FTX was supposed to be a different kind of crypto currency exchange.

Sure it was. It was new and safe and secure — really — and would allow even relatively unsophisticated investors to make scads of money without batting an eye. Or something like that.

It was the next big thing. And the old rules no longer applied.

But they did. Again. As they always do.

There’s almost no one who can explain what it was that was supposed to make FTX different from the crypto exchanges that preceded it. To be sure, there’s almost no one who can explain how any crypto exchange works. But still.

When FTX imploded late last year and wiped out billions of dollars of investor money, it seemed that the newest next big thing was an awful lot like many other next big things. Consider just one, from a couple of decades earlier: Enron. The Houston-based energy-trading firm was said to have completely rewritten the rules of the game, tossing out the old playbook in favor of a new set of standards.

Not surprisingly, when Enron fell to pieces, it did so in a hurry. One day it was the high-flying firm with its name on a baseball stadium, and then it was bankrupt.

On Thursday, federal prosecutors unsealed a host of new criminal charges against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. There were a dozen new charges to go along with the eight that had been previously filed. (He denied the earlier round of charges.)

It’s good to see that authorities are continuing to pursue the case against Bankman-Fried. Because the collapse of Enron, er, make that FTX, cannot simply be waved away as just one of those things.

Was Bankman-Fried, only 30 years old, in terrifically over his head? Perhaps. Or did he possibly know exactly what he was doing all along, running a high-tech Ponzi scheme that was destined to crumble to dust because it was based on nothing? That, of course, cannot now be known, though the facts could well come out in a trial.

Consider this: Last year’s Super Bowl had no fewer than four crypto companies — including FTX — selling their wares during expensive, flashy commercials. Not a single crypto company advertised during the big game this year.

There were lots of beer ads, though. It was almost like the old advertising rules were still in force.

— Tribune News Service