Alameda wallets become active days after SBF bail, community mulls foul play
cointelegraph.com
cointelegraph.com
Keeping it simple, seems like SBF is doing this now he has access again.
If you traded for USD to BTC to USD under normal circumstances, you've got:
1. Alice wants to buy something from Bob.
2. Alice buys BTC for USD, incurring one TX fee.
3. Alice pays BTC / mining costs to transfer BTC to Bob, a 2nd TX Fee.
4. Bob transfers BTC to an exchange for USD, a 3rd Tx fee.
------------
Now lets say everything were centralized.
1. Alice opens an account at FTX. She buys "virtual BTC" (just an account at FTX, not a real wallet transaction).
2. Alice transfers money to Bob, possibly through FTX.
3. Bob sells this "virtual BTC" back for dollars.
4. Note that unlike the first example, this transaction is instantaneous. The first example requires waiting for confirmation at each transaction. Confirmations nominally happen every 10 minutes, but there have been times when the wait has been days (remember when Steam adopted BTC and the network couldn't handle the load? I remember)
FTX can charge a transaction fee at #1 and #3, and still the whole process will be cheaper than the 3x transaction fees incurred over decentralized methodologies. Of course, when FTX collapses, everybody's money is gone.
I think you found the point right there.
People don't like "market rates" for transactions that change day by day, hour by hour. People also don't like their transactions getting stuck in the queue for days-and-days on end, possibly causing commerce issues.
-------
Or as people used to say about a year or two ago. BTC is no longer about transactions, its now about store of value.
Except now we've lost the store of value story, since BTC declined by 60%+ (on top of inflation). So BTC ain't that either.
No need to wait for a block and for the CEX to verify your coins.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/dea-agents-charged-st...
Just use Tails or similar to transfer the money to a wallet you control, and don't touch it until many years later when you've moved to another country.
The $ figure where it starts to make sense for a FBI agent to flee to China or Russia probably isn't all that high. You could even pick from a much longer list of countries if you were patient enough to wait until you gain citizenship, many countries won't extradite their nationals.
Is stealing irrational and/or unintelligent?
I'd rather say:
If your model of human behavior assumes agreeableness, cooperation and risk-minimization, then you have a huge blind-spot.
We're not talking about a starving man stealing a loaf of bread. That would be a rational theft.
It's just that the police does not generally pay well, so if you're smart, you often have more profitable options.
So usually the smart people in the police have other reasons to be there than money, and the dumb people may not have better options.
The often cited example is the 2nd circuit appeals court case Robert Jordan vs City of New London, where the police department successfully defended a hard cutoff maximum IQ test score.
That is absolutely mind-boggling.
Many politicians will gladly take your money as donations to their campaign. They will also enact legislation that is favorable to your industry and whatnot. But one thing they will not do is sacrifice their political career for someone who's one of the most despised persons in crypto.
What's the benefit for the politician? SBF isn't going to be doing them any favors for the rest of his life. SBF played his hand, he lost, he's alone and it's over.
However he can only play that game so much until he ends up like Epstein.
But I do agree with you on your second point. SBF could commit suicide out of fear of a long prison term or just the shame of what he has done.
The entire exchange, from setup to collapse, was engineered as an intelligence gathering and money laundering operation. Next, it will be used as an excuse to pass crypto legislation and clear the way for CDBCs managed by the Fed and its Wall Street banking cartel.
Mate, I have some bad news for you about literally the entire crypto ecosystem.
Also, this does not address my question at all. If your theory is that SBF was going to blow the lid off this whole setup at the House testimony, and so he was arrested before it could take place, that does not explain why he hasn’t simply blabbed on Twitter, or when he was texting Kelsey Piper, or at any of the hundreds of other opportunities to do so.
If my theory is correct (which I admit may be unlikely), then I doubt he'd openly admit to it. But he would feel cocky and untouchable, so sending him to jail in the Bahamas for a few days might be a good wake up call for him.
(Transcript says these details are about 22:30 into the video)