[Updated] FTX

[Rikafip]

Its finally been revealed who are (beside his parents) the other two SBF's $250 million bond co signers: his parents work buddies from Stanford Andreas Paepcke and Larry Kramer. I am kinda disappointed that Kevin O'Leary wasn't one of them.

The signers were revealed to be Stanford University's Andreas Paepcke and Larry Kramer, who put up $200,000 and $500,000, respectively. Bankman-Fried's parents are both Stanford instructors. Paepcke is a senior research scientist while Kramer is a former dean of Stanford Law School.

Kramer told CoinDesk it was his friendship with Bankman-Fried's parents, Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, that led him to post bail for the now-disgraced former FTX CEO.

"Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried have been close friends of my wife and I since the mid-1990s. During the past two years, while my family faced a harrowing battle with cancer, they have been the truest of friends – bringing food, providing moral support, and frequently stepping in at moment's notice to help. In turn, we have sought to support them as they face their own crisis," Kramer said in a statement provided to CoinDesk.

"My actions are in my personal capacity, and I have no business dealings or interest in this matter other than to help our loyal and steadfast friends. Nor do I have any comment or position regarding the substance of the legal matter itself, which is what the trial will be for," Kramer added."

Paepcke did not immediately return CoinDesk's request for comment.

[1714204157]

1714204157

[Rikafip]

According to Bloomberg, another one of SBF buddies plans to plead guilty. Considering how involved this guy Nishad Singh was and how close was he to him (+ whatever Caroline and Gary already provided to prosecution), chances of SBF getting acquitted keep lowering.

Nishad Singh has been hammering out a deal with Manhattan prosecutors as they prepare to file fraud charges against him, according to people familiar with the matter. Such an agreement, which could involve cooperating with authorities, and would further isolate Bankman-Fried, who has pleaded not guilty to an eight-count indictment and is awaiting trial. The deal with Singh still has to be finalized.

As head of engineering, Singh played a major role in the day-to-day operations at FTX. He also had a close personal relationship with Bankman-Fried, living with him in a Bahamas penthouse. Singh was hired at Alameda in 2017 before establishing FTX two years later with Wang and Bankman-Fried. Singh helped write the software that the exchange was built on and contributed to the launch of FTX US in 2020.

[bbc.reporter]

@Rikafip. There might be a twist in the ending of this movie if Sam Bankrupt-Fraud's backers remain in support of him. It might become Sam being the witness against those who have already pleaded guilty because the backers cannot allow Sam to be the person on trial because if he pressured enough, he might begin talking and become a whistleblower on a much bigger conspiracy that might include people from the Democratic party, moneylaundering and the war in Ukraine.

[Rikafip]

@Rikafip. There might be a twist in the ending of this movie if Sam Bankrupt-Fraud's backers remain in support of him. It might become Sam being the witness against those who have already pleaded guilty because the backers cannot allow Sam to be the person on trial because if he pressured enough, he might begin talking and become a whistleblower on a much bigger conspiracy that might include people from the Democratic party, moneylaundering and the war in Ukraine.

If there is a much bigger conspiracy and if those involved are afraid of him talking, he will be dealt with in the same way Epstein was as that's the only way to be absolutely sure he will keep quiet. So no, I don't believe  in that scenario in which SBF testifies against those who already pleaded guilty and have deals with prosecution not to go to jail if they cooperate.


Edit: some good news coming for FTX Japan users as allegedly they will be able to start withdrawing their money by the end of this month.

According to a Feb. 17 report from Bloomberg, FTX Japan sent out notifications asking users to verify their account balances as part of the process to begin allowing withdrawals. Seth Melamed, chief operating officer of the exchange, reportedly said users could transfer assets to accounts on the FTX-owned Liquid Global platform, with withdrawals expected to begin “very soon.”

News outlet NHK reported that FTX Japan had roughly 19.6 billion yen in cash — more than $138 million at the time — when it ceased operations in November

[JayJuanGee]

@Rikafip. There might be a twist in the ending of this movie if Sam Bankrupt-Fraud's backers remain in support of him. It might become Sam being the witness against those who have already pleaded guilty because the backers cannot allow Sam to be the person on trial because if he pressured enough, he might begin talking and become a whistleblower on a much bigger conspiracy that might include people from the Democratic party, moneylaundering and the war in Ukraine.

If there is a much bigger conspiracy and if those involved are afraid of him talking, he will be dealt with in the same way Epstein was as that's the only way to be absolutely sure he will keep quiet. So no, I don't believe  in that scenario in which SBF testifies against those who already pleaded guilty and have deals with prosecution not to go to jail if they cooperate.

I agree with you Rikafip.

Sure there have been clown trials in the past, but clown trials can ONLY go so far, and if these matters actually went to trial, it would be almost impossible to keep out a variety of the angles and fleshing out of facts that some public officials would like to NOT come out... so much of the negotiations are behind the scenes and perhaps some entities deciding to enter into various kinds of settlement agreements or limitations of the evidence.. .yet part of the problem that they likely have with these matters is that people know too much about the level of shenanigans that happened (including that some governing entities and even agents in charge of matters) are likely not really cooperating in terms of cover-ups or limitations, so it is quite difficult to completely set forth some half-baked snow job presentation without looking totally foolish..

[bbc.reporter]

@Rikafip. There might be a twist in the ending of this movie if Sam Bankrupt-Fraud's backers remain in support of him. It might become Sam being the witness against those who have already pleaded guilty because the backers cannot allow Sam to be the person on trial because if he pressured enough, he might begin talking and become a whistleblower on a much bigger conspiracy that might include people from the Democratic party, moneylaundering and the war in Ukraine.

If there is a much bigger conspiracy and if those involved are afraid of him talking, he will be dealt with in the same way Epstein was as that's the only way to be absolutely sure he will keep quiet. So no, I don't believe  in that scenario in which SBF testifies against those who already pleaded guilty and have deals with prosecution not to go to jail if they cooperate.


Edit: some good news coming for FTX Japan users as allegedly they will be able to start withdrawing their money by the end of this month.

According to a Feb. 17 report from Bloomberg, FTX Japan sent out notifications asking users to verify their account balances as part of the process to begin allowing withdrawals. Seth Melamed, chief operating officer of the exchange, reportedly said users could transfer assets to accounts on the FTX-owned Liquid Global platform, with withdrawals expected to begin “very soon.”

News outlet NHK reported that FTX Japan had roughly 19.6 billion yen in cash — more than $138 million at the time — when it ceased operations in November

Similar to what I have said before in another thread, Sam did not kill himself hehehe. What I also speculate might be the storyline for Sam's trial is it will be mentioned that Changpeng Zhao triggered the dump on FTT, also causing the liquidity cascades on Alameda Research's leveraged trades because they used FTT as collateral and which also caused the collapse of FTX because it credited user deposits to Alameda Research. For this, the backers of Sam might also crackdown on CZ and Binance after the trial.

[Dump3er]

What is actually the legal situation for the donated funds? As JayJuanGee said it doesn't matter what cause they have been used for but they should go back in order to reimburse creditors.

Now let's say I run a cancer research institution and receive a million dollars and spend it, can I be legally forced to pay it back? What if the money came from an anonymous sender in the first place and only later do I find out that it was misappropriated? I mean the result can't really be that I might have to go into insolvency, can it?

I am still puzzled how this 30 year old kiddy pulled of a scam in just a couple of years that was half the size of that of Bernie Madoff, which actually took decades to build up!

[Ryu_Ar1]

According to a Feb. 17 report from Bloomberg, FTX Japan sent out notifications asking users to verify their account balances as part of the process to begin allowing withdrawals. Seth Melamed, chief operating officer of the exchange, reportedly said users could transfer assets to accounts on the FTX-owned Liquid Global platform, with withdrawals expected to begin “very soon.”

News outlet NHK reported that FTX Japan had roughly 19.6 billion yen in cash — more than $138 million at the time — when it ceased operations in November

This is a good thing for them, at least for FTX account holders in Japan, because this can be a good solution for them to return their assets.
There are several steps they have to take for that because according to some of the information I've read, there they have to have access to Liquid Japan and link their accounts to transfer assets from FTX that can eventually be withdrawn from Liquid Japan.
In fact, this could be a good step to partially restore their reputation, especially in Japan, which is indeed one of the countries whose users were hit the hardest after South Korea and Singapore for the fall of FTX.
But on the other hand I think it's still the same even for cleaning reputation but I think the conditions for entrusting to FTX will lessen there in the future.

[Rikafip]

What I also speculate might be the storyline for Sam's trial is it will be mentioned that Changpeng Zhao triggered the dump on FTT, also causing the liquidity cascades on Alameda Research's leveraged trades because they used FTT as collateral and which also caused the collapse of FTX because it credited user deposits to Alameda Research. For this, the backers of Sam might also crackdown on CZ and Binance after the trial.

He will probably try put blame on others if this reaches the trial but I doubt that will work since people closest to him already pleaded guilty and most likely incriminated him as well.

In fact, this could be a good step to partially restore their reputation, especially in Japan, which is indeed one of the countries whose users were hit the hardest after South Korea and Singapore for the fall of FTX.

Nah I don't think that this will help them much to restore their reputation, not even in Japan because FTX is not giving people their money because of the goodness of their heart but because of Japan regulation which forced them to insure the funds. Only because of that FTX Japan users are able to withdraw their money.

The withdrawal of funds was made possible thanks to the legislation passed by Japan regulating the turnover of the cryptocurrency market, which requires cryptocurrency exchange companies to register with the Financial Services Agency (FSA), maintain capital insurance reserves and separate client and exchange assets to prevent abuse .

Due to the sudden collapse of FTX, FTX Japan employees only lost access to the systems used to withdraw funds. Now that access is restored, investors can get their money. However, there are complaints that some users have experienced the loss of records of individual transactions.

[Ryu_Ar1]

In fact, this could be a good step to partially restore their reputation, especially in Japan, which is indeed one of the countries whose users were hit the hardest after South Korea and Singapore for the fall of FTX.

Nah I don't think that this will help them much to restore their reputation, not even in Japan because FTX is not giving people their money because of the goodness of their heart but because of Japan regulation which forced them to insure the funds. Only because of that FTX Japan users are able to withdraw their money.

The withdrawal of funds was made possible thanks to the legislation passed by Japan regulating the turnover of the cryptocurrency market, which requires cryptocurrency exchange companies to register with the Financial Services Agency (FSA), maintain capital insurance reserves and separate client and exchange assets to prevent abuse .

Due to the sudden collapse of FTX, FTX Japan employees only lost access to the systems used to withdraw funds. Now that access is restored, investors can get their money. However, there are complaints that some users have experienced the loss of records of individual transactions.

I missed this report and it makes my previous statement not very useful.
Now with the current state of affairs it is reported that a massive drawdown occurred as in just 9 hours alone ¥2.7 billion or the equivalent of $20 million was already withdrawn from this exchange.

However, on the other hand, I really appreciate what the Japanese regulators have done, which indeed moves very efficiently and this action deserves a thumbs up.

As for the conditions of some users' complaints, maybe in this case there are several conditions because I also read in several reports such as:

FTX Japan's chief operations officer, Seth Melamed, said people with verified FTX Japan accounts were eligible to initiate withdrawals after following certain procedures, but he said some Japan residents used other FTX platforms and couldn't be helped by FTX Japan.

This could be one of the reasons that they can argue later but if the users comply with the procedure then this will be much easier.

[Ryu_Ar1]

Today's latest news regarding the FTX case says that currently a new Indictment was opened against SBF which contains 12 indictments now.
But what is sticking out now is that in one of the indictments it is alleged that the SBF has committed a conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and defraud the federal election commission.
This will be a new chapter in the problem that he is facing because now it's not just about FTX anymore if the charges like this even though it is indeed inseparable from FTX because the funds provided by SBF are estimated to be more than $ 10 million.

According to the indictment, his motivation was to keep regulators away from his precious cryptoverse. “The defendant, perpetuated his campaign finance scheme at least in part to improve his personal standing in Washington, D.C., increase FTX’s profile, and curry favor with candidates that could help pass legislation favorable to FTX or Bankman-Fried’s personal agenda, including legislation concerning regulatory oversight over FTX and its industry,” prosecutors wrote.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

Today's latest news regarding the FTX case says that currently a new Indictment was opened against SBF which contains 12 indictments now.
But what is sticking out now is that in one of the indictments it is alleged that the SBF has committed a conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and defraud the federal election commission.
This will be a new chapter in the problem that he is facing because now it's not just about FTX anymore if the charges like this even though it is indeed inseparable from FTX because the funds provided by SBF are estimated to be more than $ 10 million.

According to the indictment, his motivation was to keep regulators away from his precious cryptoverse. “The defendant, perpetuated his campaign finance scheme at least in part to improve his personal standing in Washington, D.C., increase FTX’s profile, and curry favor with candidates that could help pass legislation favorable to FTX or Bankman-Fried’s personal agenda, including legislation concerning regulatory oversight over FTX and its industry,” prosecutors wrote.

I guess this indictment will be the least of worries to SBF since some of his buddy politicians he "donated" to are currently in power

I keep telling people here. Politics and elections are just fraud. It should completely be abolished. It never does any good to the common people except endless exploitation and corruption by the so-called Leaders

We just give those jerks more power to enrich themselves and get more privileges, all in the name of elections.

[bbc.reporter]

Today's latest news regarding the FTX case says that currently a new Indictment was opened against SBF which contains 12 indictments now.
But what is sticking out now is that in one of the indictments it is alleged that the SBF has committed a conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and defraud the federal election commission.
This will be a new chapter in the problem that he is facing because now it's not just about FTX anymore if the charges like this even though it is indeed inseparable from FTX because the funds provided by SBF are estimated to be more than $ 10 million.

According to the indictment, his motivation was to keep regulators away from his precious cryptoverse. “The defendant, perpetuated his campaign finance scheme at least in part to improve his personal standing in Washington, D.C., increase FTX’s profile, and curry favor with candidates that could help pass legislation favorable to FTX or Bankman-Fried’s personal agenda, including legislation concerning regulatory oversight over FTX and its industry,” prosecutors wrote.

What does unlawful unlawful political contributions and defraud the federal election commission imply? Are they trying to imply that Sam was bribing some politicians?

I reckon that this also proves that everything Sam did in the cryptospace and the political sphere was not done only by Sam. The moves of Sam was really the moves of his backers and some of those backers might be part of a political group. If they do not want Sam to become a whistleblower they should support him or Epstein him. I do not want to see him Epsteined.

[Rikafip]

I guess this indictment will be the least of worries to SBF since some of his buddy politicians he "donated" to are currently in power

They have already been asked to give back the money (if not willfully then by court order) and they might wanna distance themselves from him so I am not so sure how much protection he's gonna get.

What does unlawful unlawful political contributions and defraud the federal election commission imply? Are they trying to imply that Sam was bribing some politicians?

You can find detailed explanation here (pages 34-36), but from what I could understand, among others things he gave more money than allowed in one year and then tried to conceal it.

[bbc.reporter]

@Rikafip. It appears like the extra money might be a personal donation to be collected through personal favors for future need hehe.

In any case, who gave Sam Bankrupt-Fraud access to the internet? I am not quite certain if he is bored in custody and trolling or if he is sending a concealed message through social media and he is only making it appear that he is trolling.

[Rikafip]

What was rumour two weeks ago now has been confirmed that Nishad Singh (SBF's buddy and FTX chief engineer) has agreed to plead guilty on 3 charges. With 3 of his closest associates pleading guilty I wonder how SBF plans to get out of this mess, other than pleading guilty and reducing his sentence that way.

Nishad Singh, the former director of engineering at now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has agreed to plead guilty to U.S. fraud charges, his lawyer said in court on Tuesday, as U.S. prosecutors ramp up their investigation into members of Sam Bankman-Fried's inner circle.

Singh has agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud on FTX customers, and one count of conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, his lawyer said at the hearing in Manhattan federal court.

Singh was a close friend of Bankman-Fried's younger brother in high school, Bankman-Fried wrote in a deleted blog post. After working at Alameda, Singh became FTX's director of engineering in 2019, according to CNBC.

In 2020, Singh tweaked FTX's software to exempt Alameda from having its assets sold automatically if it were losing too much borrowed money, Reuters reported in December.

[Kryptowerk]

I guess this indictment will be the least of worries to SBF since some of his buddy politicians he "donated" to are currently in power

They have already been asked to give back the money (if not willfully then by court order) and they might wanna distance themselves from him so I am not so sure how much protection he's gonna get.

What does unlawful unlawful political contributions and defraud the federal election commission imply? Are they trying to imply that Sam was bribing some politicians?

You can find detailed explanation here (pages 34-36), but from what I could understand, among others things he gave more money than allowed in one year and then tried to conceal it.

Wow, just wow. Just read up a little on the recent development of the case. Hadn't done so for a few months now.
The shitpile he / they produced with FTX is still getting bigger. It's not really suprising, but still insane to see what was going on for years behind the scenes. If the bullrun would have continued for another two years, who knows how many billions more they would have embezzled.

[Rikafip]

If the bullrun would have continued for another two years, who knows how many billions more they would have embezzled.

Yep. If there is any positive thing about all this mess, its that it happened sooner than later because God knows how many more people would lose their money as FTX kept growing due their aggressive marketing, no withdrawal fees and other tactics to attract as many users as possible.


In other news, FTX confirms for the first time that 8.9 billion dollars of users money is missing so if there's anyone still hoping that they will ever see their money back, think again.

A recent report from the Wall Street Journal pointed out that $8.9 billion worth of customer funds have been unaccounted for and therefore missing.

This is the first time the exchange has revealed a number pertaining to the fund deficiency. The exchange has reportedly pinned down around $2.7 billion in customer assets, relative to $11.6 billion of the balance outstanding on customer accounts. The estimated value of FTX’s assets and liabilities is based on asset prices in November 2022, when the firm filed for bankruptcy.

Alameda Research had borrowed around $9.3 billion from customer accounts before bankruptcy. Thus, the current $8.9 billion hole can be attributed to Alameda Research. FTX did not clarify if the funds were borrowed with or without customer consent. According to a financial update filed, FTX’s sister company only had around $475 million in cash in its accounts as of Jan. 31.

Thus, at this stage, it cannot be anticipated how much compensation affected customers would receive, even though the exchange has tracked down $2.7 billion. However, around $1.5 billion of that said amount includes illiquid crypto assets like FTX’s token, FTT

[Yamane_Keto]

please someone quote this https://i.imgur.com/BMWIAC2.png
FTX owes less than 0.1% of customers BTC. Honestly, I can't believe how the financial position of this platform has collapsed in this way.

[JayJuanGee]

please someone quote this https://i.imgur.com/BMWIAC2.png  



FTX owes less than 0.1% of customers BTC. Honestly, I can't believe how the financial position of this platform has collapsed in this way.

You did not even cite the chart properly Yamane_Keto, so I fixed the way that you cited it for you so that the chart would show up.

Some variation of that chart might have already been provided in this thread, especially since it purports to be a snapshot of assets that FTX claimed to have had at the time of the filing of the petition (which was right around November 11, 2022).

Another thing is that I am not sure why you are saying that FTX was in some kind of financially stable situation at the time of the filing because from the chart, it looks like FTX was not even close to having as many assets as they owe to customers.. and the total column on the right that shows deficit/surplus and shows that in each asset class FTX had a deficit - meaning that they owed customers more assets than they had "on the books" at the time of the filing of the bankruptcy petition

So the total deficit in that particular chart shows as almost $8.7 Billion, and of course, even if some assets have been found since mid-November 2022, we would still need to look at the totals of the then balance sheets in terms of recalculations of assets versus liabilities to attempt to figure out if FTX would still have a deficit or if a surplus might be present and then perhaps make plans that are based on the size of the deficit or the surplus.. and surely there are ongoing costs in current times too, and I have my doubts about if any of the assets (or the business) is still earning income.

Edit: When I went back and I looked at the content of your post again, "FTX owes less than 0.1% of customers BTC," I see that upon my first reading of your post, I probably misunderstood what you were saying... (but I am going to leave my earlier response in there, anyhow).  

You seem to have been saying that FTX did not have any BTC in their possession at the time of the petition filing, so yeah, the chart shows that at the time of the bankruptcy petition FTX owed customers around 1,591 BTC, but they ONLY had 6 BTC in their possession (which would be around 0.377%), and probably still we would likely need to look at more recent charts to attempt to figure out if some of those numbers might have changed in terms of the quantity of BTC that they have versus the quantity that they owe to customers.  I think that there has been statements from the trustee regarding the real bad record keeping, and surely there has been quite a bit of proclamations in the past 3.5 months or so regarding assets found or other irregularities in the FTX books.