David Yaffe-Bellany

Yaffe-Bellany graduated from Yale UniversityYale UniversityYale University is a research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Its predecessor, the Collegiate School, received a charter in 1701. Trustees chose New Haven in 1716; the institution became Yale College in 1718 and Yale University in 1887. Yale provides undergraduate, graduate and professional education and has 14 undergraduate residential colleges. As of October 2026, its president was Maurie McInnis, who took office in July 2024. In 2026, Yale expanded aid for incoming undergraduates and celebrated its 325th anniversary.Open the full entry, where he served as managing editor of the student newspaper, the Yale Daily News, graduating in 2018. He has written for outlets including The New York Times, Bloomberg News, the Texas Tribune, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Washington Post, the Columbia Journalism Review, the Toledo Blade, and the New Haven Independent, and he also published a story about World Soccer Daily in Howler Magazine.⁠[1][2][3][3]

He began at The New York Times covering the food industry, with stories including a 2019 piece on how a tweet led to a shortage of Popeyes chicken sandwiches, a story on working conditions for trainers at the gym chain Equinox, and a 2020 story on a labor fight at Trader Joe’s during the COVID-19 pandemic.⁠[1][3][3][3]

He then worked as a legal reporter for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Businessweek, covering federal courts and writing magazine features on subjects including businesses’ lawsuits against insurers over pandemic shutdowns, the business struggles of professional tennis, and the de-radicalization movement that helps families win back relatives drawn into extremism.⁠[1][4][3][3][3]

After returning to The New York Times he turned to covering the cryptocurrency industry; his 2022 stories included “The Wolf of Crypto,” about Jordan Belfort, and “What Happens When Crypto Meets Ted Lasso.”⁠[3][3][3]

After FTX collapsed, he landed the first interview with Bankman-Fried following FTX’s implosion and went on to break stories about the criminal investigation into Bankman-Fried, his bail negotiations, his investments, his frantic final days at FTX, his group chat with other crypto executives, and his private communications with a co-conspirator. The work received a Best in Business Award from the Society of Professional Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) and was a finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award, the highest honor in business journalism.⁠[1][1][1][1][1]

Robert Kuttner, writing in The American Prospect, argued that The New York Times was doing “far too much cheerleading” for crypto and that its coverage of Bankman-Fried’s downfall was too soft, citing its comparison of FTX’s troubles to a bank run, its acceptance of his charitable claims at face value, and its soft-pedaling of the illegality of trading with customer funds; he also criticized a Times story about SEC Chair Gary Gensler as unfair. Kuttner named Yaffe-Bellany as “one prime source” of the paper’s charity toward Bankman-Fried and hostility to Gensler, said he had written the Gensler piece, and criticized his January 2022 story “The Rise of the Crypto Mayors” for presenting crypto as a smart way to pay municipal employees.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2][2][2]

He went on to write about people and events in the crypto industry, including the 2023 story “Their Crypto Company Collapsed. They Went to Bali,” about the founders of Three Arrows; the 2024 story “He’s Lost His Marriage, His Followers and His Lamborghini,” about the crypto influencer BitBoy (Ben Armstrong); and “This Man Did Not Invent Bitcoin,” about Craig Wright.⁠[3][3][3]

His New York Times Magazine feature “The Cryptocurrency Scam That Turned a Small Town Against Itself,” about a devastating crypto scam, was a finalist for the Livingston Award.⁠[3][1]

Beginning in 2025, he and colleagues reported on the rise of the Trump family’s crypto company World Liberty FinancialWorld Liberty FinancialWorld Liberty Financial is a crypto finance venture launched in September 2024, co-founded by members of the families of US President Donald Trump and Steve Witkoff, among others; it issues the governance token WLFI and offers the US dollar stablecoin USD1 as its main product. Over the Trump family’s large income from token sales, foreign investors taking stakes, and regulatory approvals, it has faced ongoing conflict-of-interest questions from members of the US Congress and ethics watchdogs; the company and the White House have denied any wrongdoing.Open the full entry, the links between two giant deals in which the U.A.E. got U.S. chips and the Trump team got crypto riches, how the sons of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick cashed in on the A.I. frenzy, and how crypto lobbying won over the president.⁠[3][3][3][3]

In 2026, he and a group of colleagues won the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for a series of stories exposing how President Trump’s return to power has enriched his family and his allies. The reporting was cited by dozens of media outlets and prompted investigations by U.S. senators, and one of the stories was read aloud on the floor of Congress.⁠[1][1]

As of October 2026, he lives in New York City, appears frequently on The Times’ podcast The Daily and its technology podcast Hard Fork, and has discussed his reporting on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and PBS NewsHour; he has also written features for The Times’ Sunday Business section and The New York Times Magazine.⁠[1][1][1]

Personal website: https://yaffebellany.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[1]

X: Public account: https://x.com/yaffebellany (opens in a new window)⁠[5]