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FTX held less than $1B in liquid assets against $9B in liabilities

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Re: FTX held less than $1B in liquid assets against $9B in liabilities

#81
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Translucent material is a smokescreen. No user can verify if the wallet is really doing what it is supposed to do by looking at it.

What are you talking about? You can inspect both the hardware and software. If you can verify a ‘deterministic algorithm’, you can verify this.

You verify the deterministic algorithm in a wallet by comparing its output to the output of a wallet by a different manufacturer. It does not need any technical expertise.

Re: FTX held less than $1B in liquid assets against $9B in liabilities

#82
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think with cryptocurrencies we need to consider the sheer speed at which mass transactions can occur, and 24/7 to boot.

Technically, the problem you're restricting to cryptocurrencies is actually something finance as a whole just deal with. Everyone could withdraw all their money at the same time. What happens then? The answer is bank run. There will literally not be enough cash to do it. The entire system is running on the fact that everyone has not done that yet. Personally, I want to have it happen, just to force the system to come…

> Personally, I want to have it happen, just to force the system to come to terms with the fact that it isn't all just about numbers, and so that people can actually materially witness the sheer magnitude of monetary centralization created by our system.

The question is are you also willing to give up the easily ignored benefits of monetary centralization, which are significant and foundational to the trust that underpins technological and social progress.

Re: FTX held less than $1B in liquid assets against $9B in liabilities

#83

There should be more discussion about how to store value without counterparty risk. Most people think it is as easy as ordering a hardware wallet, following the process the wallet software suggests and - hurray! - your keys, your coins! But it is not that easy. You also have to cut the wallet manufacturer and the software developer out of the loop. I have yet to see a description on how to safely create a wallet that…

Any guide on how to do that would expose you to counterparty risk from the guide maker, so I'm afraid you have to figure it out on your own.

But code for making paper wallets is easy enough to validate or write on your own. Just bring your own air gapped computer, bought from a random supplier at least 20 miles away from your home.

Re: FTX held less than $1B in liquid assets against $9B in liabilities

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart contract storing a vector of signer addresses, vector of votes and a staged transaction. Each signer has to vote yes before the smart contract executes the staged transaction.

And you do that with pencil and paper? If you use software by a 3rd party, we are back to squear one.

OP explained this, if the signing is required by multiple 3rd parties then you’re good. You can do this with pencil and paper btw and write down keys. It’s not far fetched.

Re: FTX held less than $1B in liquid assets against $9B in liabilities

#85

It was all for charity. People are mean. https://twitter.com/The_Prologuist/status/158967849854920704...

I think the consequentialist underpinnings of EA are part of the story. Consequentialism revisits our ideas of right and wrong by looking at outcomes. Any reasonable person can look at a law and conclude that there might be a reason to break it under certain circumstances. Certainly, one might argue, financial regulations are arbitrary and that the only way to succeed in your larger goal is to break the rules. EA specializes in this type of reframing, especially when the imagined benefits hugely outweigh the immediate costs, and in this case it's easy to see how self-serving it can be.

Re: FTX held less than $1B in liquid assets against $9B in liabilities

#86
So now we see some numbers.

Notes:

Bankman-Fried personally seems to own, indirectly, about $472M (paid over $600M, so that was a loss) worth of Robinhood Financial.[1]

Other documents provided to investors say that FTX US, Bankman-Fried’s onshore exchange, held $115mn of cash. Of that sum, $48mn was listed as corresponding to customer US dollar balances of $60mn.

So there might be enough cash to pay off customer cash balances. Those belong to the customer, not FTX, and were supposed to be in a separate account.

Here's the bankruptcy filing.[2] Case #22-11066.

Money appears to be flowing out of FTX to "privileged accounts" and anonymous wallets.[3]

This is now well past simple speculating with customer funds and into major criminal enterprise territory.

Creditor litigation is being started up.[4] Of course.

[1] https://archive.ph/o/hfvzw/https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edga...

[2] https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/33/188448/042120640...

[3] https://btc-pulse.com/2022/11/12/ftx-withdrawals-resume-but-...

[4] https://scott-scott.com/sec-investigation/ftx-trading-ltd/

Re: FTX held less than $1B in liquid assets against $9B in liabilities

#87
post #31

"Currently, all U.S. banks are subject to a balance sheet leverage ratio, which requires them to maintain a ratio of tier 1 capital to balance sheet assets at a minimum level of 4%. In order to be well-capitalized, banks must achieve a 5% minimum leverage ratio" So FTX had an 11% leverage ratio, pretty good.

> So FTX had an 11% leverage ratio, pretty good. A better comparison would be a stock brokerage that took your money to buy specific stocks on your behalf but then did something totally different, including “investing” in illiquid assets. If they had just bought the stock you requested, then they could just liquidate your stock at market price when you said you want to sell. This was not the situation that FTX was/is…

Stock brokerages also offer margin accounts. You send them $5k and you buy stock worth $20k. How do you suppose this happens?

Re: FTX held less than $1B in liquid assets against $9B in liabilities

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you do that with pencil and paper? If you use software by a 3rd party, we are back to squear one.

OP explained this, if the signing is required by multiple 3rd parties then you’re good. You can do this with pencil and paper btw and write down keys. It’s not far fetched.

Still sounds far fetched to me.

Do these types of smart contracts exist on Bitcoin?

Re: FTX held less than $1B in liquid assets against $9B in liabilities

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There should be more discussion about how to store value without counterparty risk. > Most people think it is as easy as ordering a hardware wallet, following the process the wallet software suggests and - hurray! - your keys, your coins! What exactly is the threat model here? To my knowledge, there's been no general compromise of truly air-gapped hardware that could only exfiltrate data by a back channel in an oth…

Not targeted. The typical way of handling bitcoin is flawed in multiple ways. Lets look at the simplest way a hardware manufacturer could get your private key: They make the hardware wallet create the private key in a way the manufacturer can guess. But there are more elaborate ones. For another one, take a look at this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32181462

Some hardware wallets recommend you to generate your key with dice.

Re: FTX held less than $1B in liquid assets against $9B in liabilities

#90
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not targeted. The typical way of handling bitcoin is flawed in multiple ways. Lets look at the simplest way a hardware manufacturer could get your private key: They make the hardware wallet create the private key in a way the manufacturer can guess. But there are more elaborate ones. For another one, take a look at this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32181462

Some hardware wallets recommend you to generate your key with dice.

Yes, that would be part of a solution.

Another part has to be multiple air gapped hardware wallets from different manufacturers that all are RFC-6979 compliant.

And here it already ends AFAIC. I don't know of any air gapped wallets. The ones that call themselfes "air gapped" just connect to the computer via different means like display->camera.

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