A vocal community has been calling out the blatant scams and corruption for years. The information was readily available to anyone doing even the most basic due diligence.
The CEO couldn't commit to a timeline for a full audit (ie not in 2022) but pointed out reserves were just "one component" of protecting customer's assets. That's like a captain saying that he wasn't going to check if there is a hole in the boat because hull integrity is just one component of a ship's voyage.
And on Reddit people seem to think Kraken is very dependable.
[0] https://www.marketbeat.com/stocks/NASDAQ/COIN/insider-trades...
I'm interested the directors have been buying. Is that typical?
Crypto tokens have no fundamental value, but as long as people are interested in it, Coinbase has fundamental value offering a service to get money in and out without the apparent BS and scams. It crashed hard- I think coinbase is actually a good investment right now, a solid business with underpriced stock.
Edit: HOOD is probably a good buy too for the same reasons.
But I think if public interest wanes, and crypto sort of becomes this amway for nerds thing, then they'll probably flounder unless they prune back their costs significantly.
But if you lurk on these Crypto threads you get to hear people who throw around financial terms they only half understand. They say do your own research but these "white papers" (btw how did that become a thing?) are these vague cut & paste web pages. No one seems like they could read a 10k. You can laugh about how dumb these things are but I don't wonder who falls for it.
Jesse Powell also encourages people to self-custody.
And the only way you're going to provide the latter is through something called an audit.
You need an audit for that. An audit. One of those things that has been done for centuries and millennia. It's not rocket science, it just consists of paying an accounting firm to look at your books.
This web page is also a great example of using financial speak to make it sound like they are doing the things that are considered important in their own special non traditional way-- or really-- without actually doing them. Who wants their account audited? Does your bank do that? I want the bank audited.
Hacking is a different issue (comparable to, lets say MtGox).
Nobody would be opposed to have these companies audited. In fact people have been asked for tether and so on to be audited for ages.
The problem is anytime regulations are mentioned, they are about hurting the user, and not preventing things like FTX from happening.
I'm talking of things like the bill SBF himself proposed, which aimed to fuck defi (actual crypto, where you can't steal people's money like FTX did), to force people into these centralized exchanges where you don't actually own or hold any crypto.
In this case, there's... half a book? Or at least seems like that's the extent of it. Also a half filled out spreadsheet that doesn't make any sense.
It would be surprisingly bad even for a fly by night scammer who skimmed $100k before the cops caught up with him, let alone a billion+ dollar operation.
But good point. Essentially, 'less evidence to shred if we never had it in the first place'?
This is just provably not true. if you can find 3 credible people saying that FTX was lending out customer funds to the tune of $5+bn before 10/31/2022 I'll eat my shoe. the smartest critics in the room were taken as much by surprise at the extent of the crash and contagion as the most idiot-degen-ape. and it doesn't do anyone any favors to pretend it was obvious.
Successful scams are like successful cults, nobody has ever joined a harmful cult thinking that they are joining a harmful cult. A good scam will never seem like a scam to the victim. The biggest risk factor in falling for a scam is believing that it can't happen to you.
The blatant scams and corruption are actually an incentive for many people who believed that they would be the beneficiaries of the scam, not the victim.
I would put money that SBF is going to prison for decades -or- evades US prosecution by managing to avoid extradition.
That's what makes this case so interesting to observe. SBF is extremely well connected, donated to all the right people, and even actively advocated for their causes. It's a major, and very visible, test of the US Justice system.
And not only that, even people who made fortunes in the financial markets.
> and so the obvious temptations were tempting...
But that is what happened. It's bad for people who've put in money they couldn't afford to lose
Whatever regulations there are on fiat apparently didn't stop them from defrauding their customer's fiat.
AFAIK straight up stealing customer's deposits in a way the contract specifically says you will not, whether in USD or UnicornBucks, is some form of theft/fraud/embezzlement and already illegal.