FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M • Hacker News Board

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#311

Post by Gatsky » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 8:15 AM UTC

manholio wrote: post #176

Gatsky wrote: post #23

If this is real, most likely an inside job. I mean FTX staff probably had a lot of their own crypto on the exchange, so now that it appears Bankman stole it from them, why not steal it back.

This sounds like a great insider action to cover the fraud and mismanagement: leak the keys to the kingdom in a dark web forum, so that in the resulting commotion you can blame the hackers who had access all along and obviously made your platform fail. Something, anything that your lawyers can grasp at.

I doubt that Bankman would have sanctioned that though, since he’s already admitted to malfeasance. An insider could leak the keys and arrange for a cut of the proceeds, was my line of thinking.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#312

Post by oarsinsync » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 8:15 AM UTC

polygamous_bat wrote: post #293

px43 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a Wall Street corruption story. https://twitter.com/wallstreetpro/status/1591167190996504576 Sam, Caroline, and everyone at the top of FTX and Alameda have very close family ties to key power brokers on Wall Street, which is how they were able to run this scam. FTX has also lobbied extensively for harsh regulations on DeFi, which is a key reason that he was hated by people in the cryptocurrency space, and ado…

> This is a Wall Street corruption story. No, stop trying to spin this. It's a stereotypical crypto story. > Sam, Caroline, and everyone at the top of FTX and Alameda have very close family ties to key power brokers on Wall Street, which is how they were able to run this scam. Who was Do Kwon's wall street family tie? > FTX has also lobbied extensively for harsh regulations on DeFi, which is a key reason that he was…

> > This is a Wall Street corruption story.

>No, stop trying to spin this. It's a stereotypical crypto story.

It’s worth considering that these things are not mutually exclusive. Why can’t it be both?

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#313

Post by sgammon » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 8:15 AM UTC

px43 wrote: post #270

YossarianFrPrez wrote: post #116

Regardless of whether you are pro- or anti- crypto, the collapse of FTX, SBF's bubble bursting in a rather extreme fashion, and now this hack are more nails in the coffin for mainstream support. I am no fan of crypto myself, but it's interesting to think what would have to happen for crypto to burnish its image. Would key people have to voluntarily form some sort of coordinating council and self-regulate? Would they…

This is a Wall Street corruption story. https://twitter.com/wallstreetpro/status/1591167190996504576 Sam, Caroline, and everyone at the top of FTX and Alameda have very close family ties to key power brokers on Wall Street, which is how they were able to run this scam. FTX has also lobbied extensively for harsh regulations on DeFi, which is a key reason that he was hated by people in the cryptocurrency space, and ado…

Dude, in a world of Lloyd Blankfeins, Kevin O'Leary is a small fish.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#314

Post by Seattle3503 » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 8:15 AM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #184

AndreLock wrote: post #66

This is absolutely wild and unprecedented. Imagine being a victim of Madoff's ponzi and - after already being traumatized by the unveiling of the fraud - discovering that the rest of the money had been stolen. Madoff's ponzi was larger, but the recovery rate was 88%. It looks like customers who didn't withdraw in time will end up with 0%.

Can confirm. Lost 100% of my mtgox holdings in 2013. Theoretically my account balance is 7.73 BTC. I can still log in and see it. Maybe by the time I retire I’ll have recovered like 0.7 BTC. Which amusingly would be the sum of my original $11k investment. A lot of this is just gambling. People need to go into it with the mindset that the money will be gone tomorrow, and then be pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t. See…

> I can still log in and see it.

Who operates the site?

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#315

Post by dzink » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 8:16 AM UTC

dzink wrote: post #287

YossarianFrPrez wrote: post #116

Regardless of whether you are pro- or anti- crypto, the collapse of FTX, SBF's bubble bursting in a rather extreme fashion, and now this hack are more nails in the coffin for mainstream support. I am no fan of crypto myself, but it's interesting to think what would have to happen for crypto to burnish its image. Would key people have to voluntarily form some sort of coordinating council and self-regulate? Would they…

1. Crypto and web3 is so tarnished in consumer minds, it cannot recover. The next big thing in this space needs stay away from those terms like the plague. 2. Energy has become so valuable these days and Crypto tech has become so WASTEFULLY, UNNECESSARILY energy intensive, that the next iteration needs to be as cost efficient and effective as software. Transaction costs need to begin and remain extremely low to none.…

Trust is oil that makes economic engines fast and abundant, while distrust is sand - even a few specks cause damage. Trust between actors is key here, not just trust that the system won’t malfunction. The next iteration has to make every participant as safe as can be (without raising the threshold for entry).

I would approach the next iteration as software with a very robust test suite - there is a rich portfolio of financial scams out there and your system needs to help deter, detect, prevent, etc, as much of that as possible automatically. All human systems devolve down to policing rule compliance with time.

Draw them in with ease of use that beats current financial tools (transaction fees for commercial transactions for example) and keep them in with trust (any bad actor has only one identity and loses it or is prohibited from using it for a time, - forcing them to use non-digital payment processing with much higher transaction costs.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#316

Post by polygamous_bat » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 8:16 AM UTC

douglaswlance wrote: post #133

YossarianFrPrez wrote: post #116

Regardless of whether you are pro- or anti- crypto, the collapse of FTX, SBF's bubble bursting in a rather extreme fashion, and now this hack are more nails in the coffin for mainstream support. I am no fan of crypto myself, but it's interesting to think what would have to happen for crypto to burnish its image. Would key people have to voluntarily form some sort of coordinating council and self-regulate? Would they…

This isn't a crypto failure. Crypto works. This is a human failure. FTX didn't collapse because of the technology. It collapsed because of human error. The fix is rather simple. If an organization looks like a bank and quacks like a bank; it should be regulated like a bank.

> This isn't a crypto failure. Crypto works. This is a human failure.

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#317

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 8:18 AM UTC

polygamous_bat wrote: post #293

px43 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a Wall Street corruption story. https://twitter.com/wallstreetpro/status/1591167190996504576 Sam, Caroline, and everyone at the top of FTX and Alameda have very close family ties to key power brokers on Wall Street, which is how they were able to run this scam. FTX has also lobbied extensively for harsh regulations on DeFi, which is a key reason that he was hated by people in the cryptocurrency space, and ado…

> This is a Wall Street corruption story. No, stop trying to spin this. It's a stereotypical crypto story. > Sam, Caroline, and everyone at the top of FTX and Alameda have very close family ties to key power brokers on Wall Street, which is how they were able to run this scam. Who was Do Kwon's wall street family tie? > FTX has also lobbied extensively for harsh regulations on DeFi, which is a key reason that he was…

[deleted]

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#318

Post by eastbound » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 8:18 AM UTC

dzink wrote: post #287

YossarianFrPrez wrote: post #116

Regardless of whether you are pro- or anti- crypto, the collapse of FTX, SBF's bubble bursting in a rather extreme fashion, and now this hack are more nails in the coffin for mainstream support. I am no fan of crypto myself, but it's interesting to think what would have to happen for crypto to burnish its image. Would key people have to voluntarily form some sort of coordinating council and self-regulate? Would they…

1. Crypto and web3 is so tarnished in consumer minds, it cannot recover. The next big thing in this space needs stay away from those terms like the plague. 2. Energy has become so valuable these days and Crypto tech has become so WASTEFULLY, UNNECESSARILY energy intensive, that the next iteration needs to be as cost efficient and effective as software. Transaction costs need to begin and remain extremely low to none.…

1) To recover, a crypto will probably need to include specs about how the exchange should run.

Exchanges have failed 3-4 times, and it seems they’re part of a currency since people keep coming back to them. So there needs to be a system where I keep having control over my coins while they’re in an exchange: ability to withdraw from the exchange, ability to approve a transaction.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#319

Post by ShredKazoo » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 8:18 AM UTC

alexchantavy wrote: post #285

ShredKazoo wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A less-discussed effect here is that crypto sketchiness crowds out legitimate applications. If someone has a problem that crypto is actually a good fit for -- an application that would legitimately deliver value for customers, insuring medical tourism perhaps -- a lot of people will dismiss it just because they assume crypto=scam. As crypto gets scammier by the year, this crowding-out effect means that the dream of e…

> If someone has a problem that crypto is actually a good fit for -- an application that would legitimately deliver value for customers, insuring medical tourism perhaps -- a lot of people will dismiss it just because they assume crypto=scam. If there's a great application that solves an important problem using crypto then I imagine most people would focus on the problem and not the fact that crypto is used to solve…

Fair point, however I think the argument ultimately still holds. If customers or regulators learn that the application is crypto-powered under the hood, they'll be turned off. And it might be that the crypto part can't be stuffed under the hood.

It's a frustrating situation for someone like me who enjoys geeking out about designs for alternative institutions. I see many ways our institutions could be better-designed -- better aligned incentives making higher ed way cheaper & more effective, stuff like that -- and simultaneously there was so much momentum around crypto, including e.g. El Salvador adopting bitcoin. But somehow they never met in the middle. It sucks that people put their faith in tech geeks like me, and they got let down. Somehow crypto's "solution in search of a problem" never collided with the many institutional problems that desperately need solving.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#320

Post by gasull » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 8:18 AM UTC

notch656a wrote: post #175

the-anarchist wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck getting your money through the legal system when the bank collapsed!

FDIC. Everyone else pays for your shitty banking choices via inflation instead. To me the crypto version is better TBH, which would force either private insurance or none at all. Believe it or not you can buy private insurance for crypto, which would achieve something like FDIC.

FDIC covers only up to 200k USD. Many people have lost life savings when banks collapse. Also, not everybody lives in the US or in countries with a semi decent banking system.