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FTX’s SBF had a secret 'back door' to transfer billions off the books

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Re: FTX’s SBF had a secret 'back door' to transfer billions off the books

#101

Post by malikNF »

MrMan wrote: post #92
malikNF wrote: post #56

To the ones who are saying this is a failure of crypto currencies. FTX was a regulated exchange, so your alternative to crypto currencies is then broken as well, the regulators didn't then do their job, this scammer Sam Bankman-Fried was allowed to create fake money out of thin air and the regulators were not able to stop them. If you can't follow the mantra "not your keys not your crypto currencies" or if you don't…

take away retail and these coins will have much much less demand which deflates the whole bubble. so you keys-coins people need all the clueless civilians, it seems to me. it's their desperate speculating that make you wealthy.

Crypto currencies != a way to get wealthy fast.

It's an alternative system that helps people store value.

>>take away retail and these coins will have much much less demand

I was talking about people who don't do due diligence and get caught in scams. Are you implying that retails is somehow the only ones that get duped by scammers like Sam Bankman-Fried ? There's plenty of people in retail who have done better than some so called institutions both in the crypto currency markets and the stock market.

Plenty of people in the crypto currency space were not so quick to trust that conman Sam Bankman-Fried. Many were even warning about him.

p.s Not everyone wants to take part in crypto currency markets to get rich fast. There's plenty of legit reasons for people to be in these markets. Its the get rich quick crowd, the scammers like Sam Bankman-Fried and the folk sitting in the sidelines critiquing it without offering a better valid alternative who are actually the problem.

Re: FTX’s SBF had a secret 'back door' to transfer billions off the books

#102

Post by malikNF »

boopboopbadoop wrote: post #71
malikNF wrote: post #56

To the ones who are saying this is a failure of crypto currencies. FTX was a regulated exchange, so your alternative to crypto currencies is then broken as well, the regulators didn't then do their job, this scammer Sam Bankman-Fried was allowed to create fake money out of thin air and the regulators were not able to stop them. If you can't follow the mantra "not your keys not your crypto currencies" or if you don't…

> You let someone else hold your crypto currencies, don't take the time to check if the said people holding your money has any validity and then you lose all your money? it unfortunately is your fault for trusting a scammer Sequoia and their team of analysts, lawyers, etc did not see anything wrong with FTX. You expect individual investors to be able to research and see something wrong?

Well goes to show Sam Bankman-Fried was a world class con-man, or Sequoia and their team of analysts, lawyers, etc are no better than the folks who fall for scammers and con men then.

In a lot of crypto currency circles people were questioning FTX, many warned about leverage.

* There can only be 21 million btc.

* If someone says you can leverage BTC they are selling you something that probably doesn't exist.

* If you don't hold your own BTC you don't own any BTC.

Re: FTX’s SBF had a secret 'back door' to transfer billions off the books

#103

Post by TomSwirly »

hailwren wrote: post #48
snowwrestler wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THE big argument in favor of cryptocurrency as a concept was that it freed people to store and transact value without interference or oversight by governments and institutions. A big argument against cryptocurrency was that those governments and institutions had developed financial oversight for a reason.

There’s a weird false equivalence here. Whenever critics hear government oversight and interference, they immediately point to the governments that manage their currency relatively well and say “look, these governments do therefore no one needs to worry”. History and contemporary geopolitics are both littered with examples of governments that absolutely ruin their population’s lives with currency problems. What if it…

And this is the idea behind crypto in a nutshell: "Some governments have been financially irresponsible in the past, so we need a tool to allow us to bypass all government regulations."

However, the rest of us have a name for "bypassing government regulations" - we call it "crime".

> What if it were possible to have consumer protection regulation and also remove some of the nasty side effects of government and institutional preference in monetary policy?

"Crime, with extra steps".

Re: FTX’s SBF had a secret 'back door' to transfer billions off the books

#104

Post by TomSwirly »

rukshn wrote: post #43

I know there are inherent issues like high energy consumption in the technology. But I believe that blockchain and the decentralization has some value to it. For example where I'm coming from, I can't accept payments via PayPal, it's nothing to do with PayPal but our government is not pushing to meet the requirements to get PayPal to our country. Also we can't hold USD due to government regulations, if we get the tra…

> For example where I'm coming from, I can't accept payments via PayPal,

Your argument is this: "Some government regulations from some governments are wrong, so we need a tool that will let us bypass all government regulations from all governments."

> Therefore for people like us the easiest way to get money is via the blockchain.

I am truly sorry that you live under an incompetent government, but instead of breaking the rest of the world's financial laws, it would be better for absolutely everyone if you simply fixed YOUR country.

Literally trillions of dollars are stolen from we the people by money laundering and tax evasion already.

Re: FTX’s SBF had a secret 'back door' to transfer billions off the books

#105

Post by TomSwirly »

adabaed wrote: post #93

There is no doubt that the executive team at FTX should be investigated and pay for what they have done to their users, but let me tell you one thing, they did not force you lazy greedy humans to put a dime into FTX without reading what is an exchange and why everything you have inside there is not yours. Given this, the fact that some of you believe that this is a flaw in blockchain technology worries me because: ei…

Your attitude toward your fellow humans isn't so good, and comes out in each line of what you write. Maybe you should rethink your contempt for humanity? You don't see very happy.

> they did not force you lazy greedy humans

No, if a CEO lies and commits fraud to steal from investors, it is the CEO's moral and ethical fault.

> the fact that some of you believe that this is a flaw in blockchain technology worries me

All of blockchain technology is "a flaw". And thousands of lines of my C++ are in one of the top five blockchains, so it isn't ignorance on my part to say this.

So far, no application of the blockchain has appeared that isn't cryptocurrencies. The consensus phase is wildly expensive, and yet not at all useful for anything else. And cryptocurrencies are almost as old as the smartphone, and yet the only applications so far are "evading government regulations" (what most people call "crime") and wild, unsupported speculation.

Don't get me wrong. Strong cryptography is great. Digital signatures are great. Merkle trees are great. Just not the blockchain.

Re: FTX’s SBF had a secret 'back door' to transfer billions off the books

#106

Post by KptMarchewa »

chrisco255 wrote: post #39
whatever1 wrote: post #12

I am glad that most of HN had called this crypto/NFT/web3.0/ICO BS loong time ago. That contrasts with Mega VCs, celebrities, politicians etc who were praising this tech-glorified Ponzi scheme. Good job to us!

This has happened in tradfi more times than anyone can count. Lehman, Enron, Madoff, etc. Far more scams in tradfi.

Yet every example you gave was over 10 years ago and there has been regulation enacted to prevent that kind of exploit. Meanwhile every week some crypto scam blows losing some people billions, hundreds of millions or just tens if it's a good week.

Re: FTX’s SBF had a secret 'back door' to transfer billions off the books

#107

Post by imtringued »

hailwren wrote: post #48
snowwrestler wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THE big argument in favor of cryptocurrency as a concept was that it freed people to store and transact value without interference or oversight by governments and institutions. A big argument against cryptocurrency was that those governments and institutions had developed financial oversight for a reason.

There’s a weird false equivalence here. Whenever critics hear government oversight and interference, they immediately point to the governments that manage their currency relatively well and say “look, these governments do therefore no one needs to worry”. History and contemporary geopolitics are both littered with examples of governments that absolutely ruin their population’s lives with currency problems. What if it…

The only cryptocurrency that does that is RAI in a sea of shit.

Re: FTX’s SBF had a secret 'back door' to transfer billions off the books

#108

Post by imtringued »

jiggawatts wrote: post #59
rukshn wrote: post #43

I know there are inherent issues like high energy consumption in the technology. But I believe that blockchain and the decentralization has some value to it. For example where I'm coming from, I can't accept payments via PayPal, it's nothing to do with PayPal but our government is not pushing to meet the requirements to get PayPal to our country. Also we can't hold USD due to government regulations, if we get the tra…

> people who used it to get rich quick by running these Ponzi schemes The problem with any new currency is that unless an entire government forces it on people, there's no real reason for anyone to use it. Think about it: what use is a currency that no bank will store, no business will accept as payment, and nobody else has ever heard of? There needs to be some incentive to "get the ball rolling". Bitcoin relied on u…

RAI is basically a cryptocurrency where the central bank has been replaced with a smart contract.

It doesn't take off like other cryptocurrencies into a billion dollar market cap, it is sitting below 50 million. It has extremely low volatility. You can't make much money off something that doesn't go up or down constantly.

Re: FTX’s SBF had a secret 'back door' to transfer billions off the books

#109

Post by imtringued »

pifm_guy wrote: post #72

Is it possible to run a crypto exchange 'honestly'? Ie. Actually holding all the assets you claim to hold? I suspect the answer might be no... If you were to set up an honest exchange today, you would be outcompeted by dishonest exchanges who spend all their customer deposits on marketing schemes, referral bonuses, liquidity incentives, etc.

Yes but the problem is that in these heavily regulated sectors it is impossible to build a startup organically. If there were carveouts for startups with low quantities per customer and low total volume then we would have seen a lot more regulated exchanges. Also, existing banks or exchanges must provide white label services to those startups because if there are only two companies that can comply with the regulations, then those must act as regulated utilities.

Re: FTX’s SBF had a secret 'back door' to transfer billions off the books

#110

Post by lostmsu »

TomSwirly wrote: post #103
hailwren wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a weird false equivalence here. Whenever critics hear government oversight and interference, they immediately point to the governments that manage their currency relatively well and say “look, these governments do therefore no one needs to worry”. History and contemporary geopolitics are both littered with examples of governments that absolutely ruin their population’s lives with currency problems. What if it…

And this is the idea behind crypto in a nutshell: "Some governments have been financially irresponsible in the past, so we need a tool to allow us to bypass all government regulations." However, the rest of us have a name for "bypassing government regulations" - we call it "crime". > What if it were possible to have consumer protection regulation and also remove some of the nasty side effects of government and instit…

> However, the rest of us have a name for "bypassing government regulations" - we call it "crime".

Yeah, like hiding Jews during Holocaust was a capital offense. Pretty dumb argument.

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