They’re making Madoff look good. He semi-voluntarily* turned himself in when the jig was up, and the govt eventually recovered about 2/3rd of the money FTX seems like it’s still trying to steal funds *Madoff confessed to his family, said he would turn himself in, and asked for 24 hours to get affairs in order. Family refused, called FBI immediately
Madoff recovery is 88.35%. See: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-... . Many of Madoff's victims exaggerated their loses. If they invested $1MM at a claimed return of 15% for 6 years, they would claim they lost $2MM, not the $1MM principal. (I just hope our Government doesn't try to bail out crypto speculators!)
To be fair there’s something to that idea. Market returns about 7% on average. Over six years that would be an opportunity cost of 50%.
But, as you say there’s got to be some loss for choosing to put one’s money with a con artist
I doubt there will be a crypto bailout as it seemingly didn’t get big enough to blow up anything outside itself. It also had an anti public relations campaign for years