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Comment by muglug | Hacker News Reader

I just heard that a guy I knew committed suicide over the FTX implosion. He was a weath adviser with a bunch of his clients' money tied up there.

FTX fucked with peoples' livelihoods, and by extension their lives.

Edit: just to clarify, it was his decision to park his clients' money there. But FTX spent a lot of money courting retail investors with slick campaigns. A superbowl ad that implied people were stupid not to participate. Big Silicon Valley VC firms imbued SBF with the aura of a wunderkind who could do no wrong.

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Please make sure this information makes it to sentencing when Bankman-Fried’s trial concludes.

Only if it makes you feel better. There's no degree of punishment that can be done to this person whom you've never met that can bring the dead that you knew back to life. There are no refunds for spending our civilization lionizing the massive accumulation of wealth by financial manipulation. The danger is in the system, not the random narcissist promoted into a position of power within it; there is an endless supply of narcissists.

Punishment isn't for the benefit of the dead, it's for the living. Kind of like the funeral.

It's a trick played on the living by the people in charge of punishment. If it were for the living, the living would have a lot more of a say than they do, and some of the millions that are spent on the process of punishment would go to the bereaved. The bereaved are the pretense.

Sometimes the bereaved want retribution.

The average peasant cares not for this cold utilitarianism. They want to see him drawn and quartered. This is not something imposed by the ruling class.

You are correct that it's only if the poster feels better. You are wrong about the reasoning. Unfortunately, sentencing takes into account the harm done, but not causing so much harm that the person then takes their life.

Punishing the guilty may put off the next fraudster.

Can't trial the judge.

A wealth advisor that is directing clients to crypo has more problems than FTX.

Sorry for your loss.

I don't want to sound negative, really. It's a great tragedy.

But when you are a wealth advisor, one of your jobs is to inform your clients about the inherent risk of all forms of investments you deal with. As for cryptocurrencies, your duty is to tell your clients all their money can evaporate in a second and they won't be able to do anything about it. If they don't like that, they can use other forms of investments. In my country it's even regulated: the client needs to sign a statement they were informed about it and they accept this risk. So no reason to commit a suicide because it's not your problem in the slightest.

If he invested his clients money in FTX, it’s certainly possible he put a lot of his own money into it as well, and lost it all.

Yes, I assume this is what actually happened. But unless it was a borrowed money, again this is not a reason to commit suicide. You can always start from zero and have a more or less normal life. If it was borrowed money, well, that person shouldn't be a wealth advisor.

Unless of course you were basically bandwagoning on it as well and telling your clients it was a great idea with little risk.

edit: this came off as implying suicide was reasonable in such circumstances. Not intended to go that far.

> telling your clients it was a great idea with little risk.

Or even worse: Telling your clients they are invested in something else with a completely different risk profile when they were actually exposed to this.

Sure, as long as your emotions are driven only by the contracts you sign.

People sign a waiver accepting the risk when they go whitewater rafting, but that doesn’t stop it from being a potentially life-altering traumatic experience for a rafting guide when a kid falls out and drowns under the raft.

Likewise, if you care about your client’s financial well-being as a wealth advisor, and you make a choice that destroys years of your client’s savings, retirement, etc. it would be understandable to feel distraught about that.

Sorry for your loss.

While I do not want to dismiss your comment in any way, the same can be said for all of Crypto.

Get out while you can.

> Get out while you can.

Nice, the opposite of HODL. Only requires an acronym or something. And indeed, to OP: my condolences.

Financial advisor without professional insurance? Why would anyone do that? Shouldn't they be the people who know how to use financial products and services to protect themselves?

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