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FTX tapped into customer accounts to fund risky bets, setting up its downfall

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Re: FTX tapped into customer accounts to fund risky bets, setting up its downfall

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like a very Adam Neumann move.

Sequoia did a nauseating, hilarious puff piece on him a couple months ago and this guy sounds like Adam Neumann’s second coming. https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/sam-bankman-fried-spotlig...

Will need the Wayback Machine as they are trying to damage control: https://web.archive.org/web/20221027180943/https://www.sequo...

Re: FTX tapped into customer accounts to fund risky bets, setting up its downfall

#132

Remarkable that a venture-backed company can loan $10B to the founder's hedge fund without running into some sort of board/corporate sign-off that's required to literally execute the agreement/fund transfer.

They had no real board. They had no real governance. What's amazing is that large venture funds would put this much money into this kind of company without any board seats.

Re: FTX tapped into customer accounts to fund risky bets, setting up its downfall

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just two days ago he claimed that they were not investing customer funds. A few hours ago he deleted that Tweet. That moves it into fraud territory.

He wasn’t, he was just loaning them to his other company.

Loaning them to invest them.

Re: FTX tapped into customer accounts to fund risky bets, setting up its downfall

#134

> Alameda’s CEO is Caroline Ellison, a Stanford University graduate who like Mr. Bankman-Fried previously worked for quantitative trading firm Jane Street Capital. Alameda is based in Hong Kong, where FTX was headquartered before relocating to the Bahamas last year. Are the folks at Jane Street making money because they are smart, or because they use that perception to perpetuate some scam? I interact with a lot of H…

This is a very well articulated comment. Thank you for laying this out so clearly. I don't know any hedge fund types so it is helpful to hear from somebody who does.

[deleted]

Re: FTX tapped into customer accounts to fund risky bets, setting up its downfall

#136
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So did Bernie. No, he just straight up didn't invest peoples money, he paid out "gains" just from other deposits. That's why it was a Ponzi scheme - that's what they are.

Initially, he did invest their money, he just didn't get the (I believe it was) +/- 10% that he promised investors (and was getting like clockwork) before the 08 crash. Once he started not being able to make those returns did thing start to unravel. His own kids were in denial right up until the end - almost nobody, even inside Bernie's firm, knew it was fraudulent.

He hadn't been doing any trades for 15+ years when it all fell apart.

Re: FTX tapped into customer accounts to fund risky bets, setting up its downfall

#137
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arrested by UN? Genuinely curious

SEC often asserts jurisdiction over anything where American domiciled investors have suffered a large loss. That bar will definitely be met here.

SBF says US customers are not affected by this.

> This was about FTX International. FTX US, the US based exchange that accepts Americans, was not financially impacted by this shitshow.

> It's 100% liquid. Every user could fully withdraw (modulo gas fees etc).

https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1590709195892195329

Re: FTX tapped into customer accounts to fund risky bets, setting up its downfall

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, his ultimate hedge is that both his parents are Stanford law professors. Slam dunk unlikely.

He was also the 6th largest political donor for the 2022 election cycle.

Good investment. Steal from customers and use their money to prevent prosecution.

Re: FTX tapped into customer accounts to fund risky bets, setting up its downfall

#139
post #128
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, no. If I can’t protest here, where can I protest? Is this supposed to be a safe space for billionaires? It’s my community, too. Don’t censor me in the name of curiosities. This isn’t Iran.

This is one of those times when it's helpful to know what you're optimizing for. On HN we have the luxury of a single principle that we're optimizing for: intellectual curiosity. (See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html plus lots of past explanations: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... ) This makes it easier to answer questions that would otherwise feel like hard tradeoffs. I…

You've clearly and concisely stated what I've been struggling to verbalize for several years now: that heated emotional flamewars aren't discouraged/forbidden on HN because emotion is bad (which is a strawman often brought up), but because HN is not the place for that, because we optimize for intellectual curiosity.

Just like programming languages - HN is neither the only forum in existence, nor does it need to serve the needs of every human in existence.

Re: FTX tapped into customer accounts to fund risky bets, setting up its downfall

#140

I highly recommend reading this article, from 50 days ago . So many humorous quotes to be had in that article. https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/sam-bankman-fried-spotlig... edit: archive https://archive.ph/GQkCp

"Among Wall Street’s financial elite, SBF’s Bitcoin arb is mentioned in the same hushed tones as Paul Tudor Jones’s 1987 shorting of the entire American economy, or George Soros’s 1992 raid on the Bank of England, or John Paulson’s 2008 bet against subprime mortgages. Alameda’s capture of the kimchi premium (and other trades like it) gave SBF the grubstake he needed for his next move: founding the crypto exchange FTX—a company that may very well end up creating the dominant all-in-one financial super-app of the future."
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