Disgraced crypto boss Sam Bankman-Fried tried to sign Taylor Swift for $100m

Sam Bankman-Fried attempted to do a whopping $100million (£82million) sponsorship deal with Taylor Swift to promote his crypto-currency exchange FTX. 

Bankman-Fried was a huge fan of ‘Tay Tay’ – as she is known by her fans – and FTX held discussions with the pop singer about doing a blockbuster deal. 

But talks fizzled out just months before the exchange’s dramatic collapse last month, leaving millions of customers out of pocket. 

The 30-year-old entrepreneur also wanted to strike a commercial deal with Swift, allowing fans to use non-fungible tokens to pay for the singer’s live concerts. 

Bankman-Fried courted the rich and famous and FTX struck deals with American football legend Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bundchen, as well as Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka and American basketball players Shaquille O’Neal and Steph Curry. 

Swift would have been a major scalp for Bankman-Fried who also rubbed shoulders with Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. 

But according to the Financial Times, internally, many senior executives were against the deal and urged Bankman-Fried to drop his pursuit of Swift, describing the nine-figure sum as ‘front of the soccer jersey level prices’. 

Sceptics also questioned whether the singer, who is the second-most streamed artist on Spotify this year, would reach the target demographic for would-be cryptocurrency traders. 

Swift is one of the biggest-selling artists in the US and her latest hit Anti-Hero has topped the charts for the past six weeks. 

After collapsing early last month, FTX faces accusations of misusing clients’ money through spending millions on advertising and sponsorship.

It splashed out £111million to secure the naming rights to Miami’s basketball stadium and forked out £16million on an advertising campaign which featured Brady and Bundchen last autumn. 

It also managed to sign up comedian and actor Larry David who described FTX as ‘a safe and easy way to get into crypto’.