Hi, I'm Sam Kessler

I'm an investigative reporter, editor and programmer based in New York City.

Currently, I am the deputy managing editor of tech and protocols at CoinDesk, where I cover power, influence and conflicts of interest in the crypto industry and try to demystify blockchain technology.

I previously studied computer science at Harvard and led the Harvard Political Review. After graduating in 2019, I spent two years at Google in its widely respected associate product management (APM) program, where I used a mix of data analysis, design and programming to build new products.

I was on a team of CoinDesk reporters that earned a 2023 Gerald Loeb Award for our coverage of the FTX collapse, and my work has been cited in outlets including the New York Times, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

Let's get in touch

General: My personal email address is [email protected]. I'm also on X, LinkedIn, and Telegram (@skesslr).

Encrypted: For news tips and anything sensitive, please use my Signal (skesslr.16) or ProtonMail ([email protected]).

Some work I'm proud of...

How North Korea Infiltrated the Crypto Industry

How more than a dozen crypto companies were duped into hiring North Korean developers — part of a coordinated scheme to funnel money to the state's nuclear program.

In this longform investigation, I discovered more than a dozen instances of crypto companies in the U.S. and abroad hiring undercover North Korean software developers — part of a coordinated scheme by the Kim regime to evade sanctions and funnel money from high-paying foreign tech jobs to the state's nuclear program. Additionally, I used blockchain data to prove North Korean hires were behind the multi-million dollar heist of a major crypto firm.

To identify North Korean developers at crypto protocols, I built custom blockchain tracing software to find pathways between crypto companies and suspected DPRK blockchain wallets. To confirm my reporting, I uncovered FBI emails and conducted interviews with dozens of blockchain founders, employees and researchers.

Eleven companies, including well-known crypto firms, confirmed my reporting on record, publicly disclosing for the first time that they had inadvertently hired North Korean workers.

My report described North Korea's methods in detail, and I published some of the fake IDs, passports, resumes and headshots used by undercover DPRK developers to access to crypto companies.

The investigation sent shockwaves through the industry, showing North Korean developers are far more ubiquitous in crypto than previously recognized.

Unveiling Trump's Crypto Venture

Revealing Trump's crypto venture and its backers for the first time through leaked internal documents.

I was the lead reporter on CoinDesk's investigation into Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto project, obtaining internal company documents that enabled our team break details of the venture—and the controversial cast of characters behind it—to the world for the first time.

Our coverage made waves in industry circles and also broke out into the mainstream, with citations from The New York Times, AP News, Wired, Bloomberg, CBS and many others. Our stories even got a shoutout on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

Fraud and Conflicts of Interest at Crypto Firms

Exposing major financial wrongdoing in crypto, including a $13M secret bribe at a leading crypto VC and conflicts of interest at one of the industry's biggest startups.

In a series of articles throughout 2024, I used a combination of data reporting techniques and conventional reporting methods to discover conflicts of interest, investor fraud, and ethical lapses at major crypto companies and venture firms.

I found that a partner at Polychain, a top-tier crypto VC, accepted a $13 million bribe from Eclipse, a buzzy crypto startup, in exchange for the fund's pariticipation in a $50 million Series A funding round.

My colleague Danny Nelson and I traced blockchain payments to uncover a major conflict of interest scandal at EigenLayer, 2024's most prominent crypto startup. The company secretly pressured smaller projects to kick back tokens to its employees.

I discovered that the CEO of a crypto casino backed by Galaxy Digital, a big-name crypto VC, secretly gambled away virtually all of the company's funds.

Several of my reports went viral among crypto insiders, sparking an industry-wide reckoning concerning conflicts of interest, and driving policy changes at some major venture firms and companies.

The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried

CoinDesk was first to report on problems at FTX, and our landmark coverage of the Sam Bankman-Fried saga earned us a 2023 Gerald Loeb Award.

CoinDesk's Ian Allison leaked the internal company balance sheet that led to the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire, and I earned a 2023 Gerald Loeb Award in Beat Reporting for contributions to our team's coverage of the FTX collapse and its fallout. In addition to publishing scoops, analysis and breaking news in the wake of FTX's collapse, I attended every day of the Sam Bankman-Fried trial and helped lead our agenda-setting court coverage.

CoinDesk's FTX coverage made us the paper of record for one of the largest financial frauds in history, and my own reporting was regularly referenced by many of the largest mainstream outlets.

Investigating Terra

Revealing Terra founder Do Kwon's secret identity and his previous crypto failures ahead of his empire's $40 billion collapse.

Terra was the $40 billion stablecoin ecosystem that crashed the entire crypto market when it collapsed in 2023. On the eve of Terra's collapse, I scooped that the project's controversial creator, Do Kwon, had secretly masterminded a previous crypto blowup under a pseudonym. My investigation, co-authored with colleague Danny Nelson, made a huge splash when it was published. Some consider it the final "nail in the coffin" leading to Terra's demise.

I was in the middle of a weeks-long investigation into Terra's founders and flaws in its "algorithm" before it imploded, so I was in a good spot to lead our coverage of the incident as the project fell to zero, its founder was arrested, and the Chicago trading giant Jump was implicated in the fallout.

My Terra stories were cited by New York Magazine, Financial Times and Bloomberg (including Matt Levine's Money Stuff), among others.