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What Happened at Alameda Research

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Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#171

Post by spaceman_2020 »

kingkawn wrote: post #20
PeterStuer wrote: post #10

I find it curious Musk was able to snif out SBF as a bullshit artist in his 30 min. Meeting with him, whereas countless polititions and regulators aparently did not have a clue despite years of meetings and other contacts.

Takes one to know one

I'm amazed that a man can build a company that literally created a reusable rocket and people will still call him a "bullshit artist".

Also incredible how everyone on the left turned on Musk so quickly because he...tweeted some bad jokes?

Strange reality we live in where your actions seem to matter so much less than your words.

I thought it was the other way around.

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#172

Post by SilverBirch »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #56
SilverBirch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter might provide more information than the NYT, but there's a reason NYT doesn't publish it - because the NYT wants to be reliable. They want their claims to actually stand up to scrutiny and be an accurate portrayal of the events we know happened. Whereas big chunks of this article are just pure speculation. The whole section about how Alameda might have had a rogue algo are just made up out of whole cloth. Is…

> This article is very little more than just a gossip rag version of the NYT article This characterization is so far from the contents of the article I have to assume this comment is in bad faith or you're extremely biased towards the NYT. The article is 90% discussing facts/quotes from various sources and 10% speculation on what actually happened by people who are very familiar with crypto markets. The NYT piece on…

I'm not biased towards the NYT, what I'm saying is that what the NYT is doing is a different thing from this article. The NYT is an interview with SBF, interspersed with the story of what happened, and the NYT will stick to what it can actually prove. You're pissed the NYT is biased towards SBF but it's not - it's an literally an interview with SBF, you're not meant to take what SBF is saying in there uncritically.

Whereas this article has a tonne of speculation (none of the stuff about market making has fact behind it, it's speculation based on a handful of tweets) and a heavy reliance on sources that are at best questionable. The stuff about the rogue algo is entirely without evidence, and the stuff about drug taking, whilst lurid, could be entirely tangential to why the company actually collapsed. The NYT isn't going to quote random anonymous users on an EA forum claiming to be ex-employees.

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#174

Post by AustinDev »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #155

Going through all their shenanigans, any legal activity on the exchange was rare. Extremely criminal behavior. SBF would buy tokens from his personal account, Alameda would then buy the same tokens, and then FTX would list those tokens after Alameda bought them. Criminal beyond measure and it's absurd that all of these big name funds did not do even ten minutes of due diligence. The Ontario Teacher's Pension Fund was…

When do we find out the fund’s partners bought the tokens before FTX listed them? That’s what I’m waiting for it’s the only way the lack of DD makes any sense.

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#175

Post by eternalban »

> This is, frankly, just absurd and incomprehensible. It makes absolutely no senseーwhat is he doing? I struggle to imagine the state of his mind at the moment.

Apparently working on his defense. Temporary loss of mental faculties due to drug use, along with this "it wasn't anything other than Sam on drugs" & (yes there it is again) "incompetence" article. Country club prison it is to be then, after all.

I've seen tweets that question the origin story of first windfall of SBF. Has anyone actually vetted that initial "arb" that was the pretext for Forbes et al to introduce us to SBF the virtuous genius? These tweets claimed surprise that it could have been done without substantial unmentioned support. I would start digging there.

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#176

Post by saurik »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #137
xiphias2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they are doing (or at least were doing) fractional reserve banking as well. They have their own token just like FTX, wihch is a bad sign. Maybe right now they are working on fixing it. Kraken is one of the few exchanges that provide proof of reserves, which is basically just a Merkel tree of all user assets which users can use to check that the exchange holds their money. This is not just trivial to implemen…

A Merkle tree may show what crypto assets are held, but it doesn't stop the exchange from having a balance sheet with a negative $8bn entry described as “hidden, poorly internally labled ‘fiat@’ account”. Until these crypto companies are audited by actual recognized auditors I would just assume that everything they say is suspect.

The auditor that Kraken used claims to be "one of the top 25 largest accounting, consulting and technology firms in the U.S.". Is the idea that they aren't "auditors"?

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#177

Post by SilverBirch »

wikfwikf wrote: post #74
SilverBirch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter might provide more information than the NYT, but there's a reason NYT doesn't publish it - because the NYT wants to be reliable. They want their claims to actually stand up to scrutiny and be an accurate portrayal of the events we know happened. Whereas big chunks of this article are just pure speculation. The whole section about how Alameda might have had a rogue algo are just made up out of whole cloth. Is…

The NYT article is headlined "How Sam Bankman-Friedʼs Crypto Empire Collapsed". The parts of the article which actually answer this question are, in their totality, as follows: > Alameda had accumulated a large “margin position” on FTX, essentially meaning it had borrowed funds from the exchange, Par 6. Common knowledge, finance-splained and followed by equivocation and hand-waving from SBF. > On Nov. 6, Mr. Zhao ann…

I think you're misunderstanding what the NYT article is, it's not a piece of deep investigative journalism, it's an interview with SBF with context attached.

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#178

Post by [deleted] »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #171
kingkawn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Takes one to know one

I'm amazed that a man can build a company that literally created a reusable rocket and people will still call him a "bullshit artist". Also incredible how everyone on the left turned on Musk so quickly because he...tweeted some bad jokes? Strange reality we live in where your actions seem to matter so much less than your words. I thought it was the other way around.

[deleted]

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#179

Post by pigtailgirl »

wikfwikf wrote: post #88
thablackbull wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTPP has quite a solid reputation and this particular investment was a miniscule speculative bet. You can see the performance over time here [1]. [1] https://www.otpp.com/en-ca/investments/our-advantage/our-per...

It's not about performance or risk management, it's about due diligence. They should not be giving any amount of money to an organization with such poor internal checks of their finances.

--if you made an investment based on audited books but the books were still cooked - what more can you do? - audit the auditer maybe - at some point you have to trust the books --

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#180

Post by hoffs »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #56
SilverBirch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter might provide more information than the NYT, but there's a reason NYT doesn't publish it - because the NYT wants to be reliable. They want their claims to actually stand up to scrutiny and be an accurate portrayal of the events we know happened. Whereas big chunks of this article are just pure speculation. The whole section about how Alameda might have had a rogue algo are just made up out of whole cloth. Is…

> This article is very little more than just a gossip rag version of the NYT article This characterization is so far from the contents of the article I have to assume this comment is in bad faith or you're extremely biased towards the NYT. The article is 90% discussing facts/quotes from various sources and 10% speculation on what actually happened by people who are very familiar with crypto markets. The NYT piece on…

>The NYT piece on the other hand contains almost no facts Did you even read it? It has plenty of facts and public statements. It creates a thorough timeline of all things that happened over years.
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