He commingled bank accounts for two separate companies. It didn’t all go to him buying Lamborghinis
He can claim it was just a mistake and an accounting error if he wants, but the judge and jury will have final say if he goes to jail.
It also sounds like alameda's job was to market make the FTX coin, which they presumably did with that money in part. And likely kept doing until they blew up.
He's a fraud. He knows he's a fraud, and his PR campaign is an attempt to prove he's not a fraud but instead just really really dumb and stuff. Because being dumb isn't illegal, but running a fraud is.
It's pretty easy to lose any amount of money if you're paying $10 for $5 bills.
Everything he's done since FTX first crashed has pretty much been straight out of the most fantastical dream any federal prosecutor has woken up from in the middle of the night, certain that no defendant on the planet would actually be that dumb.
Nit-pick: it very much can be. Being dumb can lead to gross negligence, which can be criminal.
[1] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/11/17/sam-bankma...
I was on the jury of a federal fraud case, where the defendants took millions of dollars in customer funds and used it to make bad business decisions and/or placate earlier customers.
It was very clear to us that even though they lived a very simple life (old car, $1,500/month rented house), they wanted to build the biggest company in their industry, and fraudulently used their customer's funds to do it.
Beachfront properties, random companies, journalists... but no Lamborghinis.
Got it.
Don't get me wrong though, I'd say 2008 was blamed a lot on an industry that largely played fairly outside of some truly revolting players. Letting too many bent actors get away with their misgivings emboldens the next generation, and you could certainly argue a lot of this next generation of bent actors are playing fast and loose in crypto.
How did any of that change exactly?
That 2008 style Wallstreet corruption is bigger than ever, it's just a matter of time before the world sees that the upcoming/ongoing inflation is not actually "due to the war in Europe and Covid".
The same political conflicts of interest exist, regardless of whether the funding comes from a carbon Super-PAC, or a crypto con man... But you wouldn't be able to tell that from any of the blatantly partisan rhetoric around it. It's all very "We're not mad that campaign funding works the way it does, we're mad that the other guys got more of it."
Trying to limit 'who' can contribute is fraught with violations of free speech or picking and choosing the definition of what a 'company' vs an 'organization' is.
'The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative…” — U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 2, clause 3'
As it is now, they decided to stop.growing the House because ... big bribes to the controlled-by-lobbyists Reps.
That case is even murkier, but the intent seems clear.
Did I miss something?
He cashed out $300M at Series B and took a $1B loan from FTX. So yeah, ~10% went to Lambos and the rest of the $10B to his gambling habit.