FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried says he can’t account for billions sent to Alameda

I'm no SBF apologist, but this is about the silliest argument you could make. What does what his parents did have anything to do with anything? I don't know anything about my parents' field of expertise.

So it does seem that this will be his defense and is probably why he is doing so many interviews...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Wallstreetsilver/comments/ysakai/ca...

The way she says "stop losses" makes me think she really has no idea what she was doing.

Since their beginnings were down the street from my house, I also keep wondering if I've met them. But then I remember that they're squares who can barely down a beer in favour of pharma pills.

Some people, and I was one of them, who weren't paying much attention, read that he had worked for Jane Street, and said to themselves, "ah, he must be a relatively mature adult, unlike the other crypto bros".

But in hindsight, it seems that his role there did not prepare him for running a multibillion dollar business and why should it have?

Working for a big company means you in fact don't have to buy toilet paper (for the office). And if you aren't particularly mature or self-aware, you might take it for granted.

From "Money Stuff":

"If, later, you leave to start your own firm...you certainly won’t take its risk-management systems. And then when your colleagues say to you “hey, let’s set up some risk systems and hire an accountant, like we had at Jane Street,” you can reply “nah, I’d prefer to ignore that stuff, like I did at Jane Street.” You’re both right! Someone else at Jane Street set up those systems so you didn’t have to worry about them. But now you’re in charge, and if you don’t worry about them no one will, and then you end up not knowing how much money you have, or how much you’re making or losing, or how much you owe your customers."

Hope you're doing well, Herr Scheuller.

This is a key lie that SBF has been allowed to peddle in these interviews. He claims that, had he not panicked and announced bankruptcy, FTX would have been fine; however, the lawyers and suits that took over have decided to burn it to the ground instead.

He handily omits that the liquidity he's claiming would have saved the day is the now worthless magic beans. It reminds me of how people dishonesty reference "market cap" for NFTs and cryptocurrencies with incredibly high valuations extrapolated from a handful of sales.

SBF twice talked about how they had “real legitimate income” covering their actions but it sounds like their books were such a mess that even though they were taking very obvious serious losses on trades by Alameda he still (best case) somehow thought their assets covered it or (worst case) dual booked deposits purposefully to inflate their balance sheets and propped up their now illiquid asset to keep the casino running until loses get covered by future growth.

Fascinating isn't it. A CEO playing the dumb young dude who didn't know better.

Everything was set up in a way which complicates being able to prove exactly who involved stole what (lack of records of assets and debts, particularly customer accounts, lack of records of bank accounts controlled by the various corporations, lack of records of who the employees of the various corporations were, and what their terms of employment were, unprotected group email account with keys for corporate crypto wallets–which coincidentally a large sum was transferred out of right around the time of the bankruptcy, etc.), but in a way which makes it very hard to imagine that it was anything but deliberately structured for exactly that purpose.

He'll also be charged federally. There is no federal parole.

Unless his sentence is commuted, its not possible for a 7 year federal sentence to result in release in 5; there is no federal parole, and good conduct time is limited to 54 days per year.

- politically, the smart thing to do is bury SBF. There's no upside to sparing him.

- throwing the book at him sends a message to all other would be scammers, again at no cost

- powerful people can be powerfully vindictive when you expose them to risk and embarrassment

I agree Democrats shouldn't have taken SBF money, or any crypto money. It's always been an obvious scam and it's incredibly bad for the planet. But I admit the facts are esoteric, and we really wanted to beat Trump, because he's also really bad for the planet (remember that one time he spent years weakening NATO and building up Putin, and then Putin invaded Ukraine and set the world economy on its head and threatened to starve/freeze hundreds of millions of people?) No good option here, is what I'm saying.

Arguably, allowing SBF to make unsubstantiated claims and not challenging them is the opposite of informing the public.

Like you've said, many institutions are unwilling to challenge even the most vile scammers, and it's because interviewing the scammer generates clicks and the scammer won't agree to come on if they know they'll be challenged. It isn't just journalism either: lot's of auditing firms more-or-less rubber stamp their larger customers because giving them a hard time means they won't be hired again; heck, the ratings agencies were key factors that lead to the 2008 collapse, for similar reasons.

The consolidation of media has been a massive issue throughout the world but predominantly in the US and started a long way back. There are two movies that are imho great watches reflecting the topic:

Network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(1976_film) Christine: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a51606/christin...

And this is not entirely false, in practice.

There's nothing to explain, and more importantly, no one is challenging him on bullshit answers. He gets asked questions like "So what happened to the 8+ billion dollars FTX is missing?" to which he's answered (several times now) with a variation of "Well you see, running an exchange is complicated, and we mislabeled accounts. Really, though, the money is actually almost all there, and people can be made whole" with zero pushback.

Then people who were told it was a safe way to invest lost significant money, they were defrauded. Some lost life savings, kids college funds, retirement funds, you name it. There are likely thousands of small tragedies here.

Being ripped off due to naivety does not make one as culpable of fraud as SBF. This is pure victim blaming.

People invest in things they don’t understand every day, and we have regulations to prevent predatory fraudsters taking their money. The crypto space needs to be regulated the same way. Preferably regulated right into the dirt.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemcshane/2022/11/15/a-crypto...

[0] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/sam-bankman-fried-...

In the popular mind, away from the “crypto community,” regular people equate crypto with claims for the revolutionary blockchain. That enables scammers and predators. Technology cannot bear fault or blame because it has no will or action.

I agree that the FTX crash had everything to do with greed, and in SBF and company's case, incompetence. And I don't get how supposedly savvy investors both within and outside the "crypto space" got sucked in by such a charlatan.