Sam Bankman-Fried met with the prime minister of the Bahamas to discuss paying off the country's entire roughly $10 billion national debt

In a revealing excerpt from Michael Lewis's upcoming biography, "Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon," it's disclosed that Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, once contemplated the audacious idea of paying off the entire national debt of the Bahamas.

This remarkable proposal emerged during FTX's transition from Hong Kong to the Bahamas in 2021. The move was partly prompted by China's tightening regulatory stance on cryptocurrencies. Bankman-Fried saw the Bahamas as an attractive jurisdiction due to its crypto-friendly regulations, which could potentially legitimize the crypto industry.

However, convincing FTX's 40 employees to relocate to a distant country struggling with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic presented a considerable challenge. In response, Bankman-Fried explored the concept of personally settling the Bahamas' national debt. Such a financial infusion would empower the nation to undertake infrastructure projects like road repairs and school construction more easily.

Intriguingly, the notion of paying off the Bahamas' national debt was even discussed during a meeting with the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Philip Davis, underscoring the seriousness of Bankman-Fried's proposal. At the time of these discussions in 2021, the Bahamas was burdened with a national debt equal to roughly 103% of its gross domestic product, which amounted to approximately $11.6 billion according to data from the International Monetary Fund.

This anecdote provides a unique glimpse into the bold vision and philanthropic inclinations of one of the cryptocurrency industry's most prominent figures, Sam Bankman-Fried.