> Maybe his strategy is to be such a fucking idiot that he can pretend there is no way he could mastermind such a big scam.

It's the strategy SBF's father is using too. The current FTX CEO, the one in charge of the bankruptcy, said in front of congress that one house worth $16m was bought in the Bahamas in SBF's parents' name.

SBF's father is specialized in tax laws. And he's on video record saying: "I'm helping FTX with legal matters".

And what does SBF's father have to say about the real estate bought in its name in the Bahamas?

"We weren't aware we had real estate in our names in the Bahamas" (paraphrasing, I don't remember the exact sentence their spokeperson used)

I mean... Once it's recorded, in front of congress, that there's real estate bought with stolen money in your name in the Bahamas, there's not that much you can do...

Besides playing the complete, total and utter idiot.

It's remarkable to me the consequences of people telling you you're a mega-genius without you realizing they're telling you for their own benefit.

It makes perfect sense why everyone, sincere and fraudster alike, would want to promote SBF as a boy genius. It's a great marketing tool, it helps convince people who don't understand crypto to have faith in the product, and you also get someone who believes the spotlight should be on them, which is particularly useful for any fraudsters who would prefer to remain in the shadows.

Clearly SBF never questioned that praise (who would at the time?), and still is operating as though he were smarter and more special than everyone around him. The sad irony is it reveals that he's markedly less clever than most of the people he associates with. Caroline Ellison, at least from what I've seen, seems to have realized quite quickly that the smartest choice was to quickly realize she wasn't a brilliant as she had been told.

That hypothesis comes up repeatedly, but I imagine it would hinge on whether or not judges would say to themselves, "he's too stupid to jail". IANAL, but I believe judgement is based on whether or not you did "it", whatever "it" might be. Then at sentencing a judge could use "stupid" as a mitigating factor. For example, "normally you'd get 20 years, but because you're stupid..."

But I can not emphasize enough that IANAL, and this is just (as with most folks, I would guess) something I pulled out of my butt. Based on what little interaction I've had with the U. S. justice system, man, I sure wouldn't let the outcome rest on the judge's view of my intelligence, though.