What matters is the sheer scale of the fraud and the fact that it doesn't seem to be getting pursued aggressively by the US. I mean they announced a ticketmaster anti-trust investigation due to the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco, but $10B in fraud isn't enough to elicit a more notable and vocal response?
I'm sure it will be pursued but where is the outcry?
I don't think you'd be able to tell yet, for a real investigation.
You've got to realize, the Taylor Swift stuff is "for the cameras". An investigation and prosecution around something as convoluted as the FTX collapse will take years of real work.
I also think there won't be a lot of heat around the FTX collapse because it was widely assumed to be a scam... a case of people playing with matches getting burned. (I think that's unfair in many, many cases, and uncompassionate, but nevertheless will affect the priority of prosecuting this.)
The DoJ and AG do seem focused on particularly bias driven matters though
Edit: funny the negative response this comment elicits. Everybody in their own bubble these days
Isn't the house still controlled by Democrats with the new congress starting in Jan?
And for the record, I agree with you. But if it’s just a “gut feeling” it’s not an argument I can put forward.
That's why the co-CEO donated millions to them.
Millions to the Senate and House leadership funds; that's not going to lost-cause races.
[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2022/dem...
But as gross as all this is (and I think our political system's legalization of bribery is extremely gross) I tend to think that political cynics are also being insufficiently cynical about the current dynamics:
If the FTX donors were a potential future source of funds, I have no doubt that there might be some political soft-touching going on. But that's not the case. SBF et al. are never going to be a significant source of political donations in the future. (Even if they somehow manage to recover some personal wealth, they're all politically radioactive.) There's no percentage for any politician to do them political favors at this point, and a huge amount of political downside. I think what you're seeing in the Bahamas right now is mostly to be expected: a whole bunch of agencies competing to figure out who will get jurisdiction and access to any remaining funds. This requires forensic acounting and some cooperation from the principles. SBF et al. being in jail (as opposed to being free but closely watched) will just make this early process much harder.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/428c7800-c72d-4c59-9940-4376fea6e...
I don't mean this as an attack, but I find it's useful to occasionally examine my own bubble.
And unsurprisingly there's already at least one class action lawsuit.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-sit-in-the-crosshairs-of-u-s-prosecutors-11668398012
[2] https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/us-may-extradite-sam-bankman-fried-ftx-collapse-investigation-report
[3] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/house-to-probe-ftx-collapse-e2-80-98expects-e2-80-99-sam-bankman-fried-to-testify/ar-AA14bt9d>"Members of the antitrust division’s staff at the Justice Department have in recent months contacted music venues and players in the ticket market, asking about Live Nation’s practices and the wider dynamics of the industry, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is sensitive."[1]
And in many ways this is a continuation of their anti-trust probe that began in 2018/2019. [2]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/18/technology/live-nation-ti...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/arts/music/live-nation-ti...
He seems to have donated massively to media and political parties, and they appear to not so easily forget who has been their good friend.
That is, the donations are why no one wants to do the right thing. Maybe it's fear? Maybe it would mean The Politics Industrial Complex would be acknowledging its dirty little secret?
Oh...and suddenly...look at that...what perfect timing...Let's go get Ticketmaster.
You've got all the right dots, just need a bit of a remix on understanding how to connect them.
I think there is quite a bit of outcry about FTX, it's in every newspaper. The SEC is investigating and I'm sure many other investigations are being spun up. I can't imagine this will be let go lightly.
https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/159372959492171367...
I'm trying to find the original source for this but I can't. Matt Stoller is literally The Anti-Trust Guy on Twitter though.
Also, the U.S. is currently engaged with the Bahamas in a jurisdictional battle for SBF's seized funds:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/bahamas-regulator-says-it...
Has fraud ever been more obvious and clear cut than in this case?
It's likely a very complicated case, so I would imagine it will take some time. It took what, 2-3 years to bring the case against Elizabeth Holmes over Theranos?
Perhaps people prefer that approach, but to me this is a situation that calls for vocal messaging from the top.
The fraud is public for all to see and pretty much indisputable. It’s far worse than Bernie Madoffs scheme ever was
Evidence needs to be gathered before any formal prosecution sure, but would like to see more of a verbal acknowledgement of the clear wrongdoing from regulators
I'd prefer it more if this standard of restrained would be applied everywhere. It clearly isn't, and that is a problem. Not only, but certainly also, because it makes one wonder if the restrained is motivated by CYA.
But we missed the opportunity to proactively regulate. We can’t get this back. Governments absolutely should not shoot first and ask questions later. The wheels of justice should be slow and exact. The alternative is much worse.
So you just care about the optics?
And that the US government will investigate all Centralized exchanges to the extent possible, regardless if it’s within their jurisdiction.
And that Tether will be audited.
Or we can silently pursue the case for 3 years and allow many new forms of fraud to flourish in the crypto space.
A quiet pursuit is somewhat comparable to an implicit endorsement in my mind
>"What matters is the sheer scale of the fraud and the fact that it doesn't seem to be getting pursued aggressively by the US."
Do you not believe there might be a relationship between these two things? Both parties in a two party system were on the receiving end of these donations. There's likely a lot of people on both side's of the aisle that don't want to talk about this. I think those same people want this framed as a regulatory failing instead of large scale fraud. I think the details and extent of all this are still coming to light however and that this story is likely not going away.
There is a connection between the Chief of Trading at the FTX trading company and the actual Org over-seeing FTX via the licenses that FTX and its Trading company held.
Rumor is that there was a look-away rather than investigate order involved.
And that involves the SEC and another agency.
Given the demand to regulate from both political parties this is not going away.
But still the core thing is transparency and how the block-chain really does not provide that at all as it's just a transaction book and does not enforce any relationships beyond the transactions.
"That amounts to a loss of about $47 billion for AT&T shareholders, based on AT&T’s $109 billion valuation of the deal at the time it was announced."
AT&T lost its shareholders $47 billion in 4 years. Obviously you need to divide both numbers by stakeholders, but even still. IT is really hard to just fathom how much $10B, $15B $47B is. At these scales, numbers just mean different things.
then
> it doesn't seem to be getting pursued aggressively by the US.
?
I frankly don't care about the donations
what would you think if you found out that Joe Biden operated a scam to fund his campain for example ? because the outcome is the same
They're connected