The crypto giant FTX and its affiliated companies have started the process of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with founder Sam Bankman-Fried stepping down as CEO.Over the past week, the exchange faced the equivalent of a bank run as observers and customers called into question whether the exchange was both liquid — meaning it could come up with currency on demand to pay customers looking to withdraw funds — and solvent, meaning its loans and investments were worth more than its debts.The exchange was able to leapfrog competitors thanks in part to the presence of Bankman-Fried, an unassuming physics graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who'd done a three-year stint at a Wall Street quantitative trading company and who was devoted to the philosophy of effective altruism, which dictates that charitable giving should be conducted for maximum impact.The unraveling of FTX was precipitated by a Nov. 2 news article on the crypto news website Coindesk.com, which published a leaked balance sheet showing that assets of an affiliated trading firm run by Bankman-Fried called Alameda Research were heavily dependent on FTX's proprietary token, FTT.Despite reassurances from Bankman-Fried about the financial health of FTX, within two days, FTX was swamped with customers asking to withdraw their holdings in FTT, causing its value to plummet by 72%."