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FTX balance sheet, revealed

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11–20 of 309 posts

Re: FTX balance sheet, revealed

#11

So... is this guy just a complete sociopath or something? Telling everyone what regulations should be (and buying politicans) to ensure consumer protection while simultaneously sifting away 90% of consumer funds ? How does a person lie that much?

Well it seemed to have worked. The scam kept going until the math stopped working, it wasn't regulators or investigative journalists that brought it down. Advising congress and buying formula 1 ads and sponsoring stadium names gave his scheme a certain unearned legitimacy.

The media is also culpable, because his face was always on it. I never used FTX, but I assumed that it was legit and regulated based upon his appearances on Bloomberg etc.

This seems to have been a case of XKCD 978, i.e. lazy journalists. https://xkcd.com/978/

Re: FTX balance sheet, revealed

#12

Incredible. To call all those "Less Liquid" tokens not "Illiquid" is a mastery in self-delusion. $2.1B SRM $981M SOL and then all the shitcoins built on those "technologies" where the tokens are their "shares" in those investments. But to call those tokens valuable assumes there's value in MAPS/OXY etc. But MAPS has a total market cap of $3.9m today - the forced liquidations in these positions will 100% crush these c…

MtGox went bust in 2014, and it took them seven years of legal wrangling to come up with an acceptable valuation of the tokens. But MtGox was also based in a single country (Japan) and the vast majority of its funds were in a single crypto (BTC), whose value today remains far higher than it was back in 2014 ($300 or so), which is a big incentive for everybody to come to an agreement fast. FTX will be exponentially more complex on all counts: more jurisdictions, more tokens and almost certainly severely marked down valuations.

BTC

Re: FTX balance sheet, revealed

#13

Was he managing funds with a 10% fractional banking policy?

Nope. Was constantly telling users that funds were 100% backed.

Backed by liquidity or by assets? I thought the article said that 90% of the funds were liabilities

Re: FTX balance sheet, revealed

#14
My mental model of the blockchain industry is akin to FTXs balance sheet.

I see an endless string of branded code servicing similar technologies, but where are the customer inputs putting in the billions needed to support the industry? Is blockchain liquidating crypto valuations into developer salaries with a VC subsidy?

Re: FTX balance sheet, revealed

#15

Incredible. To call all those "Less Liquid" tokens not "Illiquid" is a mastery in self-delusion. $2.1B SRM $981M SOL and then all the shitcoins built on those "technologies" where the tokens are their "shares" in those investments. But to call those tokens valuable assumes there's value in MAPS/OXY etc. But MAPS has a total market cap of $3.9m today - the forced liquidations in these positions will 100% crush these c…

MtGox went bust in 2014, and it took them seven years of legal wrangling to come up with an acceptable valuation of the tokens. But MtGox was also based in a single country (Japan) and the vast majority of its funds were in a single crypto (BTC), whose value today remains far higher than it was back in 2014 ($300 or so), which is a big incentive for everybody to come to an agreement fast. FTX will be exponentially mo…

Yup - i'm a party in the Mt. Gox and it's just an endless stream of weird japanese legalese. Didn't have much so never got approached for a buyout, but if offered I would have taken it.

Re: FTX balance sheet, revealed

#17
The "before this week" column seems to be attempting to draw sympathy by saying "but everything was fine before, seriously!" when in reality it just proved that, even in the best of worlds, they had an extremely optimistic view of the entire crypto ecosystem, including its liquidity.

I can't believe they seriously held that much of their total value in their own issued token. That's just preposterous. Imagine if JP Morgan Chase's entire value was in JP Morgan Chase stock, and they just reported that as their value in cash. It's like recursive valuation.

Re: FTX balance sheet, revealed

#20
Im genuinely intrigued by the $2.2 billion in SRM

The peak market capitalisation of SRM was less than 1.5 billion (according to coinmarketcap.com ) . So how could FTX's holdings every be valued at 2.2 billion?

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