FTX Owes Money to More Than a Million People, Court Filing Suggests
vice.com
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For example FTX was able to claim, with a vague semblance of honesty, that it had assets to cover liabilities. But in fact what it did was transfer money to other companies that were part of the network, like Alameda, and get back tokens with a book value but no real market value, like Serum. On paper both companies had engaged in a fair transaction. In reality customer money got moved to another company that was then free to do with it what it wanted, all hidden behind the corporate structure.
Read https://archive.ph/TOgjK for Matt Levine explaining exactly how this actually worked.
Since every dollar they received in customer deposits appeared both in assets and liabilities, the only way they ended up with liabilities that their (non-Serum, non-FTT) assets did not cover, is by exchanging the dollars with something that lost value.
That's the way it ought to work in the absence of fraud or theft. But as Matt says, the reason this balance sheet is so insane is that there's no evidence this happened. Only a very small amount of customer dollars could have been used to generate Serum. FTX invented several cryptocurrencies which, at a 10x inflated valuation, obscure the fact that they completely lost $16 billion of assets.
In fact, it seems that SBF used a backdoor in his own software to secretly transfer customer funds to Alameda. There's no evidence that any sort of internal accounting actually balanced the books in the way you suggest, which is what's so insane about this whole story.
How does it go again?
“ The government are very keen on amassing statistics. They collect them, add them, raise them to the nth power, take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams. But you must never forget that every one of these figures comes in the first instance from the village watchman, who just puts down what he damn pleases.”
- Josiah Stamp
Step 2 is for Alameda to deposit on FTX, and then withdraw 95% of its notional value in USD or say BTC/ETH. Then on FTX they have a negative balance on this matched by a positive balance in FTT or other Sam coins. The USD or BTC/ETH withdrawn comes from someone on platform who has clicked "lend" on their positive balance of same in exchange of some yield.
To be fair, any user could do that, deposit shitcoin, withdraw non-shit, up to 100% of the funds where people had clicked "lend" and that without any fraud. If the value of the shitcoin collapsed their account just got zeroed and FTX took the corresponding loss on their books.
The list of shitcoins allowed in this genius scheme is still up:
https://help.ftx.com/hc/en-us/articles/360031149632-Non-USD-...
EDIT: here's the diagrams (thanks HN!)
https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526100580/figure...
https://i.redd.it/078p4g7m6cz91.jpg
Note that for LB, like most normal companies, it has subsidiaries where it makes sense to operate under different tax laws, etc. So they have a Japanese company, and Australian company... For FTX there is no such rhyme or reason. Most of the entities outside of DE are in Antigua, Seychelles, Cayman Islands, Switzerland. I don't know enough about finance to understand if this is a red flag, but given the circumstances the intent behind such a structure is certainly suspiscious.
>FTX's corporate structure was at least an order of magnitude more complex than Lehman Bro's at the time of it's collapse.
Okay, but what does corporate structure complexity have to do with fraud? It seems like you're trying to argue something along the lines of "lehman brothers was complex and collapsed due to fraud. FTX is even more complex than lehman brothers, therefore it's even more fraud then lehman!", but we didn't even establish how complexity has to do with fraud.
Shell companies are most often used for fraud or tax evasion, there really are no good reasons to have such a complex web of companies.
Did I claim that they weren't engaging in fraud, or that the deal wasn't dodgy? My objection was with "money laundering". Even with the loosest possible interpretation, there needs to be some sort of obfuscation involved. The facts seem to point towards something very straightforward (ie. Alemeda Research borrowing money from FTX), which suggests that no obfuscation was attempted. All of this confirms my prior comment:
>It feels like certain terms (eg. "ponzi scheme", "money laundering", "shell companies") get thrown around any time there's any sort of financial malfeasance, without regard to their specific meaning.
Was there malfeasance at Alameda Research/FTX? Hell yes. Was there money laundering? No.
> Alemeda Research borrowing money from FTX
A company can't 'borrow' customer funds from another company. Companies also shouldn't try to price the assets they hold as security or swap securities on customers. There are so many examples of fraud here.
Broadly speaking, inexplicable complexity in finance means fraud.
1. Alameda Research experienced some losses and needed capital injection
2. In a transaction that was probably not at arms-length and possibly fraudulent, they borrowed money from FTX by putting FTT and other tokens as collateral
3. The tokens taken as collateral crashed in value, which caused FTX to be unable to meet their liabilities
So let me get this straight: They were concerned with "actions like #2 exposed", so they set up a super complicated corporate structure, and apparently... didn't make use of it? Once the leaked balance sheet came out on coindesk everybody pretty much immediately figured it out, and not because there was great internet sleuths, it was just that obvious.
They used user funds to cover their losses. There is no possibility where this isn't fraudulent.
Also how did they even lose so much in the first place?
That one's easy, they bought a bunch of tokens that turned out to be worthless. (E.g. allegedly they were buying Luna the whole way down).
It's called being conservative in your statements.
>Also how did they even lose so much in the first place?
Bad investments
>Meanwhile, at a meeting with Alameda employees on Wednesday, Ms. Ellison explained what had caused the collapse, according to a person familiar with the matter. Her voice shaking, she apologized, saying she had let the group down. Over recent months, she said, Alameda had taken out loans and used the money to make venture capital investments, among other expenditures.
>Around the time the crypto market crashed this spring, Ms. Ellison explained, lenders moved to recall those loans, the person familiar with the meeting said. But the funds that Alameda had spent were no longer easily available, so the company used FTX customer funds to make the payments
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/technology/ftx-sam-bankma...
Were the losses real or were they "diverted" to someone else? This, herein, lies the problem. We as outsiders cannot tell the difference.
Afterall, "Fraud and Stupidity look an awful lot alike" [1] Playing the dope is pretty common con scheme.
[1] https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/fraud-stupidity-look-lot-al...
Market paniced when alameda attempted to buy all remaining FTX from Binance, at $22. Probably because Alameda has loans that would be liquidated under that price.
A Bank run materializes, and the rest is history.
Their point is that we can't look at those diagrams and determine if LB was more complex than FTX, because we suspect that those diagrams weren't drawn with the same granularity. So it's possible (perhaps even likely) that LB was more complex than FTX, and this would be apparent if we were to compare diagrams drawn with the same granularity.
And corporate officers and beneficial ownership info is rarely easy to get when this is done offshore, like many of these were.
It seems to me that your comment concerns the connection between financial complexity and fraud (it's easier to conceal fraud when you have complex structures).
My comment didn't concern that topic at all. My comment concerned "can we judge if A is more complex than B based on these 2 pictures". I said that we can't know if A is more complex than B, or if B is more complex than A, based on these 2 pictures.
Your comment doesn't even mention the pictures. Nor does it attempt to draw any kind of conclusion about the comparison between A and B. Nor does it provide a general framework for drawing comparisons. So I don't see how it relates to what I said at all.
Which I figured was because you couldn’t see the connection, otherwise you would have quoted another section?
Less so for FTX.
All are tax havens and, afaik, provide a level of corporate veils that are not readily available elsewhere.
I have some money in fundrise(RE investing crowdfunding), and they have a number of subsidiaries for various reasons invisible to the end user until tax time.
Tracing the actual on the ground transactions and seeing where each dollar went, and figuring out the mechanisms used to actually lift said dollars?
That’s what this discussion is about, and it’s not as clearly understood right now.
We need the answers for the documentaries!
I still find structures like this dumb, though thet are sometimes required by stupid governments.
When you owe the bank several billion, the bank has a problem.
When the unregulated-bank owes billions to millions of people, I guess the people have a problem?
And a bank is not the ears of corn in the analogy. The thief here is FTX which is like the bank. You don't blame the corn for being stolen. Yes, blame the thief.
Edit - better explanations below this
Also a friendly reminder to everyone not to trust any exchange at all with crypto unless you're actively trading it, keep it in a wallet!
+1 to this. Remember the classic phrase that goes something like "Not your keys, not your crypto"
Like the Kraken ToS.
> Ownership. Title to Digital Assets shall at all times remain with you and shall not transfer to Payward, except as provided herein. All interests in Digital Assets we hold for Kraken Accounts are held for customers, are not property of Payward. As the owner of Digital Assets in your Kraken Account, you bear all risk of loss of such Digital Assets. None of the Digital Assets in your Kraken Account are the property of Payward. Payward does not represent or treat assets in your Kraken Account as belonging to Payward. However, a court may disagree with Payward’s treatment of your assets and subject them to claims of Payward’s creditors.
Which means that the current fad of "proof of reserves" means absolutely nothing without the liabilities side, both customer accounts and for the company itself.
https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1550160830762782724
I think when massive scams like FTX start airing Super Bowl ads, we all have a problem.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) does handle fraudulent advertisements and the like.... If they even address your complaint, AND if the complaint comes in your favor, you are still guaranteed nothing.
And the "punishments" are at the level of 'just doing business' for most cases.
With FTX, its when rich people get hit is when the government gets involved. The rest of us can get stuffed.
Take note of every commercial you see and you'll notice that some huge % of them have dead bodies on their balance sheets, poisoned water, coups, criminal behavior. Like how the (unnamed?) main character of Fight Club's job as an insurance adjuster was to figure out if it was cheaper to do a recall or pay off the victims' families.
All that said, yeah absolutely no one even glancing at FTX's books before letting them in the room is very 2008-ish.
the people are the problem
That should definitely be the case. The moral risk of anyone else covering this would be catastrophic.
The bankruptcy will divide whatever value is still left to be divided. Some of the missing value may be obtained from the malicious people behind the company through lawsuits, and some people may go to jail for knowingly scamming people.
In the end, this is not a bank, and the regulations protecting people from scummy banks, even the new legislations written after the 2008 crisis, don't apply.
This isn't the first business with millions of customers to go bankrupt. When such a company fails, getting your money back is your problem. Large-scale mismanagement and uneducated customer bases like this is the reason banks and other finance companies are under so much regulatory pressure.
The NYTimes was quick to destroy owners of other exchanges (whom I also do not view favorably) but is mysteriously lenient, deflecting criticism, outright censoring themselves.
How does this happen? Just what is the relationship with these media outlets, Sam?
The party mantra from the Democrats and their supporting media outlets seem to be to remove Sam as much as possible and downplay the role he played in causing havoc.
Already a handful of people have committed suicide as a result of this FTX fiasco, Sequoia, WEF, have all deleted their praising words for Sam and playing dumb.
I have this feeling that something is going to break. It's going to get really ugly for this country and other entities will fully utilize the chaos to seize whatever they can.
The sheer number of letters I have gotten in the mail about the bankruptcy from the Japanese government easily cost a pretty penny more than my initial $1 in postage alone. I was honestly a little impressed they managed to hunt me down.
I made zero attempts at getting that money back.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/technology/ftx-sam-bankma...
I don't get it. What do you think this story says? I read it and it just can't be characterized the way you are saying.
Here are some choice quotes:
> Mr. Bankman-Fried did, however, agree with critics in the crypto community who said he had expanded his business interests too quickly across a wide swath of the industry. He said his other commitments had led him to miss signs that FTX was running into trouble.
> “Had I been a bit more concentrated on what I was doing, I would have been able to be more thorough,” he said. “That would have allowed me to catch what was going on on the risk side.”
He didn't "miss signs". There was nothing to "catch". He stole billions of dollars from his customers.
> Mr. Bankman-Fried’s circle of colleagues was bound by a commitment to effective altruism, a charitable movement that urges adherents to give away their wealth in efficient and logical ways.
How bad a guy can he be?
> Mr. Bankman-Fried said he wished “we’d bitten off a lot less.”
Bitten off less of his customers' money, he means?
> As FTX has crumbled, Mr. Bankman-Fried has been “working constructively with regulators, bankruptcy officials and the company to try to do what’s best for consumers,” he said on Sunday.
What a mensch!
> He has also found other ways to occupy his time in recent days, playing the video game Storybook Brawl, though less than he usually does, he said. “It helps me unwind a bit,” he said. “It clears my mind.”
So happy for him.
> Shortly before the interview, Mr. Bankman-Fried had posted a cryptic tweet: the word “What.” Then he had tweeted the letter H. Asked to explain, Mr. Bankman-Fried said he planned to post the letter A and then the letter P. “It’s going to be more than one word,” he said. “I’m making it up as I go.”
> So he was planning a series of cryptic tweets? “Something like that.”
> But why? “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m improvising. I think it’s time.”
What does this even mean? Why include it in the story?
See how nuts that sounds? "Oh, Mr. Madoff missed some signs" that his scheme was insolvent.
Yeah, NYTimes deserves at least some of the criticism on this piece.
As for the case being open… I mean, what is the point of a newspaper if they're just going to reprint whatever the authorities say happened? What about the absolutely bonkers balance sheet that FTX released, for example? Matt Levine did a good job breaking it down [1], because that's the job of a journalist: to make otherwise-inaccessible information available to laypeople.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-14/ftx-s-...
> Alameda had accumulated a large “margin position” on FTX, essentially meaning it had borrowed funds from the exchange, Mr. Bankman-Fried said. “It was substantially larger than I had thought it was,” he said. “And in fact the downside risk was very significant.” He said the size of the position was in the billions of dollars but declined to provide further details.
We know the size of the positions! The Financial Times reported on Friday (as news) that FTX held $900M in assets against $9B in liabilities [1]. And that was before the balance sheet was released!
Why is it important to run this quote? Why allow him to spin the story like this? Why let him present it as a mistake? Why not include actual numbers? These are all choices the NYT is making that frame SBF in a positive light.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/f05fe9f8-ca0a-48d5-8ef2-7a4d813af...
"the company used FTX customer funds to make the payments. Besides her and Mr. Bankman-Fried, she said, two other people knew about the arrangement: Mr. Singh and Mr. Wang.
"The meeting was previously reported by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Singh did not respond to a request for comment, and Mr. Wang could not be reached. According to a person familiar with FTX’s finances, the exchange lent as much as $10 billion to Alameda."
I'm just calling for some critical thinking here! I get it, everyone's angry. But you don't have to let it turn your brain off.
> "Mr. Bankman-Fried’s circle of colleagues was bound by a commitment to effective altruism, a charitable movement that urges adherents to give away their wealth in efficient and logical ways."
Not "Bankman-Fried CLAIMS his circle of colleagues were bound by a commitment to effective altruism" The article isn't reporting the claim Bankman-Fried makes about himself. As written, the journalist is the one making this claim. That's far over the line. This man stole billions of dollars and the New York Times is asserting that he's an altruist.
I think it’s reasonable to conclude that SBFs interest in EA was legitimate, irrespective of him defrauding his customers. Even if that isn’t the case, interest in the subject of EA still accurately describes his circle of colleagues.
I don't think professional journalists make this sort of mistake by accident, and if they did, it shouldn't have gotten past the editors.
There is no mistake here. You’re seemingly very upset by your own misinterpretation of this section of the article.
Beyond what it says in that snippet, SBF did publicly pledge to give away the vast majority of his wealth. He was outspoken about his belief in Effective Altruism.
You can certainly argue he scamming the others in the EA community with a false pledge and commitment to EA principles? But this aspect of the article was completely accurate.
I mean... it's an interview... with the guy at the center of all of it.
How is it not newsworthy to put him on the record? Where's the lack of integrity in that?
Anyone on SBF's side would try to get him to shut completely up. Instead the NYTs has made him feel comfortable and got him talking. He's going to hang himself with his words. They will be quote from this, using it against him at trial and sentencing, because there will be plenty of private communications counter to this, which shows a conscious effort to deceive.
Getting mad at the NYT over FTX is just weird.
This garbage reads like "a day in the life of a silicon valley CEO" or something. The dude just perpetrated one of the largest financial frauds in the history of the world. Bernie Madoff level, and this is all the NYT has to say. Totally disgusting to defend the NYT here.
Dude said before Congress that they never trade or leverage using customer funds. That was a complete and utter lie.
He "testified to Congress and met with regulators" hugely downplays his attempts at regulatory capture via donations and attempted backroom deals (Gary Gensler is implicated in this too). Including the alleged prid pro quo.
It mentions his "effective altruism" and "philanthropy" but doesn't mention who his donations are to, or the fact that half of it was just a guise and actually he spent millions on housing in the Bahamas or in New York.
What charges have been filed?
What has he been convicted of?
Comparing him to Madoff is disingenuous. Prior to Madoff being charged, the media was the same... they're not going to print words like "perpetrated one of the largest financial frauds in the world" without charges. The only thing that screams is "defamation lawsuit". To be clear, I have no boat in this race. But calling the NYT out for not making statements that they do not (yet) have the ability to prove is entirely problematic.
Word count NYT's puff piece on SBF:
"Fraud": 0 "Enron": 0 "Crime": 0 "Illiquid": 0 "Stolen": 0 "Hidden": 0 "Criminal": 0 "Back door": 0 "He's getting sleep": 1
Source: https://twitter.com/TrungTPhan/status/1592349684471037955
That's the first paragraph. Literally calls him a "villain" and says he's the target of multiple investigations.
He's worse than Madoff and these sycophant journalists are still eating out of his palm.
The 1% of damning info was Caroline's reported admission that Alameda borrowed short-term to make long-term illiquid VC investments, and when those loans got called and Alameda couldn't pay, FTX commingled its customer funds with Alameda to pay them.
That was a new bit of info, that NYTimes just casually snuck into the middle of the puff piece without further commentary, but it's quite damning and kinda insane. While all the rubes are complaining about the article being too gentle, the financial crimes prosecutors are adding it to their case files.
The closest comparable person I can think of was Madoff, and he had the leverage that at least most of his customer's money wasn't actually destroyed so his cooperation worth a lot. I honestly don't know that SBF has anything to bargain to the legal system or his angry, often crime involved, customers as it appears he destroyed basically all of their money. I'm not saying he should be terrified, but personally I would feel very terrified I were in that position.
I think his best outcome at this point is some form of plea that incudes witness protection program in exchange for un-"hacking" the remaining $600M.
Most mortals start sweating bullets if they steal a candybar, or at most a car.
Why would they want to help him? Do you think he is bribing them with his worthless imaginary money? How does the NYT benefit from defending someone who has destroyed his own reputation and lost billions of dollars of customer money?
Is it possible the entire thing was a Madoff-style fraud from the beginning? Yes, but that is not the only possibility. No charges have been filed, and all the people who think he should be thrown in jail never mention what laws they think he broke. It's not illegal to be an incompetent failure, and fraud has a specific definition that requires intent and does not cover all instances of simply lying.
If the NYT had written an article accusing the guy of crimes, they wouldn't have a basis for doing so. Not yet, anyway. Maybe actual criminal lawbreaking will be discovered, but right now, there is no proof. Should newspapers be accusing people of crimes without proof?
People need to put down the pitchforks and torches and wait for the full truth to come out. It's going to take a while.
Oh let me think. Because they like democrats and he donated to democrats?
It’s because he’s any one that isn’t an excessive right wing mega spender (which includes very few names). That spans a lot of people in both parties. Aka centrist capitalists.
SBF is equal parts Bernie Madoff and Elizabeth Holmes but the Times is trying to paint him as an unlucky entrepreneur, down on his luck. The author doesn't even seem to understand that he stole billions from his customers to try and paper over losses from his trading.
From their "Here’s What to Know" page https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/technology/ftx-binance-cr...
The Aftermath of FTX’s Downfall
The sudden collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange has left the crypto industry stunned. Crackdown Begins: Regulators are moving to freeze parts of FTX’s business, while other divisions file for insolvency or prepare to halt operations. Here’s what’s next for the company. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/11/business/dealbook/ftx-sbf...
Investors Under Scrutiny: Venture capital firms and investment funds showered nearly $2 billion on FTX with few strings attached. Now, they are facing questions, too. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/11/technology/ftx-investors-...
‘Effective Altruism’: The fall of FTX dealt a significant blow to the philanthropy movement that is deeply tied to the company’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/business/ftx-effective-al...
Sports Sponsorships: From the naming rights for an N.B.A. arena to patches on M.L.B. umpires’ uniforms, FTX’s collapse puts sponsorship deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars in doubt. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/business/ftx-sports-spons...
I think the article is a fairly straightforward account of what happened. I think there are places that it could have emphasized the fact that "borrowing customer funds" is accurately called theft, but it didn't come across to me as a "puff piece" that people are calling it.
For example, I thought this paragraph was pretty informative and actually extremely damning to the people involved - what is described here is clear theft, plain and simple:
> Around the time the crypto market crashed this spring, Ms. Ellison explained, lenders moved to recall those loans, the person familiar with the meeting said. But the funds that Alameda had spent were no longer easily available, so the company used FTX customer funds to make the payments. Besides her and Mr. Bankman-Fried, she said, two other people knew about the arrangement: Mr. Singh and Mr. Wang.
With that one statement I don't see in any way how SBF, Ellison, Singh and Wang avoid lengthy prison terms.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/mercedes-f1-team-su...
As a group of mostly young tech guys and girls, we should be concerned about the narrative society, especially Wall Street and their media outlets, convey about us. Recall when redditors buying GME stock was being blamed for the many ills of capitalism. The whole robbinhood saga. The scapegoat is always a smart, wealthy young technologists.
SBF is more of a Soros than an Aaron Swartz. Wall Street loves to blame Silicon Valley, but it’s bs.
Source? I hate statements like these because it sounds like there's a central blame committee out there handing down blames (or at least some sort of consensus), when in reality in all likelihood it's a hot take by some Bloomberg columnist.
FTX’s Collapse Casts a Pall on a Philanthropy Movement
Sam Bankman-Fried, the chief executive of the embattled cryptocurrency exchange, was a proponent and donor of the “effective altruism” movement.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/business/ftx-effective-al...
You also get into the possibility that there was a cycle of money that went: US Taxpayer Dollars -> Ukraine -> FTX -> Democratic Party -> Further Money to Ukraine. That's influence buying of the absolute ugliest sort and the NY Times is unlikely to even hint at it.
> A while ago I became convinced that our duty was to do the most we could for the long run aggregate utility of the world.
> In the end, it’s the work my friends and colleagues at foundations do that matters the most. A more just world would shine a brighter light on them. In this world, I’m honored to be able to support their work.
the page is titled “Pledge Letter”... but where’s the pledge? what am i looking at here?
Perhaps what you notice is NOT coincidence?
Just a few recent examples in the news:
https://www.axios.com/2022/11/15/ftz-crypto-bankman-fried-de... https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/15/politicians-sam-bankma...
https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/15/politicians-sam-bankma...
https://cointelegraph.com/news/sbf-has-been-a-significant-do...
https://nypost.com/2022/11/14/sam-bankman-fried-broke-crypto...
Your response is akin to only citing studies funded by arguably bad actors with monetary ties to the pharmaceutical industry and the status quo establishment (captured by big pharma lobbying), while simply avoiding and immediately/automatically dismissing the 93 Ivermectin studies that in total show an average 83% rate of prophylaxis; as a preventative-proactive medication, if the protocol is providing an adequate dose, early enough, and for long enough - those 3 variables of which in all studies showing no efficacy for Ivermectin against COVID aren't using the best practices determined by frontline doctors who experimented to determine the correct, minimum protocol(s).
In fact "highly reported on" is a necessary tactic in order to try to capture and flood the search engines with articles, using the same keywords, in order to add noise and make it difficult for people to find contradicting narratives to the ones the establishment who's captured these systems wants you to see.
With SBF, there seems to be this attempt at drawing guilt-by-association because of his donations to the Democratic Party. I don't think this makes a lot of sense.
For an example on the other end of the parliamentary spectrum, say, if Musk's future Twitter profits (good luck with that) were to come from the savings from firing half of the company's employees, and he then donated those to the Republican Party, it would be absurd to blame the Republican Party for the loss of jobs that it indirectly benefited from.
Obviously firing employees is not equivalent to fraud, and donating illicit profits could be part of a scheme to launder them. But unless a causal link can be proven, it all looks like speculation to me.
And it seems like the ROI on politicians is amazing.
The US is just insane if you think about it; if a lobbyist manages to get 1 beneficial law passed in the US, that law will affect over 300 million people! Think of the profit opportunity on a per-law basis... They only need to work a handful of politicians to get such results. It's too easy.
Centralization can result in amazing efficiencies and higher standards, or amazingly large graft and powerful and effective despotism.
Lol. I guess he won't be giving
There better be a good long jail time from this.
Assuming there is a KYC database that survived…
I have no evidence but I do wonder.