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What Happened at Alameda Research

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Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#281

Post by danaris »

jasmer wrote: post #212
hoffs wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because actual journalists have standards to abide

? Stealing $10B is fraud. So when $10B goes missing, due to what we know is 'bad behaviour' at minimum, and all the other 'smoke' around this story - we should use that word in proper context. This is literally one of the biggest fraud cases in history. By their own 'standards' they are compelled to use the word in proper context.

While I'm sympathetic to this position, I can also easily see an argument from the NYT's side that "fraud" is a specific criminal allegation, and as such using it in an article like this could open them up to libel or defamation suits.

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#282

Post by [deleted] »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #240
kristianov wrote: post #4

Two words: Ponzi Scheme.

This was nothing like a Ponzi scheme - the money was lost due to bad trades, poor collateral, bad accounting/compliance with probably a little bit of criminality thrown in at the end. Although they were trading crypto it was more like an old fashioned/real money collapse.

[deleted]

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#283

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

vgatherps wrote: post #244
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTX supposedly collected 0.1% commission on $100B+ volume per day. Why couldn't they just get a loan to cover their losses?

Neither of these numbers are correct, they imply 100M of profit a day. Volume is heavily weighted towards the highest tiers which on ftx were paying 0.015% to take and receiving 0.01% to make (given, alameda would receive no rebate). They've also never claimed to do 100B+ a day. They published stats about their volume as well as some other exchanges here: https://ftx.com/volume-monitor . It's stale since the collapse…

Okay - so even 0.01% on $10Bn = $1M per day = $365M per year, and - at the time - growing.

One would think they should've been able to get a loan (if those numbers were real).

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#284

Post by memish »

mudrockbestgirl wrote: post #17
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.

What a bunch of BS. It's obviously easy to say that in hindsight. There are a million reasons for why he did not take the investment, but in none of the published conversation was anything about him thinking SBF is lying. In fact, knowing Elon, if he had really said that at some point before FTX collapsed, he sure would have published it by now to prove how smart he is.

He was skeptical even though SBF wanted to give him money, not the other way around. And people Elon knew were pushing for SBF. Elon ended up ghosting him anyway. Look at the chat logs that were revealed in court.

Michael Grimes [IBanker at Morgan Stanley]: Do you have 5 minutes to connect on possible meeting tomorrow I believe you will want to take?

Elon: Will call in about half an hour

Michael: Sam Bankman Fried is why I'm calling https://twitter.com/sbf_ftx/status/1514588820641128452 https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/recode/2021/3/20/22335209/s... https://ftx.us

Elon: ??

Elon: I'm backlogged with a mountain of critical work matters. ls this urgent?

Michael: Wants 1-Sb. Serious about partner w/you. Same security you own

Michael: Not urgent unless you want him to fly tomorrow. He has a window tomorrow then he's wed-Friday booked

Michael: Could do $5bn if everything vision lock. Would do the engineering for social media blockchain integration. Founded FTX crypto exchange. Believes in your mission. Major Democratic donor. So thought it was potentially worth an hour tomorrow a la the Orlando meeting and he said he could shake hands on 5 if you like him and I think you will. Can talk when you have more time not urgent but if tomorrow works it could get us $5bn equity in an hour

Elon: Blockchain twitter isn't possible, as the bandwidth and latency requirements cannot be supported by a peer to peer network, unless those "peers" are absolutely gigantic, thus defeating the purpose of a decentralized network.

Elon: ["disliked" "Could do $5bn ..."]

Elon: So long as I don't have to have a laborious blockchain debate

Elon: Strange that Orlando declined

Elon: Please let him know that I would like to talk and understand why he declined

Elon: Does Sam actually have $3B liquid?

Michael: I think Sam has it yes. He actually said up to 10 at one point but in writing he said up to 5. He's into you. And he specifically said the blockchain piece is only if you liked it and not gonna push it. Orlando referred Sams interest to us and will be texting you to speak to say why he (Orlando) declined. We agree orlando needs to call you and explain given everything he said to us and you. Will make that happen We can push Sam to next week but I do believe you will like him. Ultra Genius and doer builder like your formula. Built FTX from scratch after MIT physics. Second to Bloomberg in donations to Biden campaign.

https://danluu.com/elon-twitter-texts/#62

Will MacAskill [co-creator of effective altruism movement, Oxford professor, Chair of board for Global Priorities Institute at Oxford]: Hey - I saw your poll on twitter about Twitter and free speech. I'm not sure if this is what's on your mind, but my collaborator Sam Bankman-Fried (https://www.forbes.com/profile/sam-bankman-fried/?sh=4de9866...) has for a while been potentially interested in purchasing it and then making it better for the world. If you want to talk with him about a possible joint effort in that direction, his number is [redacted] and he's on Signal.

Elon: Does he have huge amounts of money?

Will: Depends on how you define "huge"! He's worth $24B, and his early employees (with shared values) bump that to $30B. I asked about how much he could in principle contribute and he said: "~$1-3b would be easy-$3-8b I could do ~$8-15b is maybe possible but would require financing"

Will: If you were interested to discuss the idea I asked and he said he'd be down to meet you in Austin

Will: He's based in the Bahamas normally. And I might visit Austin next week, if you'd be around?

Will: That's a start

Will: Would you like me to intro you two via text?

Elon: You vouch for him?

https://danluu.com/elon-twitter-texts/#12

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#285

Post by Yizahi »

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.

People are acting towards him like that exactly because they praised him before and were holding him at high esteem. I certainly did. Now he started to disappoint people, multiple times.

Nobody cares (much) about CEO of Comcast, or BP, or Electronic Arts. They have bad reputation and when they do something bad again, people just shrug and move on. While people with good reputation doing same things are discussed a lot.

Also note that Comcast, BP, EA etc. are all successful businesses. They just shitty to humans, but successful. So founding a big successful technology company is a big achievement, but not a unique one.

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#286

Post by SilverBirch »

jasmer wrote: post #220
SilverBirch wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. W…

The NYT is not supposed to 'stick with what they can prove'. That's definitely not the bar they have or else they wouldn't be able to publish much. Journalists should be a bit cynical, dig for info. The NYT has more resources than anyone, and should be able to ask around, do some actual blockchain work, interview others. This story looks like one of the biggest frauds in history, likely because it is, it's the job of…

It's pretty insane to me that you think the NYT would ever deliberately print accusations they couldn't prove.

I also think you're massively overstating the role of the NY Times, yes they have resources but they have to cover massive breadth. The NY Times isn't really going to be an expert in every topic, and there are real expert reporters out there who are going to dig in to this for specialist information. In this case there are reporters covering tech and finance - so you're going to see good articles from Levine, and the Odd Lots people, Michael Lewis was literally shadowing SBF for 6 months. Arguably the Odd Lots guys got to this first - basically getting SBF to admit he was running a ponzi in an interview - an admission that made absolutely no difference because everyone kind of knew it was all a scam anyway. If you said to me there's an article about FTX I would be looking for it in Bloomberg or the FT, not the NYT.

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#287

Post by elie222 »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #120

> Most news accounts seem to portray the scale of the bankruptcy as relatively small. This is a key point. They lost $16B in customer deposits. LTCM lost $4.6B in investor funds. Enron lost $11B in shareholder capital. Interestingly, while Madoff is widely quoted as having lost $65B, that was almost all fabricated paper wealth, actual losses were around $18B and $14.4B of that was recovered and returned. All of these…

They haven’t lost 16b though.

Unclear if we have accurate info from Sam but the situation is more like 9b in liabilities with 70% of that in liquid and illiquid assets. People getting back that much is highly optimistic but the 16b doesn’t seem accurate at all. FTX already paid users out $5b btw

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#288

Post by [deleted] »

bambax wrote: post #78
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #31

I liked the chapter in Nate Sivers' Signal and the Noise when he talks about how hard it is to know if you're a good professional poker player. Been a while since I read it but feel like even after a couple of years of winning games and tracking his own performance, he had enough stats knowledge to realise that he didn't actually know if he was good or just lucky. The noise swamped the signal. This feels relevant to…

In Midnight Run (1988) when Marvin finds the Duke and Jack in the sandstone of Red Rock Country he exclaims "Am I lucky or am I just good?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gokkl2br7G8&t=152s Later in the movie, when Marvin decides to ask for more money and takes a Polaroid of the Duke in the bathroom of the motel, he comments to himself: "I amaze myself... I'm always thinking." The thing is, the character of Marvin…

[deleted]

Re: What Happened at Alameda Research

#289

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

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.

Just to explain as someone that was initially a fan of Musk but now highly critical of him:

SpaceX owes a great deal of it's success to the people around Elon, particularly Shotwell, minimizing his bad behaviors. Compare this to Tesla and now Twitter, where Elon has unilateral power. At the first he managed to get in trouble with the SEC in the dumbest way possible, as well as continues the Fully Self Driving saga that many of us regard as fraud, the solar tiles debacle, etc. At the latter he's treating employees in an utterly reprehensible and illegal way. He's currently under investigation for similar behaviors at Tesla but involving far fewer employees.

The left hates Elon more for his union busting and abusive labor practices than bad jokes, but bad jokes certainly don't help Elon any when it comes to PR.

I can give Elon credit for advancing the timelines of both EVs and solar power, and applaud SpaceX for their innovation, while also being highly critical of Elon's general behavior and treatment of the people who work for them.

Put more bluntly: I AM judging Elon on the basis of his actions. Your position is actually that SpaceX is so cool it forgives all wrongs.

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