[Updated] FTX

[dkbit98]

That doesn't give the company the right to sell your bananas and speculate on turning a profit. If they don't want rotting bananas, they shouldn't allow them. But they do, because they earn money from trading bananas shitcoins.

They don't make money only by trading shitcoins, they even created and sponsored creation of various crap coins like Solana, and all other exchange coins like FTT, BNB, etc.
Everything can find it's buyer if advertised a lot with pretty label, so you could literally sell shit if you package it in nice box and hire famous people to promote it publicly.
That is why you can see Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie and other actors promoting eating of worms and bugs.

[1714240376]

1714240376

[1714240376]

1714240376

[1714240376]

1714240376

[1714240376]

1714240376

[o_e_l_e_o]

Someone has to be really stupid to have portfolio like this:

I don't disagree. That is a moronic portfolio, and anyone holding it is likely to lose a large amount of their initial investment. But it is still their right to do so, if they want. The whole point of bitcoin is to let you do whatever you want with your own money, without third parties dictating what you can and cannot do. If someone wants to hold all their money in shitcoins, then that is their right, regardless of how stupid that decision may be. An exchange shouldn't be gambling with customers' deposits.

This is not how this platform works.
When you create account with them you are giving the full right to do whatever they want with your coins, invest in crap, to leverage trading, and you only have numbers on screen.

I'm well aware of that, but what I'm saying is that if exchanges simply kept whatever was deposited to them (instead of all this shady lending/leverage/trading/staking/other DeFi bullshit), regardless of how stupid those deposits are, then they wouldn't all currently be insolvent.

[examplens]

This is not how this platform works.
When you create account with them you are giving the full right to do whatever they want with your coins, invest in crap, to leverage trading, and you only have numbers on screen.

I'm well aware of that, but what I'm saying is that if exchanges simply kept whatever was deposited to them (instead of all this shady lending/leverage/trading/staking/other DeFi bullshit), regardless of how stupid those deposits are, then they wouldn't all currently be insolvent.

this only brings us to the necessity of partial regulation in the crypto industry. at least in this financial part.
some authoritative institutions would have to have insight or control of the allocated funds on the exchanges, where they would not be allowed to reinvest more than their users accepted.
they all offer profit on stakes, but nowhere can we see what percentage of users actually use it. the victims here are those who kept funds there just for trading, not those who believed that 50% APY on shitcoin could bring good profit.

[o_e_l_e_o]

this only brings us to the necessity of partial regulation in the crypto industry. at least in this financial part.

As I said in another thread, I don't even care at this point. I've long advocated to keep regulation out of bitcoin, but I'm fed up of bitcoin being associated with outright scams such as centralized exchanges and a whole host of centralized shitcoins. Bitcoin itself should remain unregulated, but I don't care if governments around the world regulate every centralized exchange so much that it is impossible for them to remain profitable and every single one of them shuts down. Sure, bitcoin would take a temporary price hit, but then at least it would be used as it was designed in the first place - peer to peer, without third parties.

Centralized exchanges were one of the worst things to happen to bitcoin.

some authoritative institutions would have to have insight or control of the allocated funds on the exchanges, where they would not be allowed to reinvest more than their users accepted.

Yup. Bring all centralized exchanges under even more centralized government control, just like banks, and let them run like the banks they've clearly been imitating for years. Highly risky, fractional reserve, printing new tokens out of thin air, and so on. I'll stick to actually owning bitcoin, not a worthless IOU from a scammer.

[OmegaStarScream]

Here's an interview with SBF that just got released: https://twitter.com/TiffanyFong_/status/1597627998626160640

He'll also be speaking at the Dealbook summit tomorrow: https://www.nytimes.com/events/dealbook-summit

[dkbit98]

Here's an interview with SBF that just got released: https://twitter.com/TiffanyFong_/status/1597627998626160640

I just listened about half of this interview and I had to stop it at that point.
This guys sounds like being on drugs, and he repeated said word f*cking several times like he is speaking drunk in some bar.
He claims that FTX US was not affected at all and it was only FTX international exchange that got in trouble, but they are still filing for bankruptcy.
If you ask me Sam and guys like him just used Bitcoin industry and his exchange with crap tokens to wash his money and money from other people.
Case closed for me, but I doubt he will ever be convicted or sent to jail, because he has strong political ties.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Case closed for me, but I doubt he will ever be convicted or sent to jail, because he has strong political ties.

Pretty much this. Bankers have been stealing billions from the common person to enrich themselves and their politician buddies for years. The last few months are just the first time that this kind of scam has been exposed in crypto, and everyone is acting surprised. The scammed and stolen money ended up in the pockets of the right people, and while doing so SBF simultaneously made a great case for regulators to swoop in and seize control over the entire centralized exchange ecosystem, which is important to the government in order to be able to keep absolute control over monetary policy and their money printer. He's pretty much a hero in their eyes, hence why he is being rewarded with speaking gigs and TV deals.

If there is enough public outcry to actually force an arrest, he'll get off on a technicality or with some meaningless slap on the wrist fine, just like all the other banks and corporations who screw over the average Joe.

[dimonstration]

Case closed for me, but I doubt he will ever be convicted or sent to jail, because he has strong political ties.

If there is enough public outcry to actually force an arrest, he'll get off on a technicality or with some meaningless slap on the wrist fine, just like all the other banks and corporations who screw over the average Joe.

I’m wondering how the heck there’s still no class-action lawsuit happening despite the damage done by SBF by mismanaging the FTX during his reign. SBF surely show shady transactions that worthy to have a case yet no one dares to start it since all affected user is just crying only on social media instead of uniting to make this class action possible.

I believe there are some popular law firm in US willing to take a case like this even on a pro bono basis since this will be a good advertisement to there firm.

SBF thick skin is surely back up by a god father high official.

[shogun47]

Case closed for me, but I doubt he will ever be convicted or sent to jail, because he has strong political ties.

Pretty much this. Bankers have been stealing billions from the common person to enrich themselves and their politician buddies for years. The last few months are just the first time that this kind of scam has been exposed in crypto, and everyone is acting surprised. The scammed and stolen money ended up in the pockets of the right people, and while doing so SBF simultaneously made a great case for regulators to swoop in and seize control over the entire centralized exchange ecosystem, which is important to the government in order to be able to keep absolute control over monetary policy and their money printer. He's pretty much a hero in their eyes, hence why he is being rewarded with speaking gigs and TV deals.

If there is enough public outcry to actually force an arrest, he'll get off on a technicality or with some meaningless slap on the wrist fine, just like all the other banks and corporations who screw over the average Joe.

The case you make here would make sense as the crypto community was usually confronted with unreasonable legal treatment, for example when you look at Ross Ulbricht's case. The guy got like two life sentences plus 40 years or something. I know there have been some unknowns but still, sending that guy to prison until his death is at least questionable. There has been a variety of other cases where people/scammers were cracked down on in the crypto industry, while bundling garbage mortgages, selling the bundles, bundling and selling them again, and accepting an accelerated suicidal rate because of ordinary people going insolvent led to no convictions at all as far as I recall. We'll never get to find out I guess, but when an exchange like FTX goes bankrupt, there are certainly people who literally lost their life existence.

Now they can say "hey crypto people, you have always complained that we were so harsh with you, but look, SBF is a free man. He made a mistake, but we don't want to be too harsh with you guys. SBF is a free man, but has to pay some penalty of course. However, and all of you will certainly agree, we now need some standards to be put in place."

That's a clever move and that is probably how it is going to play out. Eventually they know that the industry will grow one way or another. In a best case scenario from the governments' perspective there will be a vibrant network of centralized exchanges with limitless access for financial authorities to all the data. They are probably going to play with very well.

[o_e_l_e_o]

In a best case scenario from the governments' perspective there will be a vibrant network of centralized exchanges with limitless access for financial authorities to all the data.

We already know that centralized exchanges widely sell your data to various blockchain analysis companies as well as data brokers, and they freely share your data with governments around the world. (And of course all these entities circulate your data between themselves even more). Given that, I would not be at all surprised if it came out that some centralized exchanges were working even more closely with governments, or indeed if a government flat out owned a centralized exchange for the purposes of harvesting data and enforcing regulations.

[pixie85]

Breaking! SBF gets put against a wall and executed.




For those who had high hopes, unfortunately it did not happen literally, but during an interview.
Sam gets asked if he knew the funds were being sent to Alameda and he looks down down into the ground, avoids eye contact, starts talking abut how leveraged Alameda was.
When asked again if he knew, he answers "I can't speak for who knew what"  

This guy's mastered the art of conversation.
-Hey, Sam, do you know today's date? -I can't  say who knows what!  

The host responds by quoting FTX TOS where it's stated that no users funds can be loaned out but they were moved, and used to pay Alameda's credit.

In response Sam repeats "they can't be loaned out" like he has a mental breakdown

Full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hxf4Vf54PI

The part where he mumbles is at 4:30 but the whole thing looks unreal, like if there was a kid that said he has a degree in finances from Harvard and they start asking him some basic questions and he tries to do his best to look professional but he has no idea what to say. He knows he's full of shit, but tries to hide it as long as possible, thinking nobody will notice.

[JayJuanGee]

In a best case scenario from the governments' perspective there will be a vibrant network of centralized exchanges with limitless access for financial authorities to all the data.

We already know that centralized exchanges widely sell your data to various blockchain analysis companies as well as data brokers, and they freely share your data with governments around the world. (And of course all these entities circulate your data between themselves even more). Given that, I would not be at all surprised if it came out that some centralized exchanges were working even more closely with governments, or indeed if a government flat out owned a centralized exchange for the purposes of harvesting data and enforcing regulations.

In your last sentence you make two possible propositions to describe ways that governments might choose to get information through some form of exchange cooptation, and in the USA there would be almost no reason for the US Govt. to actually own or control an exchange outwardly - because in the past 20-30 years, the US Govt has figured out a variety of ways to absolutely skirt constitutional protections when they can make it appear as if there is no state action - including getting information and data that would otherwise be subject to constitutional protections such as the 4th amendments protections from unreasonable searches/seizures.  Likely the last 5-10 years have been worse in this regards because of how easy it has been to build a variety of backdoors and the various surveillance devices that many of us are carrying in our pockets - so governments may well have figured out that they do not need to own any of these entities in order to be able to get almost any and all of the data that they want to get.  One of our challenges going forward is to figure out if there are ways to carve out ways in which we are able to continue to stay private.. maybe some security through obscurity, but with the advent of strong computing power, there are so many ways that data can be sorted through in order to pinpoint individuals with way more precision than any of us would hope to be possible.

[o_e_l_e_o]

This guy's mastered the art of conversation.
-Hey, Sam, do you know today's date? -I can't  say who knows what!  

Spoken like a true politician. How long until he runs for office?

He knows he's full of shit, but tries to hide it as long as possible, thinking nobody will notice.

Precisely this. This is his fault, he knows it is his fault, everyone else knows it is his fault, but he's hoping that he can still convince people that somehow he isn't to blame.

because in the past 20-30 years, the US Govt has figured out a variety of ways to absolutely skirt constitutional protections when they can make it appear as if there is no state action - including getting information and data that would otherwise be subject to constitutional protections such as the 4th amendments protections from unreasonable searches/seizures.

Absolutely. There is a reason that the US government and its various departments is one of the largest customers of data brokers. Even with their mass surveillance programs there is some data they can't access without it being obvious they are breaking the law, and no judge is going to grant a warrant for such illegal data collection, so instead they can just go to one of the thousands of data broker companies and buy that data for not very much at all.

[royalfestus]

The Southern District of New York (SDNY) has charge the Government Bahama through the United State Government to arrest FTX CEO Sam Bankmand Fried to be arrested for prosecution. He is expected to be extradited to the US, although there no enough information on the time. However, he had spent a night in custody and will be in court today, maybe without bail for now until the decision on extradition.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/13/sam-bankman-fried-arrest-ftx-cryptocurrency-exchange-what-happens-next
SEC sue him: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-219

[OmegaStarScream]

It's good that he got arrested, but isn't the timing strange? Why do this now if he was scheduled to testify under oath today?
 
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/12/sbf-scheduled-to-testify-tomorrow-at-us-house-hearing-on-ftx-collapse

[JayJuanGee]

It's good that he got arrested, but isn't the timing strange? Why do this now if he was scheduled to testify under oath today?
 
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/12/sbf-scheduled-to-testify-tomorrow-at-us-house-hearing-on-ftx-collapse

I agree that frequently we need to attempt to be skeptical about what we are being told and the timing of matters, because it is likely to have been preferable to get testimony first, even if the testimony would have been by video - but that the same time, there could be some fast moving concerns, as well in regards to flight risk and even we might have to be skeptical regarding the extent to which the Bahamian government is actually cooperating rather than covering things up.. because if you recall there was evidence of FTX funds moving around and being anonymized and mixed (and fees being paid) which would have caused for a reasonable inference that those movements were happening from an entity that wanted to remain secret.. and then the Bahamian government claimed that it was them moving the funds.. which does not add up.

Another thing that does not add up is that some of the supposed responsible persons in the USA who had received FTX "donations" within a short time prior to the bankrupcy proceedings were announcing that they were "donating those funds to good causes" rather than returning those funds to the FTX bancrupcy proceedings.. which would be illegal to actually engage in that kind of conduct..

So my point is that there seems to be shenanigans at high levels that does not really add up...

.. but anyhow getting back to the timing of the arrest and the cooperation matter, I thought that there was an article that came out that asserted that Sam had said that he was not going to cooperate.. so initially he was going to cooperate, then he was not, and then he was and then the latest was that he was not going to cooperate.. (as stated in this article that was initially published about an hour before his arrest)  so maybe the latest break-down in his willingness to cooperate to testify might have contributed to the decision to arrest him sooner rather than later.

[pixie85]

It's good that he got arrested, but isn't the timing strange? Why do this now if he was scheduled to testify under oath today?
 
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/12/sbf-scheduled-to-testify-tomorrow-at-us-house-hearing-on-ftx-collapse

There are speculations that the arrest is exactly to stop him from testifying against the people in the government who helped him to run the scam for so long. Among these people is the name of the current SEC chair, who has some connections with the father of one particular polyamorous crypto trader who openly admits to taking hard drugs

So my point is that there seems to be shenanigans at high levels that does not really add up...

I find it especially strange that it seemed like Sam was untouchable when the whole thing blew up because there were no attempts to arrest him and he got an invite to come and testify. He wasn't summoned, just asked if he'd come and clarify things and he declined and tried to buy time. He was so full of himself for weeks and it looks like some people lost patience.

.. but anyhow getting back to the timing of the arrest and the cooperation matter, I thought that there was an article that came out that asserted that Sam had said that he was not going to cooperate.. so initially he was going to cooperate, then he was not, and then he was and then the latest was that he was not going to cooperate.. (as stated in this article that was initially published about an hour before his arrest)  so maybe the latest break-down in his willingness to cooperate to testify might have contributed to the decision to arrest him sooner rather than later.

Reminds me of how he said that he can't tell us what he doesn't know and he was the one with access to all the wallets but doesn't know how all that money ended up in his pocket. He sure changes his mind a lot and doesn't know anything.

Mr prosecutor, it wasn't me! I happen to have all this money but I don't know how it got there. I woke up one day and it was there so I bought a house with it and then a boat and a car and another house... I also bought a house for my parents and I paid a few million to Kevin O'leary and bitboy to vouch for me. Every day I was waking up and there was new money laying there no matter how much I was spending there was more and more because people were sending it to me. You have to believe me!

[bbc.reporter]

If you check Twitter and r/CryptoCurrency, you'll see a lot of warnings about FTX[1], especially now after CZ decided to liquidate FTT (FTX token).

On this, it appears that Changpeng Zhao knew something or some secret information that we ordinary observers in the cryptospace are not very much aware of this.

This was mentioned in social media. On October 6, a hacker steals $570 million of BNB in Binance smartchain. On November 7, CZ begins dumping $580 million of FTT. On the same day, FTX asked CZ to stop dumping FTT. On the next day, CZ said that he will stop dumping FTT if FTX buys $580 million of BNB.

Was this concidence or did CZ imply that might there be something more behind this?



Source https://mobile.twitter.com/stackersatoshi/status/1589971079703171072?s=12&t=cF4qhwqVDnGjycbctJQI3g

[JayJuanGee]

It's good that he got arrested, but isn't the timing strange? Why do this now if he was scheduled to testify under oath today?
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/12/sbf-scheduled-to-testify-tomorrow-at-us-house-hearing-on-ftx-collapse

There are speculations that the arrest is exactly to stop him from testifying against the people in the government who helped him to run the scam for so long. Among these people is the name of the current SEC chair, who has some connections with the father of one particular polyamorous crypto trader who openly admits to taking hard drugs

So my point is that there seems to be shenanigans at high levels that does not really add up...

I find it especially strange that it seemed like Sam was untouchable when the whole thing blew up because there were no attempts to arrest him and he got an invite to come and testify. He wasn't summoned, just asked if he'd come and clarify things and he declined and tried to buy time. He was so full of himself for weeks and it looks like some people lost patience.

Yep.. there is so much of these kinds of matters that are really strange in and of themselves, and even playing out strange in a live way, as we continue to learn more and more details that don't add up in one direction or another - so in that regard, it could take quite a bit of time to see some of the connections.. and maybe to find out if some other folks might end sharing in some of the blame - because even though it seems that Sam had a lot of dirt on his hands, it is still hard to believe that he would be responsible for all of the fraud and other illegal behaviors - and there may even be some connection in which Caroline was counseled to cooperate - but who knows.. she is likely NOT free from wrong-doing either - even though sometimes cooperation-agreements will end up providing immunity to some smaller fish because the prosecutors are aiming to go after BIGGER fish - and really would Sam be the BIGGEST fish in this?  perhaps?  ....and who is going to be able to know if there might not be other agencies that might want to get involved.. or maybe we likely will find out that there is going to be some frustrations that come out from discoveries that will likely continue to be unravelled through the bankruptcy proceedings... for example, some folks are NOT talking in regards to relationships that they had with FTX, Genesis or some of the related entities, but bankruptcy proceedings are showing that some of the folks had financial encumbrances - and that may well end up leading to further investigations regarding why some other previously (private or unknown) entities/individuals had financial encumbrances that were connected to the various players.. and do we really believe that property transactions are going to be allowed to stand, even if some of those might have been funds (loans?) that were transferred to others. 

Claw back.  follow the money?  And there was a lot of money?  did that money just disappear?  Some of that money did just disappear because it was fake. just made up.. it did not exist except on paper (or an inflated token).. but other money was actually transferred into real assets.. that's part of the explanation regarding why they had no bitcoin, hardly any stable coins.. just a bunch of shitcoins that were hardly liquid.. and then there still will be questions regarding whether there is any value there?  was there value at one time? did some real value actually get transferred to people or entities whether in the form of a loan or a payment for goods/services?  any weird connections regarding how the finances were carried out?  Of course, there were some weird connections.. but how does several $billion get spent?  When the value is real.. and based on actual deposits, it has to go somewhere, no?  We have quite a bit of failure/refusal to create records, and then there seems to have been a quite a bit of record destruction too.. which seems to have had been part of the rationale for the hacks.

.. but anyhow getting back to the timing of the arrest and the cooperation matter, I thought that there was an article that came out that asserted that Sam had said that he was not going to cooperate.. so initially he was going to cooperate, then he was not, and then he was and then the latest was that he was not going to cooperate.. (as stated in this article that was initially published about an hour before his arrest)  so maybe the latest break-down in his willingness to cooperate to testify might have contributed to the decision to arrest him sooner rather than later.

Reminds me of how he said that he can't tell us what he doesn't know and he was the one with access to all the wallets but doesn't know how all that money ended up in his pocket. He sure changes his mind a lot and doesn't know anything.

He likely did not realize how dumb he was being in regards to some of his "talking tours."

Mr prosecutor, it wasn't me! I happen to have all this money but I don't know how it got there. I woke up one day and it was there so I bought a house with it and then a boat and a car and another house... I also bought a house for my parents and I paid a few million to Kevin O'leary and bitboy to vouch for me. Every day I was waking up and there was new money laying there no matter how much I was spending there was more and more because people were sending it to me. You have to believe me!

That seems to be part of the strangeness in which Sam actually seems to know that he could not do certain things.. but at the same time, did the things that he said that he could not do.. He is not a very sympathetic character, even if he thought that his "speaking out tour" might cause folks to become more sympathetic to him. 

I wanted to mention that there were so many reporters, politicians and even persons of influence who were speaking sympathetic towards him for a long time, and I would imagine that sentiment is going to change at some point.. or at least it should.  I would think that some of those folks are going to want to create some distance from Sam.. even though they had been praising him so much in the past year or so.... which is just so weird, given the extent to which Sam should have been realized as a phony and his level of phoniness is really starting to show itself which seems as if it would force a lot of the reporters, politicians and persons of influence to back off on their bullshit backing of him.. and even that bullshit in which they took it upon themselves to donate funds that they received from Sam/FTX - as if they were exempt from clawbacks, those fucks. .. .let the claw backs begin.. and it does not even matter which party received that FTX/Sam money (buying of influence or whatever the fuck sam/FTX was doing with client funds).. . .or even if supposedly the received funds are donating to good causes , such as saving babies.. blah blah blah, if Sam/FTX gave them the money, that needs to go back to the bankruptcy estate in order that it can be properly distributed to creditors.

[coolcoinz]

I'm sure you've watched some of the hearings, so I'll share my thoughts because a lot of new and interesting things were said.
One interesting part is how dumb Sam and his friends really were. They weren't managing books for the company, had no board, most communication was done on slack, they had no control over money, they were giving loans to one another and to get money for something you just had to ask for it on chat... I don't get how a child of a pair of lawyers can be so oblivious to laws and regulations. On one hand he was trying to cover his tracks by offering Bahamian authorities to allow their citizens to withdraw their money if they'd take over the case, on the other he had no documentation that would cover his own ass from the prosecutors, like documents with signatures of all the FTX debtors. Now he can't even prove who in his company had access to what and who knew about what because what position you had was based on what role you got assigned by SBF via chat.

Another interesting part is that FTX was estimated to be missing 10B USD. It was said during the hearing that the liquidators had found and secured 1B and are looking for more because there are wallets on exchanges that they haven't checked yet but they know FTX had money there. They also suspect there are wallets they don't know about, probably implying that people behind FTX have hidden crypto.