were coming to a close – predominantly immigration issues. So I had the freedom to think about things,” he said.
“I became super bullish on crypto, but working on a crypto company within Facebook is still a Facebook company.
“The culture wasn’t there but a few of my friends who I developed over time who were working in crypto were telling me about all these amazing things which were happening.
“I decided that I wanted to move to a crypto company. I think there are some cultural things that I look for in a crypto company and at the start I was talking to different people and somebody told me about Sam [Bankman Fried].”
Arora’s move to FTX was literally confirmed overnight. The finance researcher sent the crypto exchange’s founder a message on LinkedIn saying he would be interested in talking – and SBF replied just minutes later.
“Instantly, within two minutes I get a reply back that Sam is free for the next 75 minutes and he’ll hang out at a particular zoom link so I get sent a zoom link,” Arora said recalling their first conversation.
While Arora was based in the US, Bankman Fried was in Hong Kong where it was 4am.
The Indian-American said: “By 6am we had decided we were going to go forwards with this.”
At FTX Arora took on the role of Head of Product and was responsible for overseeing the rollout of new products and also talking investors through the business plan of the business.
Working 20 hours a day, he is largely credited with getting in the money that led to the exchange being given a net worth of $32billion.
While unconfirmed, his close involvement with the money side of FTX has led to speculation that he was aware of the financial malpractice responsible for the firm’s collapse.
The FTX empire crashed when it emerged Sam Bankman Fried had been siphoning off client’s money to make risk investments at one of the crypto exchange’s sister companies.
Since FTX declared bankruptcy, Arora has kept a low profile deleting his social media pages and making no public statements.
What is Ramnik Arora’s net worth?
Before the collapse of FTX, Ramnik Arora was thought to have a net worth of over a billon dollars. He owned a stake in the cryptocurrency company, giving him a sizeable fortune.
Before FTZ went bust, Sam Bankman Fried admitted that several of his closest confidants at the firm were billionaires.
However, the bankruptcy of the crypto exchange means Ramnik Arora now has a net worth of virtually zero.