The Secret Story of FTX’s Rise and Ruin Part 1  Mother Jones 51%

By Reveal74%

7/11/2026, 3:01:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Framing Effect, and Appeal to Emotion, with Attempt to Sell a Product or Service as the most egregious example at 32.3% saturation with 131 hits. Analysis detected 654 faulty-reasoning hits from 406 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 50.6% and a BS Rank of 51% (10,824 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 50.50% of the article peer group.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrives at the federal court in New York in February 2023. 
Timothy A. 
Clary/AFP/Getty 
Sam Bankman-Fried was once called the “crypto king.” 
But in November 2022, his company, FTX, imploded within a matter of days. 
All around the world, customers of the cryptocurrency exchange were suddenly cut off from their money. 
“I tried to withdraw an amount, you know, and it would spin and say, your, your withdrawal is pending,” says Tareq Morad, an investor from Canada. 
“I remember myself doing that around 7, 8 o’clock at night, checking back, going to look: Okay, did it go through? 
Did it go through? 
No. 
No. 
No.” 
Meanwhile, inside the company, employees were panicking. 
“All that we were told was there’s been a run on the bank and, somehow, money is missing and we don’t know who to trust,” remembers Caroline Papadopoulos, part of FTX’s accounting leadership at the time. 
This week on Reveal , through prison interviews with Bankman-Fried, his parents, FTX insiders, and customers, we take you through the frantic week of FTX’s collapse and the controversial and less well-known bankruptcy that followed. 
At a cost of nearly $1 billion, it has become one of the most expensive in history. 
Read the FTX bankruptcy estate’s on-the-record statement to Reveal . 
This is an update of a show that originally aired in September 2025 . 
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Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.8%Mother Jones: 4.0%Confirmation Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 1.1%Mother Jones: 0.7%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 8.1%Reveal: 5.1%Mother Jones: 3.3%Availability Heuristic8.1%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.3%Mother Jones: 0.8%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 1.5%Mother Jones: 0.8%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.4%Mother Jones: 1.2%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 20.9%Reveal: 14.3%Mother Jones: 7.2%Framing Effect20.9%This article: 5.9%Reveal: 2.3%Mother Jones: 0.6%Loss Aversion5.9%This article: 3.7%Reveal: 0.2%Mother Jones: 0.6%Status Quo Bias3.7%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 2.7%Reveal: 0.2%Mother Jones: 1.6%Optimism Bias2.7%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 4.7%Mother Jones: 1.9%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 6.9%Reveal: 14.9%Mother Jones: 9.6%Negativity Bias6.9%This article: 1.0%Reveal: 0.9%Mother Jones: 0.8%Self-Serving Bias1.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 1.0%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.6%Mother Jones: 1.0%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.5%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 2.0%Reveal: 2.4%Mother Jones: 1.5%Halo Effect2.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.6%Mother Jones: 0.3%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 5.9%Reveal: 2.2%Mother Jones: 1.1%Recency Bias5.9%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 1.3%Mother Jones: 0.3%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 1.9%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.6%Straw Man0.0%This article: 2.5%Reveal: 2.3%Mother Jones: 3.6%Appeal to Authority2.5%This article: 2.7%Reveal: 0.9%Mother Jones: 1.4%False Dilemma2.7%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 1.9%Mother Jones: 1.7%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 8.1%Reveal: 6.5%Mother Jones: 4.7%Hasty Generalization8.1%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.7%Mother Jones: 0.2%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.2%Mother Jones: 0.5%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 19.5%Reveal: 11.9%Mother Jones: 6.4%Appeal to Emotion19.5%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 1.5%Mother Jones: 1.1%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.6%Mother Jones: 2.1%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.3%Mother Jones: 0.5%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.3%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 22.2%Reveal: 3.4%Mother Jones: 2.3%Anecdotal22.2%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 1.5%Reveal: 1.6%Mother Jones: 1.4%Ambiguity (Equivocation)1.5%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 15.3%Reveal: 3.2%Mother Jones: 1.8%Unattributed Quote15.3%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 2.0%Mother Jones: 1.5%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 9.2%Mother Jones: 9.2%Biased Writer Voice0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 4.7%Mother Jones: 1.8%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 4.8%Mother Jones: 4.5%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Reveal: 0.0%Mother Jones: 0.3%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 32.3%Reveal: 9.6%Mother Jones: 0.7%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…32.3%

406 words analyzed.

Speakers

3speakers28%attributed speech292writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 2 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 16 words • 0.0% coverageTareq Morad • 26 words • 100.0% coverageTareq Morad • 21 words • 0.0% coverageTareq Morad • 4 words • 0.0% coverageTareq Morad • 1 words • 0.0% coverageTareq Morad • 1 words • 0.0% coverageTareq Morad • 1 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 7 words • 0.0% coverageCaroline Papadopoulos • 36 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 35 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 10 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 0.0% coverageMother Jones • 24 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 4 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 6 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 6 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 24 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 11 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 24 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 100.0% coverage
Selected voice

Caroline Papadopoulos

100%flagged-word coverage
36 attributed words32% of attributed speech89% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Unattributed Quote+100.0 ptsWriter: 0.0%Caroline Papadopoulos: 100.0%100.0%Attempt to Sell a Product -36.6 ptsWriter: 36.6%Caroline Papadopoulos: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.