Psychoactive drugs and the bankruptcy of the cryptocurrency giant FTX

The world of cryptocurrencies has been rocked this month by the economic meltdown of the FTX exchange and its sister crypto investment company, Alameda Research.

Within a week, FTX has gone from being the third largest company in this sector, in terms of number of users and exchange volume, to declaring bankruptcy.

Similarly, its founder and main shareholder, Samuel Bankman-Fried (also known by his initials SBF), lost an estimated net worth of more than $10 billion and became insolvent.

FTX’s downfall has been attributed to negligent economic practices, a poor and messy management style, excessive spending on advertising and real estate, and SBF’s excess weight within the company, as well as his peculiar personal characteristics. . For example, SBF lived in a luxury apartment with 10 friends and had held work meetings while playing online video games.

There is one aspect that, however, has been little commented on. It is about the possible relationship between the drop in FTX and the consumption of nootropics, that is, drugs aimed at improving cognitive functions by SBF and, in general, in the company.

The illicit use of psychoactive drugs that are not innocuous is highly defended by transhumanist currents. But it is also known to be widespread, for example, among students seeking to effortlessly improve their school performance.

The use within companies has been less studied. This aspect of the FTX case has been dealt with in particular depth by the American psychiatrist Scott Alexander. Specifically, there are indications that SBF used both monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) and stimulants. To top it off, it also recommended the use of cognitive enhancers by employees in the work environment.

What are the effects of these medications?

MAOIs seek to prevent an enzyme from breaking down excess dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine in the nervous system. As a consequence, they allow more dopamine (the neurotransmitter for motivation) to be available. They are a type of psychopharmaceutical used to treat mental disorders, such as depression or anxiety, and also neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s.

On the other hand, stimulants are used to treat problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or narcolepsy. Its mechanism of action is also related to increasing brain levels of dopamine and norepinephrine.

Stimulants, used correctly, are considered safe medications, although they can cause moderate side effects such as sleep problems, decreased appetite, rapid heartbeat, and also changes in mood or way of being. MAOIs can also cause similar side effects. However, their proper management is much more complex, since they can interact dangerously with other drugs that modify serotonin or dopamine levels, as well as with some common foods and drinks.

SBF chronically sought to increase his dopaminergic levels to improve his performance, work capacity and attention using drugs that, although safe when used under medical supervision, are by no means innocuous.

Dopamine is a critical neurotransmitter for multiple brain circuits and functions such as movement, motivation, or mood. All these systems are in a situation of homeostasis, that is, of balance. This implies that the modification of dopamine levels in one of them will have consequences in the others that are difficult to predict.

Thus, in many cases, the challenge in therapy in psychiatry is to find the drug that leads to a reasonable balance between symptom reduction and side effects in the other systems. Specifically, an excess of dopamine can lead to consequences as varied as hallucinations, symptoms of psychosis (paranoia, delusions, magical thinking and, therefore, loss of sense of reality), euphoria, and symptoms related to impulsivity.

Have psychostimulants been able to influence the fall of FTX?

There are different plausible mechanisms by which stimulants could have been related to criptofiasco from FTX and Alameda. Changes in dopamine have been related to modifications in the perception of risk and the devaluation associated with time.

There are works in the scientific literature, both in neurological patients and in healthy controls, indicating that dopaminergic increases tend to be associated with people taking more risks. Simultaneously, these people value rewards more in the short term than in the long term (one example of many was carried out by our research group). Many of the decisions of FTX and Alameda Research have to do with investing in short vs. long term, so small changes in this perception could have had profound economic effects.

Similarly, increased dopamine levels are also associated with compulsive shopping and gambling addiction. It is not difficult to characterize what happened at FTX as a case of compulsive trading and pathological gambling.

In the case of stimulants, recent studies indicate that their effect in healthy people is more related to a feeling of increased productivity and greater speed, but also to an increase in the number of errors and a reduction in efficiency. In an investment company, a balance is necessary between the number of operations carried out and their reliability, since small errors can have catastrophic consequences.

Similarly, although its consumption leads to a subjective sensation of energy without the need for rest, this does not imply that the body experiences it in the same way. Using cognitive enhancers to increase performance can lead to lack of sleep and chronic fatigue that alter decision-making capacity in the medium term.

Furthermore, the combination of MAOIs and stimulants is especially discouraged. It is difficult to predict what its effect on these behavioral variables would be, but it is likely to be multiplicative in many cases.

It seems proven that SBF was taking various psychoactive drugs with the aim of improving his cognitive function, without any indication that there were medical reasons for it.

In any case, it is difficult to know to what extent the fact that SBF took (and recommended that its company take) psychotropic drugs directly influenced the recent economic debacle. It is not clear exactly what drugs he was taking, or their dosage, and these drugs can have variable effects in different people. But the mere possibility should serve as a cautionary note and help us reflect on the ethics or consequences of drug use with the aim of achieving neuromejoras.

Gonzalo Arrondo, researcher in the Mind-Brain group of the Institute for Culture and Society, university of Navarra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.