FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by stefan_ » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #334

memish wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another guy that was vouching for SBF to get in on the Twitter deal for $5b. Michael Grimes [IBanker at Morgan Stanley]: Do you have 5 minutes to connect on possible meeting tomorrow I believe you will want to take? Elon: Will call in about half an hour Michael: Sam Bankman Fried is why I'm calling https://twitter.com/sbf_ftx/status/1514588820641128452 https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/recode/2021/3/20/22335209…

Interesting, the banker thinks "Major Democratic donor" is a positive selling point for Musk. I thought he is red.

The guy doesn't even vote, he's an opportunist that would pretend to be orange if it curried favor with small minded people.

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

#382

Post by hotpotamus » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

vnchr wrote: post #161

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. There are whole articles online (by both sides) about how he became a critical Democratic party supporter almost overnight. According to MarketWatch, he was the second largest donor to the Democrat Party. Good for him I guess that Dems did well in the election. Though, I would love an independent probe to ensure there's no quid pro quo.

Your hypothesis is the second largest donor to the Democrat Party gave without expectation of quid pro quo?

Why does anyone donate to a political party? They must expect some quo; isn't that your implication? Perhaps it's a systemic problem?

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

#383

Post by tombakt » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

bogomipz wrote: post #347

shapefrog wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take full responsibility for stealing $10 billion and am stepping down as CEO, it has been a long journey from me having nothing to this point. I am sorry to those that lost some or all of your money. I will no longer take part in the company and will quietly fly away on my private jet to my $50 million home where I will contemplate my next venture.

I'm not sure things will be that smooth for him. It sounds as though both DOJ and SEC are looking into this: https://ustoday.news/both-the-doj-and-sec-are-investigating-...

Look at his connections, nothing of consequence will happen to him.

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

#384

Post by tonetheman » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

kodah wrote: post #131

rippercushions wrote: post #91

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

It is not "like" a blueprint. It IS a blueprint.

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

#385

Post by dlubarov » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

tremarley wrote: post #48

memish wrote: post #4

The CEO of Alameda said "we tend not to have stop losses... I'm trying to think of a good example of a trade where I've lost a ton of money... I probably don't want to go into specifics with that" https://twitter.com/ApeDurden/status/1590912098871435265 Now how did this place end up managing billions of dollars and SBF the darling of politicians? The picture is starting to come into focus. SBF used customer funds to…

This makes a lot of sense. Stop Losses suck

Yeah, it's funny to see Alameda called out for this, when most hedge funds don't use stop losses. It's pretty reasonable not to want their assets liquidated at a bad price in their sleep, in response to a price movement which might have been an artificial blip.

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

#386

Post by hazyc » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

saddlerustle wrote: post #290

tppiotrowski wrote: post #268

I still can't reconcile how fast this happened. Back in April SBF was willing to give billions to buy Twitter. It seemed like there was plenty of surplus or was the money he planned to invest just FTX customer holdings? "Musk responded to the text by asking if Bankman-Fried had “huge amounts of money?” MacAskill said SBF was worth about US$24 billion at the time and could be willing to provide as much as US$8 billion…

FTX was making a killing, so its token that paid out trading fees was worth a lot. To bail out trading losses in Alameda, FTX sent it cash in exchange for a bunch of its own token. This might have worked out fine, except now the moment everyone expects FTX to go bankrupt, it's bankrupt.

Haseeb Qureshi said recently on his Chopping Block podcast that it was a not-so-secret secret that FTX was the least profitable exchange of any of the major exchanges, so even if they were generating a lot of revenue they weren't making much profit on it.

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

#387

Post by rhino369 » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

theideaofcoffee wrote: post #346

indigodaddy wrote: post #332

Dumb question, but what happens to stuff like Miami Heat’s FTX Arena etc in situations like this? Should we expect a name change for the arena at some point soon?

I also think this is an interesting question. Coming from a lay person I'd imagine it would remain with that name until the contract is up for renewal. Depending on how the naming deal was structured, the money to do the deal would probably have come from FTX' marketing budget in a lump sum up front (presumably) for a fixed number of years. When that's done, the arena will find another source of funds and give the ri…

>Coming from a lay person I'd imagine it would remain with that name until the contract is up for renewal.

As a lawyer, not a transactional lawyer so this is pretty far outside my expertise, I'd imagine they'd include some provisions for this type of scenario in the agreement. Even if it didn't, the stadiums owners would probably offer FTX some sort of partial refund to give up the naming rights, which they would have to to pay back their creditors. They could even just breach the agreement and offer a settlement.

Eron field got renamed pretty fast. So will this stadium.

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

#388

Post by acover » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

crypt1d wrote: post #255

faefox wrote: post #87

I've seen some comments saying that this is all delayed fallout from the Luna/Terra collapse last spring, it's just that FTX had the means (its own token that it could pump and move around its own entities) to paper over the hole in its balance sheet until now. Can anyone more familiar with the situation elaborate? How much further will the contagion spread?

Its hard to tell, but looks like the fall out is far from over. There are a lot of rumours running around so unsure what is true and what is not, but we've gotten confirmations from a lot of crypto companies to be affected one way or another. Genesis (a big OTC trading company) lost about 160M but their parent company wrote them a check. BlockFi seems to be in the hole and has closed withdrawals. Blockfolio (an FTX o…

For those curious I think srm is serum and sol is solana.

https://www.kraken.com/learn/what-is-serum-srm

> Serum is a decentralized exchange software built on Solana where cryptocurrencies can be bought and sold by traders

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

#389

Post by Animats » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

"Voluntary Chapter 11" in Delaware. Figures.

That gets them out from bankruptcy in the Bahamas, which is much tougher than US law. The Bahamas still has classic tough bankruptcy laws, where there's no debtor-in-possession reorganization. It's straight to liquidation, with a court-appointed receiver in charge.

This should be, and may be, converted to a straight liquidation. Chapter 11 can be useful for restarting companies that actually do something, like General Motors. There, much of the value is in the ongoing business. FTX, going forward, has no ongoing business. Lawyers for creditors will be making that argument.

Note that Bankman-Fried is still employed by FTX, "assisting".

Current banners at FTX.com: "FTX is currently unable to process withdrawals. We strongly advise against depositing. Deposits of TRX, BTT, JST, SUN, and HT are disabled. All onboarding of new clients has been suspended until further notice."

"We have reached an agreement with Tron to establish a special facility to allow holders of TRX, BTT, JST, SUN, and HT to swap assets from FTX 1:1 to external wallets. This functionality will be enabled at 18:30 UTC, November 10, 2022."

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

#390

Post by bmitc » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 5:23 PM UTC

rippercushions wrote: post #91

chinathrow wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

130 companies? What did they for a living? Collect companies each time a new month began?

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

Who sets all this up? This just clarifies my perspective that lawyers live in their own little world, totally disconnected from reality.