Bankman-Fried got a message saying MoneyGram International Inc. was for sale and spent a few seconds considering whether the company could be a good bet. [...] “Meh,” Bankman-Fried wrote back.

“Every minute you spend sleeping is costing you X thousand dollars, and that directly means you can save this many less lives,”

These days, Bankman-Fried lives in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. FTX is planning to build a 1,000-employee campus overlooking the ocean. For now it’s headquartered in a one-story red-roofed building near the airport.

I ask him about his trip to the Super Bowl. “I don’t know if ‘fun’ is exactly the word I would use to describe it,” Bankman-Fried says, scratching an itchy patch on his arm. “Parties are not my scene.”

When he’s not at the office, he crashes at an apartment with 10 or so roommates, though it’s a penthouse at the island’s nicest resort. Bankman-Fried figures as many as five of his co-workers are also billionaires. All are around his age.

He says FTX is running an honest market, checks customers’ backgrounds, buys carbon credits to offset its emissions, and is more efficient than the mainstream financial system. But it’s clear the main appeal for him is getting rich quick.

FTX is only the No. 3 crypto exchange by volume yet handles $15 billion of trading on a good day.

Instead of shares of Microsoft Corp., users are buying and selling Bitcoin, Ether, Dogecoin, and hundreds of other weird cryptocurrencies.

He wants to offer cryptocurrency futures, swaps, and options, which he sees as a potential $25 billion-a-day market. If he succeeds in taking over crypto, the mainstream finance industry is next.