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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

#71
Potentially dumb question here; I am no expert on crypto or finance.

Isn't the collapse of FTX in some ways evidence in favor of decentralized currency rather than against it? As evidenced by 2008, firms gambling with other people's money doesn't seem to be specific to DeFi.

If coin exchanges had some legal obligation to just be wallet and marketplace services instead of investment engines, could that help prevent this sort of fiasco (and the 2008 one) happening in the future? On the other hand, perhaps this solution could be equally applicable to traditional banks.

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#73
post #65

Does anyone here think SBF will be prosecuted?

What crime was committed? I'm asking in a neutral way. Simply losing billions of dollars of other people's money isn't necessarily illegal.

im not sure either, but it sounds like the same situation as three arrows capital and those founders disappeared

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#74

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.

>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. Where were their profits derived? Was it from taking their slice of every transaction? Or selling their freshly minted coins? If it was the latter, that only works for so long, just ask the Fed.

Trading fees on billions of dollars of volume.

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#75

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.

Are you referring to Microstrategy? Or some other MSTR?

Google is showing down 30% over the last 4 days. https://www.google.com/search?q=MSTR&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-...

At the same time, if you are talking MSTR, Saylor must be concerned.

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#76
post #38

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.

reminds me of LTCM...they were making bank until the Asian bank crisis and Russia defaulting on their debt https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x225si7

Very different. LTCM was making massive, very risky bets while pretending they were safe.

They were making insanely leveraged bets on real assets.

FTX seems to me to much closer to Madoff.

They were printing their own Monopoly money and pretending it was worth billions.

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#77

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.

^this ... The whole space seems like a mirage

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Basically any r/cc user who was in FTX and wants to invest part of their next paycheck?

As the saying goes "Fool me once ..."

Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX

#80
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's exactly how it works. When you issue IOU, you issue your own currency. When a company issues stock, they are in fact issuing their own currency. All contracts are in fact a currency that can be sold, bought, invested and transacted. World debt is far far larger than actually currency in circulation. How does that happen? Because we make up "currency" all the time.

No, that's not the same thing at all. For every other example of currency besides the government's currency, there's a tangible thing backing that unit.

Crypto still doesn't have that, and that matters. To what degree is up for debate, but it does matter. Only governments apparently can get away with the unbacked currency, because they otherwise back it with enforced societal rules (a.k.a. laws).

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