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FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

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Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#182

Anyone here able to do a tl;dr; for us? The FTX story is super confusing. Why are they screwed? What happened?

FTX the exchange appear to have lent client funds to Alameda research.

The loans had very poor collateral behind them, meaning that FTX were exposed.

It is not currently clear if or how Alameda lost the $billions of client assets, or if they are just illiquid.

There is noise that the client assets were spent on things like the summer bailouts of defunct crypto firms, but I think we are just speculating at that point.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#184
post #34
post #28

Was this another CEO "taking all responsibility" without any actual responsiblity/penalties? Not counting resigning.

He already lost his whole net worth overnight ($16B) and will live in hiding with serious death threats for the rest of his life. This is no ordinary CEO switcheroo where the he walks away with a slap on the wrist and a golden handshake.

He had $16b in Magic Dollars(TM) and he can have the same amount in the same token tomorrow if he wants, though.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#185
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaze on the beauty of this chart and despair: https://i.redd.it/078p4g7m6cz91.jpg

My god, it's like the blueprint to a Ponzi scheme

From the Sequoia article on SBF / FTX, it's very likely to be able to trade internationally because each country requires you to have a bank account in that country to be able to access their markets.

In the Sequoia article, SBF gained his initial funding for FTX from executing trades from the US to Japan, where BTC was overpriced because no one bothered to arbitrage it because of the setup difficulty. The way he did this was by contacting a friend to open a bank account in Japan and manage the funding over there while he managed the account US side.

I am sure some of it is normal corporate shell game but I'd imagine at least 50% of this setup was for regulatory purposes. Even small fintechs will have "shell game like" company structure to please regulatory forces that require having certain things be independent from the consumer platform even if the two companies are working towards the same goal.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#186
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He already lost his whole net worth overnight ($16B) and will live in hiding with serious death threats for the rest of his life. This is no ordinary CEO switcheroo where the he walks away with a slap on the wrist and a golden handshake.

He was running a Ponzi scheme. Don't feel sorry for him.

To be fair to the guy, he wasn’t afraid to admit it in some very public interviews. But yeah, don’t feel sorry.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy is such a serial liar...I wonder why he doesn't have a lawyer advising him to avoid making statements on a public platform at this point.

It absolutely blows my mind; if this[1] failure of an attempt at a "get out of jail free" disclaimer is something you feel the need to write out so poorly, and in all caps, after your diatribe, maybe - MAYBE - you shouldn't have said a goddamn word. [1] https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1590709199067295749

Twitter should add Miranda warnings to the before-you-tweet prompts. It would be a reasonable use-case for ML classification.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#188

Is this the same FTX US that is the #3 donor to political parties? 2/3 (D) 1/3 (R) https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/top-organizat...

Why would an organization donate to BOTH competitors sizeable amounts like this? Okay, it's more to the dems, but quite a sum for the gop as well. Do they just want a soft landing regardless who wins? Wouldn't that be the same if not funding at all? Or maybe not, they can tell later any winner "look I paid ya"...

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#189

Where were the adults in any of this and why would people throw billions of dollars at unqualified children?

It's unregulated and decentralized, and banks are not your friends. To be honest, they're not, but that doesn't make any of this Ponzi 2.0 economy great.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#190
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaze on the beauty of this chart and despair: https://i.redd.it/078p4g7m6cz91.jpg

My god, it's like the blueprint to a Ponzi scheme

What do you even need a blueprint for? The guy did an interview with Matt Levine and laid the Ponzi scheme straight out: scammers make boxes that pay fake coins when you store your money in them, they put so much money into the boxes that the fake coins seem valuable, then they rug pull everyone and move on to the next one. That's how he described his own business.
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