Proof of reserves? Insurance fund? Best I can do is a random number generator!

[o_e_l_e_o]

If you've not been following the FTX trial, you really should, because the level of fraud on display is enough to even rival that of CSW. Here are two snippets of code (pictures courtesy of https://nitter.cz/molly0xFFF) which have been submitted as evidence in the trial. This code is regarding FTX's insurance fund which was widely publicized:

   

The first picture above shows how the value of 5,250,000 FTX Token supposedly in the insurance fund was "calculated". It wasn't. It was just coded in. insuranceFund.size = 5250000 FTT.

The second picture above shows how the value of USD in the insurance fund was "calculated". The daily trading volume on FTX was multiplied by a random number, and this was used to adjust the insurance fund to a new size.

This is the kind of bullshit centralized exchanges are using in their "proof of reserves", "safu funds", "insurance funds", "collateral funds", "1-to-1 matching reports", and all the other trash they peddle to convince you your funds are totally safe. Literal random number generators. They will do and say anything to get you to hand over your coins to them. Don't fall it.

[nelson4lov]

This is definitely not shocking to me. It's very obvious now that centralized exchanges / service providers will do anything just to trick users to patronize their services. If FTX went as far as publishing insurance numbers out of thing air with no actual asset to back it up, I'm convinced that some CEX available today still indulge in those practice.

In response to FTX collapse, tons of exchanges rushed to start providing proof of reserves. The way it works is that they simply publish some numbers at specific intervals - they leave no way to verify but want users to trust them.

 "Here's the numbers: trust us, we already verified the numbers so you don't have to. "

 

[stompix]

And we're surprised about this because....it's exactly the one million time or ten million when it happens or some other round number?  
But I don't get something, is this about two different funds because, and I'm quoting you just to make things easy:

The first picture above shows how the value of 5,250,000 FTX Token supposedly in the insurance fund was "calculated". It wasn't. It was just coded in. insuranceFund.size = 5250000 FTT.

So the number of coins in this one is fixed, and varies according to value of FTX tokens, right?

The second picture above shows how the value of USD in the insurance fund was "calculated". The daily trading volume on FTX was multiplied by a random number, and this was used to adjust the insurance fund to a new size.

This one is variable to volume...
Were there two insurance funds?

This is the kind of bullshit centralized exchanges are using in their "proof of reserves", "safu funds", "insurance funds", "collateral funds", "1-to-1 matching reports", and all the other trash they peddle to convince you your funds are totally safe. Literal random number generators. They will do and say anything to get you to hand over your coins to them. Don't fall it.

But , but , but, CZ said #SAFU, CZ helped millions make money, CZ is great, ...CZ is whatever god your timezone has!
Are you spreading FUD here?  

[o_e_l_e_o]

Were there two insurance funds?

One fund, multiple assets:

[Helena Yu]

I don't think there's a centralized exchange is being honest with everything they have e.g. their total funds, the reserved funds for SAFU etc, most of them either using random number or exclude/include anything they want in order to make the number looks good (they will use * mark).

I couldn't image if Binance is bankrupt, how bad is the chaos affecting Bitcoin holder since most of people hold their funds in Binance.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

One fund, multiple assets:

The screenshot is interesting so can I use it to discuss about stable coins too?

Stable coins must be backed by fiat currencies like the US. dollar. If they are backed by volatile assets like gold, Bitcoin, Ethereum, altcoins, they might lose their pegs anytime. Attacks from whales and market markers can kill stable coin pegs very quickly. A massive crash of Terra and its algorithmic stable coin is example of bad managed treasury can be easily attacked and broken down.

[Shishir99]

I couldn't image if Binance is bankrupt, how bad is the chaos affecting Bitcoin holder since most of people hold their funds in Binance.

Then just try to imagine how badly it will affect the market if Binance runs away or some authorities shut them down. Remember how it affected the market during the Terra Luna crash? How volatile the market was? Binance has over 800K Bitcoins in their control which they claim as proof of reserves. Their other wallets got millions of Bitcoins which is not their funds. Those funds are user funds. Imagine you woke up and saw Binance was shut down for some reason and the market kept dumping. That will be great chaos in the crypto market. People making this exchange more and more powerful by using their service without understanding the risk. There is nothing we can do if they start manipulating the market.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

This is the kind of bullshit centralized exchanges are using in their "proof of reserves", "safu funds", "insurance funds", "collateral funds", "1-to-1 matching reports", and all the other trash they peddle to convince you your funds are totally safe. Literal random number generators. They will do and say anything to get you to hand over your coins to them. Don't fall it.

I'm not surprised with this development, centralized services will do anything to look trustworthy in the eyes of their customers but we know all they're doing is just marketing and don't actually care about their customers. Proof of reserve my foot, the only time I'll believe a centralized exchange has a proof of reserve is when their reserve/insurance fund are in Bitcoin and held in a multisign offline wallet which they'll sign a message including the Bitcoin address which can be verified by everyone and we monitor the address constantly.

Without that anything they say isn't worth believing. Moreover why would they hold insurance funds in their native token. Obviously they're doing so for them to easily manipulate the price (of funds said to be in reserved). No centralized exchange should be trusted irrespective of how big they're. They're here to make money and they'll lie, deceive everyone until they finally get exposed and exit scam just as FTX did.

For newbies that'll come across this thread, if you still have coins on exchanges, get them off right away. Exchanges aren't wallet to store your coins with them and don't believe whatever excuse they'll give to make you believe they'll look after your coins. Take the security of your coins as your personal business and store them offline in a hardware wallet.

[Z-tight]

I couldn't image if Binance is bankrupt, how bad is the chaos affecting Bitcoin holder since most of people hold their funds in Binance.

People who still hold their funds in Binance are either ignorant, not aware of the recent events regarding centralized exchanges & lending and earning platforms or they think Binance is too big to fail. If Binance bites the dust they'll be the ones affected and a million other holders of shitcoins, the BTC network will be just fine with or without Binance.

Stable coins must be backed by fiat currencies like the US. dollar. If they are backed by volatile assets like gold, Bitcoin, Ethereum, altcoins, they might lose their pegs anytime. Attacks from whales and market markers can kill stable coin pegs very quickly. A massive crash of Terra and its algorithmic stable coin is example of bad managed treasury can be easily attacked and broken down.

Many of these stable coins in the market are backed by nothing but thin air, people who think stable coins are backed 1:1 and that is why they hold them for a long time are joking, they print many of them out of thin air and your money may even be lost when you still have your stable coins in your wallet, not to even add that they can freeze your coins in any wallet it is held.

Then just try to imagine how badly it will affect the market if Binance runs away or some authorities shut them down.

A large number of shitcoins expunged from the market-> BTC drops in price temporarily, but the network remains exactly the same-> Thousands of people learn a valuable lesson in self custody, and that funds are only safu when they have their keys.

[Lucius]

CEX is here for profit and nothing more, so everything they say should be taken with a grain of salt. When we add someone like Bankman to that, then the whole thing looks even more tragic considering his real competence to run such a company. What these people are really good at is creating worthless tokens, and that's something they have in common when it comes to selling their nonsensical ideas to anyone naive enough to believe in them.

It really amazes me that such a company could even do business in the US, because what we are seeing now, someone should have noticed and reacted earlier and prevented everything from going to hell. How realistic is it that no one knew about all these illogicalities within FTX until it was too late, isn't there someone who oversees such things?

[Die_empty]

I'm not surprised with this development, centralized services will do anything to look trustworthy in the eyes of their customers but we know all they're doing is just marketing and don't actually care about their customers. Proof of reserve my foot, the only time I'll believe a centralized exchange has a proof of reserve is when their reserve/insurance fund are in Bitcoin and held in a multisign offline wallet which they'll sign a message including the Bitcoin address which can be verified by everyone and we monitor the address constantly.

I think you have a good point here because these centralized platforms can always provide fake proof of reserve. They can get funds from somewhere else into their business, conduct audits, and publish a healthy financial report. They will later pull out the funds which they borrowed to balance their account.

An example is crypto.com which withdrew about 280,000 ether ($400m) from its account after publishing its PoR audit report. The funds was transfered to Gate.io's address fueling speculations that the funds was just borrowed to deceive their customers. Most of these firms show only assets without a comprehensive breakdown of their liability. So having a verifiable and constantly monitored wallet would be a good way to start. But even with this, they can still scam thier customers.

[Ruttoshi]

It is so sad to see that exchanges foundations are built on lies just to make people feel that they their funds are safe in their exchanges. It means that centralized exchanges are out here to scam customers of their funds but pretends as if they have the safety of customers funds as their priority.

They claim to have SAFU funds which the numbers are not through because they know that customers will not bother, if it is true of not. They gain customers trust with lies and this shows that they can come up anytime with an Exit scams. One needs not to ever leave a penny in a centralized exchange and also advice whoever that leaves their funds in Cex that it is not safe and that they are manipulators.

I pity for individuals and institutions who finds it difficult to keep their funds in their self custody but needs exchanges to keep their coins for them, because they will be the victim if the exchange crashes, many of them should have learnt their lessons from FTX crash but they are still ignorant of it.

[Plaguedeath]

As long as the owner didn't sign a message, I never believe with any number appeared in the site or claimed were belong to them. Actually they need to do that at the same time when they release their financial statement e.g. once a year or every quarter.

It's really dumb if someone can trust someone words without validating it, just like a popular phrase in Bitcoin "don't trust, verify".

[o_e_l_e_o]

I couldn't image if Binance is bankrupt, how bad is the chaos affecting Bitcoin holder since most of people hold their funds in Binance.

Binance have already been caught running a fractional reserve system and not holding enough coins to cover all withdrawals: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5441480.msg62531977#msg62531977.

Proof of reserve my foot, the only time I'll believe a centralized exchange has a proof of reserve is when their reserve/insurance fund are in Bitcoin and held in a multisign offline wallet which they'll sign a message including the Bitcoin address which can be verified by everyone and we monitor the address constantly.

Even then, it proves nothing. So let's say Binance "prove" they have 500,000 BTC. How do we know that is everything they are supposed to have? How do we know that covers all customer deposits to Binance? We don't. It doesn't matter if they prove they are holding 500,000 BTC, if collectively all Binance users should be able to withdraw 750,000 BTC. Proof of reserves without proof of assets is meaningless.

Various exchanges have tried to do proof of assets as well, but it is completely trivial to fool by just having a handful of accounts with negative balances, which is exactly what FTX were doing as well. Alameda's account on FTX had a balance of negative $8 billion.

An example is crypto.com which withdrew about 280,000 ether ($400m) from its account after publishing its PoR audit report. The funds was transfered to Gate.io's address fueling speculations that the funds was just borrowed to deceive their customers.

Binance did the same, with a few billion in USDT being moved out the day after their so-called "audits". And the same thing again with Bitfinex propping up Tether just before their "audits". Every centralized exchange is the same.

[pinggoki]

I have a bit of knowledge in programming so I giggled a bit, they just did a complicated print command. Seriously though, I am scared right now for my bitcoins because they're not in a non-custodial wallet and I think that this will be the final straw, I'll be contacting someone.

[retreat]

It is predictable that centralized exchanges like FTX employ manipulative business practices. They are a business and all they think about is how to make a profit without needing to think about their users. I think that it is not just FTX, certainly other centralized exchanges carry out manipulative practices like this and because they are still operating it is not visible to external parties.

[buwaytress]

Nice find, but I'm not surprised at all by the audacity of these wealthy suits and ties. I'd actually be offended if they didn't meet my low expectations of them.

You give them too much credit, they at least would have shown a tinier bit more effort if they actually ran a code to randomise some arbitrary number in a less arbitrary range...

You know those print cmd stries are a staple of memelogy, you don't know they're used at the highest level.

[aylabadia05]

It is predictable that centralized exchanges like FTX employ manipulative business practices. They are a business and all they think about is how to make a profit without needing to think about their users. I think that it is not just FTX, certainly other centralized exchanges carry out manipulative practices like this and because they are still operating it is not visible to external parties.

o_e_l_e_o shows an image to reinforce that holding funds on an exchange is not a solution. The image displayed here belongs to FTX, it cannot be denied that other exchanges can also be like that.

You, I and most of the others probably don't have the advantage regarding programming knowledge and don't really know the language of each code that appears as in the image that appears above so we can assume that a large exchange like Binance doesn't make us afraid to save funds. on the exchange, but people who have knowledge of programming when they see this feel afraid of the coins that have been stored on the exchange.

Regardless, the business practices carried out by exchanges such as FTX or other exchanges are manipulative. Basically, exchanges cannot be trusted to store money.

[Frankolala]

I am not surprised to hear this, because some other people have also seen it that exchanges goes as far as borrowing funds before audit and return the funds after audit to deceive people that they have enough prove of reserve.

Binance last audit was not accepted by people because they said there is no transparency in their PoR. If Binance the biggest exchange can do this then other smaller exchanges will learn and copy from them.
https://www.ccn.com/news/binance-proof-of-reserves-transparency-not-enough/#:~:text=In%20the%20latest%20snapshot%20%2C%20Binance,users%20hold%20in%20their%20accounts

[Hamza2424]

This is the kind of bullshit centralized exchanges are using in their "proof of reserves", "safu funds", "insurance funds", "collateral funds", "1-to-1 matching reports", and all the other trash they peddle to convince you your funds are totally safe. Literal random number generators. They will do and say anything to get you to hand over your coins to them. Don't fall it.

I was expected to see such sort of bullshit by the centralized platforms but I wasn't expecting it to be the same in the case with the reputed ones anyhow they completely lost it years ago.

They just mean bussnies at any cost, I'm sure such sort of shity approach is gonna slip out from the other top exchanges as well, simply they can do anything in their territory which is close sources. CZ is smart but in the current timeline, Biannce seems to be the second most suspicious one doing this but somehow they are surviving. But I took exit a long time ago.

 ☑ Mt. Gox (2014)
 ☑ Bitfinex (2016):
 ☑ QuadrigaCX (2019)

#not_your_key_not_your_coins

Binance last audit was not accepted by people because they said there is no transparency in their PoR.

Crypto exchanges need transparency, as opacity is as outdated as beepers and dial-up internet.

[Z-tight]

Seriously though, I am scared right now for my bitcoins because they're not in a non-custodial wallet and I think that this will be the final straw, I'll be contacting someone.

If i may, why should you be contacting someone, if your BTC isn't in your self custody, then immediately move it to a self custodial wallet, Electrum, Sparrow, BlueWallet are all good options for you to choose from.

I am not surprised to hear this, because some other people have also seen it that exchanges goes as far as borrowing funds before audit and return the funds after audit to deceive people that they have enough prove of reserve.

Do they even have to borrow money, they could just print their shit tokens out of this air and use it to buy assets to 'prove' that their reserves covers all liabilities.

Binance last audit was not accepted by people because they said there is no transparency in their PoR. If Binance the biggest exchange can do this then other smaller exchanges will learn and copy from them.

Binance may be a 'big' exchange, but they are just as shady as many other centralized exchanges, with their fractional reserve and proof of reserve scam. Proof of reserve would never make sense because the exchange can do anything to balance their books and make everything good, they can show us proof of reserves without us knowing what their full liabilities are, and even if they show the liabilities, we can't be sure if it is true.

[ZAINmalik75]

This is the kind of bullshit centralized exchanges are using in their "proof of reserves", "safu funds", "insurance funds", "collateral funds", "1-to-1 matching reports", and all the other trash they peddle to convince you your funds are totally safe. Literal random number generators. They will do and say anything to get you to hand over your coins to them. Don't fall it.

I was not following this trial, as I am not affected by FTX exchange, I had no funds on it, but some of our local community members do have like underdress. He has a decent amount on FTX. And we all were hoping good for it. But as I said, I had no funds, so I did not take an interest in it when I should have.

Well, thanks for this post, as now I get to know what is happening there, and I am really shocked to see that, how they are making fools of nontechnical people who do not know the difference between code and can not audit the whole reports, as they do not aware of he programming languages. But thanks to the developers who brought such differences in front of us.

We should really avoid centralized exchanges, no matter what, how much we are dependent on them, we should prefer a non custodial wallet not custodial.

[GbitG]

I couldn't image if Binance is bankrupt, how bad is the chaos affecting Bitcoin holder since most of people hold their funds in Binance.

If this mishap is really based on truth, then the cover of this disaster, i.e., Binance Bankrupt, will be beyond imagination. Why are 150 million people connected to Binance with their assets? If Binance shuts down or goes bankrupt, it may cause a sell-off panic in the cryptocurrency market due to the sell-off in the prices of bitcoin and other coins. A reduction can be seen that has not been recorded in history. Obviously, Binance is the world's top exchange, and Binance has allowed small exchanges and institutional investors to collateralize crypto assets, so if something happens to Binance, these small exchanges will also be required before Binance can cause panic in the market.

In the end, let me know by adding that I don't know that these people are curious to dig their funds on the one hand, and on the other hand, they are depending on them by giving their funds assets to the exchanges. Although exchanges do not give you a complete guarantee and security of your funds, when a self-custody (hardware wallet) supports you with all these associated limitations, what is the need to give authority to exchanges?

Therefore, the purpose of speaking was to keep the fund in hardware wallets and not give so much importance to exchanges; no matter how big the exchange is, it should not be kept safe to keep its assets. You should take steps yourself instead of depending on others.

[Hueristic]

[o_e_l_e_o]

Do they even have to borrow money, they could just print their shit tokens out of this air and use it to buy assets to 'prove' that their reserves covers all liabilities.

Exactly. It's happened many times before. An exchanges goes bankrupt because of their own shady practices or because of a hack, so they either launch a shitcoin and "pay" back their users in this worthless shitcoin instead of bitcoin, or they just print a few hundred million of an existing shitcoin out of nothing to keep themselves solvent. A prime example of this is Bitfinex and Tether, where they printed almost a billion USDT out of nothing and gave it to themselves after they were hacked and insolvent.


My most recent favorite snippet from the trial below. Gary Wang was a the CTO of FTX and co-founder alongside SBF:

Lawyer: Are you aware of the difference between solvency and liquidity?
Gary Wang: Now I am.

What an absolute clown show.

[Hamza2424]

Exactly. It's happened many times before. An exchanges goes bankrupt because of their own shady practices or because of a hack, so they either launch a shitcoin and "pay" back their users in this worthless shitcoin instead of bitcoin, or they just print a few hundred million of an existing shitcoin out of nothing to keep themselves solvent. A prime example of this is Bitfinex and Tether, where they printed almost a billion USDT out of nothing and gave it to themselves after they were hacked and insolvent.

Still, people consider USDT trustworthy, it's all the game of valuation, there is a need for the realization that the value we need is not a stable currency it is Bitcoin. I'm afraid until we are gonna learn there will be another.

I couldn't image if Binance is bankrupt, how bad is the chaos affecting Bitcoin holder since most of people hold their funds in Binance.

If this mishap is really based on truth, then the cover of this disaster, i.e., Binance Bankrupt, will be beyond imagination. Why are 150 million people connected to Binance with their assets? If Binance shuts down or goes bankrupt, it may cause a sell-off panic in the cryptocurrency market due to the sell-off in the prices of bitcoin and other coins.

This is the hit I'm talking about, non-custodial holdings are the only solution to avoid it but it's a hard job to educate people for the possible outcomes. SAFU is not a sign of reliability, it point out something better to make an exit.

[Fiatless]

Do they even have to borrow money, they could just print their shit tokens out of this air and use it to buy assets to 'prove' that their reserves covers all liabilities.

Exactly. It's happened many times before. An exchanges goes bankrupt because of their own shady practices or because of a hack, so they either launch a shitcoin and "pay" back their users in this worthless shitcoin instead of bitcoin, or they just print a few hundred million of an existing shitcoin out of nothing to keep themselves solvent. A prime example of this is Bitfinex and Tether, where they printed almost a billion USDT out of nothing and gave it to themselves after they were hacked and insolvent.

This is indeed an eye-opener never to rely on these exchanges no matter how influential or renowned they claim to be. This issue is like mismanaging funds somebody put in your custody. And when he requests his funds, you tell him not to worry that you have another currency. And you go to your room and bring out some coloured papers and tell him that you will pay him with this. You still go ahead to convince him that in a few months, these coloured papers will be worth more than the dollars. Sadly many people still believe these lies and invest in these shitcoin.     

Still, people consider USDT trustworthy, it's all the game of valuation, there is a need for the realization that the value we need is not a stable currency it is Bitcoin. I'm afraid until we are gonna learn there will be another.

There is nothing stable about the USDT. How are we sure that Tether has the assets or reserve it claims it owns? Just like FTX the shady deals engaged by these centralised firms always come to light after it has collapsed. 

[o_e_l_e_o]

Some new absolute hilarity from the trial, this time involving BlockFi, which lost $1 billion in the FTX collapse and ended up collapsing themselves. Zac Prince was the CEO of BlockFi (emphasis added):

Prince testified to all of this on Friday, and outlined the details of how BlockFi evaluated whether to lend to a given institution. The company would review the financial records of a prospective borrower and evaluate the likelihood the company could repay the loans it was requesting. Alameda Research never provided BlockFi with audited financial statements, testified Prince, but that was the norm for BlockFi’s crypto customers — “because of issues with getting audits as a cryptocurrency firm”, he reasoned.

“We always relied on the information that we were given by counterparties as being truthful and accurate,” said Prince. That was ultimately their downfall. The statements provided by Alameda didn’t disclose the true extent of the firm’s liabilities, nor the existence of substantial loans from Alameda to FTX and company executives.

So the entirety of BlockFi's "research" and "evaluation" as to whether they should lend over a billion dollars to another company consisted of "Hey, we can totally trust you, right?", without any independent audits, examination, or verification of any sort whatsoever. So essentially FTX said "You can totally trust us, bro", and BlockFi said "OK, here's a billion dollars of our customers' money!"

How are we sure that Tether has the assets or reserve it claims it owns?

It's worse than that - we know for a fact that Tether doesn't have the assets it claims to have. They revealed in court that at one point only 14% of USDT was actually collateralized: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5322147.msg56656992#msg56656992. They also admitted that their collateral includes loan repayments they are making to themselves after printing almost $1 billion USDT out of nothing and loaning it to themselves to stop themselves going bankrupt. So print USDT out of thin air, loan it to yourself, claim USDT is backed up by future loan repayments.

[Isuru_]

This is the kind of bullshit centralized exchanges are using in their "proof of reserves", "safu funds", "insurance funds", "collateral funds", "1-to-1 matching reports", and all the other trash they peddle to convince you your funds are totally safe. Literal random number generators. They will do and say anything to get you to hand over your coins to them. Don't fall it.

I'm not surprised with this development, centralized services will do anything to look trustworthy in the eyes of their customers but we know all they're doing is just marketing and don't actually care about their customers. Proof of reserve my foot, the only time I'll believe a centralized exchange has a proof of reserve is when their reserve/insurance fund are in Bitcoin and held in a multisign offline wallet which they'll sign a message including the Bitcoin address which can be verified by everyone and we monitor the address constantly.

Without that anything they say isn't worth believing. Moreover why would they hold insurance funds in their native token. Obviously they're doing so for them to easily manipulate the price (of funds said to be in reserved). No centralized exchange should be trusted irrespective of how big they're. They're here to make money and they'll lie, deceive everyone until they finally get exposed and exit scam just as FTX did.

For newbies that'll come across this thread, if you still have coins on exchanges, get them off right away. Exchanges aren't wallet to store your coins with them and don't believe whatever excuse they'll give to make you believe they'll look after your coins. Take the security of your coins as your personal business and store them offline in a hardware wallet.

I agree with you. Proof of reserves is a good step, but it's not enough to guarantee that a centralized exchange is safe. There are other things to consider, like the people who run the exchange, how they do business, and how much money they have.

I'm also worried that many centralized exchanges keep their insurance funds in their own tokens. This is a conflict of interest, because it gives the exchange an incentive to manipulate the price of its token.

[Fiatless]

I agree with you. Proof of reserves is a good step, but it's not enough to guarantee that a centralized exchange is safe. There are other things to consider, like the people who run the exchange, how they do business, and how much money they have.

How will you know the people who run these centralised exchanges? Before the fall of FTX  Sam Bankman-Fried was seen as a financial titan and a well-celebrated philanthropist. Almost all the media houses were singing his praise and FTX was seen as a successful business as they splashed millions on endorsement deals and marketing. Nobody knew that the company was a walking corpse until it collapsed. The operations of most of these exchanges are secret and their audit statements are fake and fabricated. You cannot dictate how much they own because they can always randomly generate figures without any verifiable proof. The best option will always be to "stay away from centralization"       

[Z-tight]

I agree with you. Proof of reserves is a good step, but it's not enough to guarantee that a centralized exchange is safe. There are other things to consider, like the people who run the exchange, how they do business, and how much money they have.

People like CZ, who believe that 99% of funds in self custody would be lost, and that funds are only #SaFu when you store them with Binance. Take note that nothing should serve as a guarantee that any centralized exchange is safe, nothing at all. Centralized exchanges do business through fractional reserve scam, they take your money and try to use it to make more money for themselves, and how can you know how much they have, and if it is enough to cover liabilities, either way you have to trust what they say, and you shouldn't. Store your funds only in a self custodial wallet.

I'm also worried that many centralized exchanges keep their insurance funds in their own tokens. This is a conflict of interest, because it gives the exchange an incentive to manipulate the price of its token.

They can print their tokens just out of thin air, so they rather use your money to either trade or gamble in other investments and see how much profit they can make from it, and if they fail and become insolvent, they print out millions of their tokens out of thin air and try to use it to stay afloat. By the way, why should you be worried about what centralized exchanges do, when you can store your funds the right way.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Nobody knew that the company was a walking corpse until it collapsed. The operations of most of these exchanges are secret and their audit statements are fake and fabricated. You cannot dictate how much they own because they can always randomly generate figures without any verifiable proof. The best option will always be to "stay away from centralization"

I wouldn't say "nobody knew". There have been some of us who have been pointing out for years how shady these centralized exchanges are. 18 months before BlockFi collapse I was making posts warning about how dangerous it is leaving your coins with them. Even their Terms of Service clearly stated that they were taking your money and handing it out to literally anyone who wanted it with absolutely zero collateral or guarantees. Then when these platforms and collapse and people are shocked that the platforms were doing exactly what they said they were doing in their Terms of Service.

It's was very obvious to anyone paying attention that the likes of BlockFi, Celsius, Voyager, FTX, and so on, were massive scams. But lots people were blinded by promises of obviously unsustainable rewards and ignored all the warnings. And now it's obvious to anyone paying attention that the likes of Binance and Tether are running fractional reserve scams, but lots of people ignore these warnings out of greed or convenience.

[stompix]

It really amazes me that such a company could even do business in the US, because what we are seeing now, someone should have noticed and reacted earlier and prevented everything from going to hell. How realistic is it that no one knew about all these illogicalities within FTX until it was too late, isn't there someone who oversees such things?

A bit late to reply but there is one thing I must mention!
Us, Japan, EU, south whatever, there is simply not enough workforce to monitor everything, and these companies know it, you can't have a million supervising a million companies, they all have to do with the numbers these provide, and even if on inspection they find a flaw that will be discovered only after a trimester and then real action will take further months.

Besides, the major fuck up was not even over ftx.us but com, which was not US jurisdiction, in September 2021 was based in HK and then in the Bahamas, just like how CZ keeps binance.us clean so did SBF.

It's worse than that - we know for a fact that Tether doesn't have the assets it claims to have. They revealed in court that at one point only 14% of USDT was actually collateralized: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5322147.msg56656992#msg56656992. They also admitted that their collateral includes loan repayments they are making to themselves after printing almost $1 billion USDT out of nothing and loaning it to themselves to stop themselves going bankrupt. So print USDT out of thin air, loan it to yourself, claim USDT is backed up by future loan repayments.

The situation is better now, probably because of the last bull run, not that they have proved beyond a doubt they have a 1:1 backing but even if we ignore the parts of the audit that can't be trusted they do have at least 40% of those sums in treasury bills, that is the only sure thing they can't fake and can and has been checked, the rest, god knows and with their business practice I'm a bit unsure even he will be able to come with the right numbers.

My most recent favorite snippet from the trial below. Gary Wang was a the CTO of FTX and co-founder alongside SBF:

Lawyer: Are you aware of the difference between solvency and liquidity?
Gary Wang: Now I am.

What an absolute clown show.

If he tried to be a smart ass, then he's an asshole, if he was sincere then probably this is just the tip of shitshow we're about to discover.

[franky1]

So the entirety of BlockFi's "research" and "evaluation" as to whether they should lend over a billion dollars to another company consisted of "Hey, we can totally trust you, right?", without any independent audits, examination, or verification of any sort whatsoever. So essentially FTX said "You can totally trust us, bro", and BlockFi said "OK, here's a billion dollars of our customers' money!"

many large investors failed that verification check. simply because they knew another institution/influencer was promoting FTX, they think the first,second and third one vetted and verified FTX so the fourth didnt have to. yet first second and third didnt either..
EG FTX  promoted shark tank presenter, football millionaire and others as promoters.. so real investors thought it must be legit.

if companies CFO's do less research and value surveys compared to lets say the surveys needed for just a $100k mortgage.. when investing millions then those companies CFO's need to be challenged and maybe even taken to court themselves as they put their own business in jeopardy

its become a very well known practice that investors dont pay money to do actual due diligence because they have the mindset of, if the invested company lies about contracted details, the investors can sue the invested company for malpractice.

[Doan9269]

I agree with you. Proof of reserves is a good step, but it's not enough to guarantee that a centralized exchange is safe. There are other things to consider, like the people who run the exchange, how they do business, and how much money they have.

People like CZ, who believe that 99% of funds in self custody would be lost, and that funds are only #SaFu when you store them with Binance. Take note that nothing should serve as a guarantee that any centralized exchange is safe, nothing at all. Centralized exchanges do business through fractional reserve scam, they take your money and try to use it to make more money for themselves, and how can you know how much they have, and if it is enough to cover liabilities, either way you have to trust what they say, and you shouldn't. Store your funds only in a self custodial wallet.

I'm also worried that many centralized exchanges keep their insurance funds in their own tokens. This is a conflict of interest, because it gives the exchange an incentive to manipulate the price of its token.

They can print their tokens just out of thin air, so they rather use your money to either trade or gamble in other investments and see how much profit they can make from it, and if they fail and become insolvent, they print out millions of their tokens out of thin air and try to use it to stay afloat. By the way, why should you be worried about what centralized exchanges do, when you can store your funds the right way.

No wonder exchanges will always accept any shitcoins to be enlisted on their platform once they were able to reach a greed business terms and fund the project for a while, this also call for more caution for potential investors seeking for highly fast growing currencies, most of them were nothing but a hype to attract for more investors, thanks that we have the use of altcoins to differentiate bitcoin from other currencies in cryptocurrency, so CZ is as good as any average businessman and understand the way to persuade people for a business patronage using his exchange even though he knows himself that non custodial wallet is the best means of having crypto assets.

[raumonds]

Ugh, the whole FTX trial mess is giving me a headache. It's crazy how they're basically treating their insurance fund like Monopoly money. Makes you wonder how many other exchanges are pulling the same stunt, huh? Thanks for sharing those code snippets. Eye-opening stuff.

[franky1]

Us, Japan, EU, south whatever, there is simply not enough workforce to monitor everything, and these companies know it, you can't have a million supervising a million companies, they all have to do with the numbers these provide, and even if on inspection they find a flaw that will be discovered only after a trimester and then real action will take further months.

Besides, the major fuck up was not even over ftx.us but com, which was not US jurisdiction, in September 2021 was based in HK and then in the Bahamas, just like how CZ keeps binance.us clean so did SBF.

your learning finally.. but ontop of not having enugh workforce,  regulators are not pro-active investigators/inspectors. they do not actively audit companies to any schedule. instead they wait in their offices to receive grievance reports from customers or internal self reporting from the companies to then act. EG when the company itself does its quarterly reporting. if the regulators see some dodgy math in a companies report to them, then they react

[philipma1957]

Us, Japan, EU, south whatever, there is simply not enough workforce to monitor everything, and these companies know it, you can't have a million supervising a million companies, they all have to do with the numbers these provide, and even if on inspection they find a flaw that will be discovered only after a trimester and then real action will take further months.

Besides, the major fuck up was not even over ftx.us but com, which was not US jurisdiction, in September 2021 was based in HK and then in the Bahamas, just like how CZ keeps binance.us clean so did SBF.

your learning finally.. but ontop of not having enugh workforce,  regulators are not pro-active investigators/inspectors. they do not actively audit companies to any schedule. instead they wait in their offices to receive grievance reports from customers or internal self reporting from the companies to then act. EG when the company itself does its quarterly reporting. if the regulators see some dodgy math in a companies report to them, then they react

And they offer reward money 💰 for correctly reported tax avoidance scams.

Every year the I.R.S. gives millions to citizens that make correct reporting on a tax scammer.


https://www.irs.gov/compliance/whistleblower-office

legit link above.

and the irs is not the only gov agency with these programs.

[hatshepsut93]

People who still hold their funds in Binance are either ignorant, not aware of the recent events regarding centralized exchanges & lending and earning platforms or they think Binance is too big to fail. If Binance bites the dust they'll be the ones affected and a million other holders of shitcoins, the BTC network will be just fine with or without Binance.

I want to believe that the majority of coins that are held on exchanges are owned by day traders who have little choice but to keep their coins there, because of transaction speed and costs. Because it should be a common wisdom by now that coins held on exchanges are almost as good as gone in the long term.

[franky1]

Us, Japan, EU, south whatever, there is simply not enough workforce to monitor everything, and these companies know it, you can't have a million supervising a million companies, they all have to do with the numbers these provide, and even if on inspection they find a flaw that will be discovered only after a trimester and then real action will take further months.

Besides, the major fuck up was not even over ftx.us but com, which was not US jurisdiction, in September 2021 was based in HK and then in the Bahamas, just like how CZ keeps binance.us clean so did SBF.

your learning finally.. but ontop of not having enugh workforce,  regulators are not pro-active investigators/inspectors. they do not actively audit companies to any schedule. instead they wait in their offices to receive grievance reports from customers or internal self reporting from the companies to then act. EG when the company itself does its quarterly reporting. if the regulators see some dodgy math in a companies report to them, then they react

And they offer reward money 💰 for correctly reported tax avoidance scams.

Every year the I.R.S. gives millions to citizens that make correct reporting on a tax scammer.


https://www.irs.gov/compliance/whistleblower-office

legit link above.

and the irs is not the only gov agency with these programs.

only if the IRS can collect proceeds.. which is why many businesses file bankruptcy rather then pay out

[Z-tight]

I want to believe that the majority of coins that are held on exchanges are owned by day traders who have little choice but to keep their coins there, because of transaction speed and costs. Because it should be a common wisdom by now that coins held on exchanges are almost as good as gone in the long term.

I also want to believe that but i am not so sure how true it is. It is hard to believe but there are so many people who believe that some centralized exchanges are too big to fail, and so instead of being their own bank and keep their coins safe, they rather just let Binance do it for them, since 'it's too big to fail'. That's the idea many people have and that's why they lose their money whenever an exchange bites the dust.

[Franctoshi]

People who still hold their funds in Binance are either ignorant, not aware of the recent events regarding centralized exchanges & lending and earning platforms or they think Binance is too big to fail. If Binance bites the dust they'll be the ones affected and a million other holders of shitcoins, the BTC network will be just fine with or without Binance.

Only fools would see what happened to FTX and still store or keep their cryptos in Binance or any other centralized exchange out there, I'm not against doing business with the platform, but the message here is never to keep your coin there at the end of the day, and relies on them for safe storage; If as an investor/trader, you are not a Safe with storing your funds “self custody” then I assure you no one can, and this reminds me of an argument with someone I know who still believes that Binance is too big to fall, and since then, I see that person as being naughty.

If Binance still claims they are “SAFU” I'm short of words, but only time will tell about their sincerity.

[DaveF]

To be totally fair Bernie Madoff, Bernard Ebbers (WorldCom), Ken Lay (Enron), Mark Swartz and Mark Belnick (Tyco), all did it too.

It's not new, and people will always believe what they want to believe.

And if you put up something that looks legit, and people are looking for a reason to believe that it is legit, then they will latch onto that as proof.

-Dave

[famososMuertos]

Wait a moment... the thing is not that you run away from the CEx, but that you take "advantage" of them with full knowledge of the facts and if it is "irremediable" to have to use them, then even more so.

The "bluff" in the code is not a surprise, no one audits them, those who grant permissions only see the "balance and loss books" (let's say it's sarcastic, but something like that), the bureaucracy has standards that it must supervise better.

The issue is that people have been walking through these types of situations from various angles, ok, we are in a crypto niche, but these bad practices have always been in all their variants, traditional e-wallets, casinos and all that "screen- balance" of any centralized service that shows you a "Value". People don't think of that value as a line of code, which in theory represents the equivalence of your money.

The incredible thing is that the ""screen- balance" " is repeated, many in these parts do not speak of Quadriga, but in any case it would be another example +.

That is, the protagonists change but the "lines of code"^scenario remain the same.

[o_e_l_e_o]

https://nitter.cz/molly0xFFF/status/1714837404635353154#m

I'll take "What is fractional reserve?" for negative $9 billion please, Alex.

FTX was insolvent for years before their eventual collapse. Your money was being used to buy mansions, holiday homes, private jets, and more. Don't worry though, I'm sure other centralized exchanges are totally different, because reasons.

I'm also laughing at just how stupid SBF was: https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/the-ftx-trial-day-eleven. Admitted a bunch of illegal stuff to a reporter, and then after that was reported came back and said "Uh, can you make that off the record?"

This is the kind of incompetence and sheer maliciousness you trust with your coins if you use centralized exchanges.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Unsurprisingly, SBF has been found guilty of all seven charges: https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/sam-bankman-fried-guilty-on-all-charges

Sentencing is awaited. His team will almost certainly appeal. Maximum possible sentence of 110 years as I understand, although he'll almost certainly get much less.

[Synchronice]

What programming language is that? I'm learning JS and it doesn't look like that, probably doesn't look like a JS framework too. Is that a python? I'm just curious.

I didn't know if this code was enough to collect millions of dollars

fttSize: coinSizeFormat.format(5250000) }} FTT
return f2d(numpy.random.normal(7500, 3000)) * daily_volume / Decimal(1'e9')

If FTX went as far as publishing insurance numbers out of thing air with no actual asset to back it up, I'm convinced that some CEX available today still indulge in those practice.

I have a doubt absolutely every company lies about numbers that they show on their website.

For newbies that'll come across this thread, if you still have coins on exchanges, get them off right away. Exchanges aren't wallet to store your coins with them and don't believe whatever excuse they'll give to make you believe they'll look after your coins. Take the security of your coins as your personal business and store them offline in a hardware wallet.

Do you know that people with the ability of critical thinking are a minority of our society? A very tiny minority. It doesn't matter how many times you are going to warn someone, they'll still do it if they want to do it. People can't learn, even on their own mistakes. That's not my problem, nor your problem. Bitcoin, a decentralized currency with free, non-custodial wallet is in front of us and people still prefer to store them on Binance. I don't know what is the solution of this problem.

[nelson4lov]

~Snipped

If FTX went as far as publishing insurance numbers out of thing air with no actual asset to back it up, I'm convinced that some CEX available today still indulge in those practice.

I have a doubt absolutely every company lies about numbers that they show on their website.

Yes, that's true; as there is no way to actually verify assets that users have deposited to an exchange. They can simply display whatever numbers they want and users will have no choice than to believe. For close source systems like that, it's hard to verify. It's not on-chain.

Unsurprisingly, SBF has been found guilty of all seven charges: https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/sam-bankman-fried-guilty-on-all-charges

Sentencing is awaited. His team will almost certainly appeal. Maximum possible sentence of 110 years as I understand, although he'll almost certainly get much less.

I'll be looking forward to the judgement. It's one thing to be found guilty, it's another thing to be duly punished.

[goldkingcoiner]

If you've not been following the FTX trial, you really should, because the level of fraud on display is enough to even rival that of CSW. Here are two snippets of code (pictures courtesy of https://nitter.cz/molly0xFFF) which have been submitted as evidence in the trial. This code is regarding FTX's insurance fund which was widely publicized:

   

The first picture above shows how the value of 5,250,000 FTX Token supposedly in the insurance fund was "calculated". It wasn't. It was just coded in. insuranceFund.size = 5250000 FTT.

The second picture above shows how the value of USD in the insurance fund was "calculated". The daily trading volume on FTX was multiplied by a random number, and this was used to adjust the insurance fund to a new size.

This is the kind of bullshit centralized exchanges are using in their "proof of reserves", "safu funds", "insurance funds", "collateral funds", "1-to-1 matching reports", and all the other trash they peddle to convince you your funds are totally safe. Literal random number generators. They will do and say anything to get you to hand over your coins to them. Don't fall it.

Once again conclusive proof that centralized exchanges cannot and should not be trusted! The weak point always remains the same: "Trust us". A decentralized technology should be completely unreliant on trust. But it does not work if you give someone else custody of your wallet.

I keep telling people:
Do not store your money on centralized exchanges, if possible. If you absolutely have to sate your urge to daytrade or something then at least use decentralized services. (But watch out for DeFI scammers.)

[o_e_l_e_o]

What programming language is that? I'm learning JS and it doesn't look like that, probably doesn't look like a JS framework too. Is that a python? I'm just curious.

The screenshot on the left is Javascript; the one on the right is Python.

Yes, that's true; as there is no way to actually verify assets that users have deposited to an exchange.

The solution is obvious - put your coins in your own wallet. Then it is trivially easy to verify every single satoshi you own.

[LoyceV]

The first picture above shows how the value of 5,250,000 FTX Token supposedly in the insurance fund was "calculated". It wasn't. It was just coded in. insuranceFund.size = 5250000 FTT.

The second picture above shows how the value of USD in the insurance fund was "calculated". The daily trading volume on FTX was multiplied by a random number, and this was used to adjust the insurance fund to a new size.

To me, this looks like a bunch of nerds IT guys who got in over their head after attracting much more money than they can handle. It looks like they're still just kidding around, without realizing there are real-life consequences to what they're doing.