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The Sam Bankman-Fried empire crumbled. What happened?

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Re: The Sam Bankman-Fried empire crumbled. What happened?

#111

Post by vasco »

seertaak wrote: post #78
akgerber wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the documentary Weiner, which was supposed to be a comeback film about Anthony Weiner's run for NYC mayor but instead became an intimate portrait of a man's life (as well as that of his unfortunate wife) utterly collapsing.

True, only that Weiner was surprisingly endearing in that documentary. Despite at the time being a staunch republican, it's hard not to like the guy, and when the fall comes you're almost rooting for him. But SBF? The last interview I saw him give was I think with Levine; it was shocking because SBF was describing whence crypto derives its value. And Levine remarked that SBF was describing a Ponzi scheme. For me, tha…

Rentech is definitely bad [0], not sure about bad-ass but if evading taxes for years and ending up paying $7B is bad-ass, I guess they are.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/renaissance-executi...

Re: The Sam Bankman-Fried empire crumbled. What happened?

#112

Post by dibt »

rideontime wrote: post #24
hamiltonians wrote: post #19

ftt is still trading at $3. It's down but not out. this is the same price as late 2020.

Should I buy some? What can I do with FTT?

No, you should not. It's an exchange token. It's meant to be used as collateral for your trading, instead of USD, BTC, etc. It incentivizes this by giving you reduced exchange fees based on how much FTT you own.

Re: The Sam Bankman-Fried empire crumbled. What happened?

#114

Post by dibt »

mikeyouse wrote: post #110
kzzzznot wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they work in practice?

Kind of.. Solend is a major one that's currently falling over.. and apparently just disappeared $6M worth of users' assets; https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1590725993324777472

Solend is not a DEX. It is for borrowing against assets. https://aave.com/ is a better lending protocol. Solend has a questionable history, and is closely associated with FTX, which is why the SOL token is down so much.

Patrick gives a good description of the problems in that tweet thread, and why it is affected.

Re: The Sam Bankman-Fried empire crumbled. What happened?

#115

Post by danaris »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #93
seertaak wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, only that Weiner was surprisingly endearing in that documentary. Despite at the time being a staunch republican, it's hard not to like the guy, and when the fall comes you're almost rooting for him. But SBF? The last interview I saw him give was I think with Levine; it was shocking because SBF was describing whence crypto derives its value. And Levine remarked that SBF was describing a Ponzi scheme. For me, tha…

I don't think he lacks morals, but he seems to have a Lex Luthor "ends justify the means" way of thinking. If you're whole moral framework is effective altruism, then as long as the good you do with the money you accumulate is greater than the harm caused in its accumulation by a ratio that exceeds your alternatives, you're all good.

It doesn't even have to do that in an objective, measurable sense. It just has to do that from your perspective—meaning that any harms you can ignore don't count, and any potential good you can convince yourself you could do in the future because of it do.

Re: The Sam Bankman-Fried empire crumbled. What happened?

#116

Post by 0x500x79 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #89

I'm so tired of people who are lauded as geniuses because their lottery ticket bet paid off. Why are people so convinced that being rich means you're smart?

I love the veritasium video on luck. I highly recommend anyone who is interested in this concept watch it.

Re: The Sam Bankman-Fried empire crumbled. What happened?

#117

Post by dfghbbjiiugb »

seertaak wrote: post #78
akgerber wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the documentary Weiner, which was supposed to be a comeback film about Anthony Weiner's run for NYC mayor but instead became an intimate portrait of a man's life (as well as that of his unfortunate wife) utterly collapsing.

True, only that Weiner was surprisingly endearing in that documentary. Despite at the time being a staunch republican, it's hard not to like the guy, and when the fall comes you're almost rooting for him. But SBF? The last interview I saw him give was I think with Levine; it was shocking because SBF was describing whence crypto derives its value. And Levine remarked that SBF was describing a Ponzi scheme. For me, tha…

Sorry but this reads to me like someone who doesn't really know what they're talking about. First, I think you have totally mischaracterized or misunderstood that interview. Second, he is obviously a smart guy; I'm not claiming he's a unique generational genius but there are plenty of third party validations of intelligence (MIT, Jane Street) even if you can't tell from the way he speaks. Finally the comment "the real badasses are at RenTech" is laughable insofar as they don't hire undergrads. I would say more accurately that many of the real badasses went to PhD programs but that besides that Jane Street was a highly desired career choice for this graduating cohort.

Re: The Sam Bankman-Fried empire crumbled. What happened?

#118

Post by cuteboy19 »

dabeeeenster wrote: post #14

https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1590709172936798208 "5) The full story here is one I'm still fleshing out every detail of, but as a very high level, I fucked up twice. The first time, a poor internal labeling of bank-related accounts meant that I was substantially off on my sense of users' margin. I thought it was way lower." Amazing

Understandable mistake. Many of us who have been bank tellers know how easy it is to accidentally empty a client's account and spend it all on gambling and hookers. It is an honest mistake for sure

Re: The Sam Bankman-Fried empire crumbled. What happened?

#119

Post by yborg »

labrador wrote: post #42

I'm having a hard time understanding why organizations like the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has money in uninsured crypto funds. Somebody has some explaining to do. Sequoia Writes Off Entire $210MM FTX Investment; Here Are All The Other Funds That Are Losing Billions In FTX https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/here-are-all-funds-are-abo... Edit: 25 billion dollars up in smoke Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan faces a hi…

Not particularly fond of Zero Hedge, but "Scam Bankrupt Fraud" is kind of catchy.

Re: The Sam Bankman-Fried empire crumbled. What happened?

#120

Post by stickfigure »

stusmall wrote: post #54
rideontime wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should I buy some? What can I do with FTT?

The crypto community is wild. Literally in a thread about how the wheels are coming off the cart, the project frozen withdraws and possibly mishandled user funds there is the question "Should I buy in?" Also I love that the question of "What value does this provide?" comes after the question about buying it. At least the question came at all.

Warren Buffet puts it this way: "be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful". So, honestly, it's a very reasonable question.

I personally wouldn't touch it, but I'm at least curious to hear the heterodox argument. Somebody out there is still buying it at $3, I wonder why.

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