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We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

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Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#51
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bitcoin protocol and network continues to operate exactly as expected. Here, people trusted a "bank" (an exchange acting like a bank), and got burned when the bank gambled and lost.

Without exchanges like FTX or Coinbase, how should general public acquire crypto?

There’s a big peer to peer market, fwiw

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#52
post #30

Maybe people will finally get some sense and stop storing their wealth in digital currency that is backed by absolutely nothing. I think a lot of dominoes are about to fall in the crypto world

At present no major currency is backed by anything material but trust. USD, for example, is only viable because, at the deepest level, trust in it is enforced by US army. There are three major class of people who need digital currency: (1) who are super rich and won't care about putting their 1% of wealth for "diversify and forget", (2) who need to transfer money eyes off from governments, (3) people who need alterna…

At it's deepest level the $ is viable because of the consent of the people of the USA. The US Army isn't either capable of enforcing law in the USA or exercising influence out of the USA without that consent.

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#53
What's even more funny is that Binance make it look like they are a stable financial institution, and it's thanks to their high standards that they won't acquire FTX. Binance is most probably much more of a fraud than FTX.

Binance doesn't even have physical headquarters in any country in this world - and the reason is that they are being actively investigated or banned almost everywhere.

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#54

The silly thing is that FTX was a money printing machine. There was no reason to start gambling with user funds, aside from greed, hubris, and stupidity. Similarly, Sam's fund Alameda was delta-neutral until some time in 2021, which is something that also could have profitably continued in perpetuity, but they got greedy and started making directional bets with leverage.

If something doesn't make sense after a detailed review - my instinct is that there is hidden knowledge that I don't have.

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#55
post #30

Maybe people will finally get some sense and stop storing their wealth in digital currency that is backed by absolutely nothing. I think a lot of dominoes are about to fall in the crypto world

At present no major currency is backed by anything material but trust. USD, for example, is only viable because, at the deepest level, trust in it is enforced by US army. There are three major class of people who need digital currency: (1) who are super rich and won't care about putting their 1% of wealth for "diversify and forget", (2) who need to transfer money eyes off from governments, (3) people who need alterna…

Yeah but like, the US is a lot more likely to be around in 20 years, so this argument doesn't really make any sense.

Honestly I'm sick of hearing it; yes we know, all money is made up, that's not an interesting point anymore. Society is okay with that, but it doesn't mean you can just make up another currency, that's not how it works.

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#56

Maybe people will finally get some sense and stop storing their wealth in digital currency that is backed by absolutely nothing. I think a lot of dominoes are about to fall in the crypto world

An exchange explodes almost every year. I doubt anything substantial has changed. In fact, binance looks better than ever.

Well, absent the implosion of general confidence in crypto and the likely hawkish reaction of regulators - I agree.

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#57
MSTR down 50% in 2 days. That will also be going to zero, too given how much debt it carries. Leverage on an such a volatile but likely worthless asset is financial suicide. What were these people thinking. Leverage on index funds is pretty risky, but on bitcoin? Makes no sense.

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#58
post #32

CZ knew about the bad leverage to begin with, which is why he tweeted about selling all of the FTT What are the chances he never intended to buy FTX, just to destroy it after their public back and forth? It's almost like a reverse Musk - he sent a purchase offer with an option to back out no matter what CZ knew from day 1 all he needed to do was crash FTT just enough, and the rest would happen organically

I called it and saw many others call it too. Cause a run on FTX, get due diligence and say it’s F**ed, and get their user-base for free. My concern is how much funding FTX and SBF in particular were giving to EA/AGI Safety research labs and charities. There’s going to be some significant knock on effects there when the money is no longer available.

What user base? FTX is unable to process withdrawals right now (and who knows if they ever will be), so the money's gone meaning users won't simply migrate to Binance.

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal belief is that binance agreed with no intention to carry out the deal. CZ tapdanced on FTX's grave on twitter with critical comments yesterday. It is now unlikely that anyone else will want to step up to look at the deal.

I'd say Stripe but unlikely given their missed IPO window. Perhaps, Amazon, if they are feeling lucky?

Why would they want to take on what is reported to be net 6bn in liabilities?

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#60
post #54

The silly thing is that FTX was a money printing machine. There was no reason to start gambling with user funds, aside from greed, hubris, and stupidity. Similarly, Sam's fund Alameda was delta-neutral until some time in 2021, which is something that also could have profitably continued in perpetuity, but they got greedy and started making directional bets with leverage.

If something doesn't make sense after a detailed review - my instinct is that there is hidden knowledge that I don't have.

That instinct will mislead you. It denies stupidity and irrational choices and leads to conspiracy theories
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