Netflix will release The Altruists, its drama about the FTX collapse, on November 19, with all eight episodes arriving together. Julia Garner plays Caroline Ellison and Anthony Boyle plays Sam Bankman-Fried in a series built around the relationship behind one of crypto's most damaging scandals.
The streamer released a new trailer on October 8, giving the project a fresh push ahead of its premiere. The story follows two young financial prodigies whose ambitions to reshape finance ended in criminal fraud, rather than presenting the exchange's rise and fall as a purely technical failure.
The new trailer foregrounds the relationship
In the accompanying feature, creator and co-showrunner Graham Moore describes the contradiction that drives the drama:
Over the course of the years that our show depicts, Sam and Caroline, with the very best of intentions, talked each other and themselves into committing a number of terrible crimes.
Moore believes they began with a sincere desire to help others. That is his interpretation of their motives, not a replacement for the findings in the criminal case. His account of escalating lies gives the series its narrative spine, with private decisions carrying consequences for people far outside the couple's orbit.
Co-showrunner and writer Jacqueline Hoyt describes the relationship as a catalyst:
Through their relationship, they almost dared and cajoled each other into building up this enormous company that was going to change the world. They were going to challenge the system. But through their relationship, they ended up breaking the system, and tearing an $8 billion hole in FTX.
The October 8 feature also describes how the actors built their performances. Garner had only two recordings of Ellison to study, while Boyle had a much larger collection of video and audio. Moore says he wanted fully developed characters rather than impressions, including imagined moments away from cameras.
A broader cast behind the exchange
The earlier August 13 announcement supplies the wider production details. Alex Lawther plays Sam Trabucco, Karan Soni plays Nishad Singh and Eugene Young plays Gary Wang. Matt Rife appears as Ryan Salame, while Madison Hu plays Constance Wang.
Moore and Hoyt are co-writers and executive producers. James Ponsoldt directed the first episode, and Higher Ground Productions and Vox Media Studios are among the producing partners. The series is inspired by New York Magazine reporting, giving the adaptation an established reporting base while leaving room for dramatized scenes.
The financial harm behind the drama
The relevant historical court record is less ambiguous about the conduct. In its March 28, 2024 sentencing release, the Justice Department said Bankman-Fried received 25 years in prison after being found guilty on seven fraud and conspiracy counts.
Prosecutors described more than $8 billion stolen from customers, more than $1.7 billion in fraud against FTX investors and more than $1.3 billion against Alameda's lenders. These are historical case amounts across different victim groups, not a calculation of today's remaining customer losses.
The department said customer deposits were channelled to Alameda despite assurances that they were held separately. Uses included investments, political contributions, real estate and repayment of Alameda loans. It also described changes to the exchange's code that allowed the trading firm effectively unlimited withdrawals.
The aftermath remains relevant beyond the screen. As previously reported by Apex, government-linked wallets were tracked moving assets associated with Alameda Research and the Bitfinex hack toward likely institutional deposit addresses. Our coverage distinguished those transfers from evidence of an executed sale, a reminder that custody and recovery questions continue to matter.
That business history is the weight behind the show's intimate framing. Audiences will be watching an interpretation of its central figures, while the fraud involved customers, investors and lenders whose money financed decisions they had never authorized. The full limited series arrives on November 19.