As the FTX cryptocurrency exchange imploded last fall, Tom Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback, made an urgent phone call.He dialed Sina Nader, FTX’s head of partnerships. The exchange’s staff was in the middle of a crisis meeting with its beleaguered founder, Sam Bankman-Fried. Mr. Nader couldn’t answer. “I never would’ve expected to decline a call from Tom Brady,” he said.Mr. Brady had reasons to be concerned. As an “ambassador” for FTX, he had appeared at the company’s conference in the Bahamas and in TV commercials that promoted the exchange as “the most trusted” institution in the loosely regulated world of crypto.His money was also at stake. As part of an endorsement agreement Mr. Brady signed in 2021, FTX had paid him $30 million, a deal that consisted almost entirely of FTX stock, three people with knowledge of the contract said. Mr. Brady’s wife at the time, the supermodel Gisele Bündchen, …
