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Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

vox.com

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#231

Post by expazl »

alecbz wrote: post #175

I'm super surprised at how open and off-the-cuff he's being here. Did he not put together that the DMs might get published? Is this just the power of good rapport? Is he trying to be strategic here in some way?

We don't know how much money he paid to the person he's talking to. We only know that he _did_ pay money to the person he's talking to, since it's added as a disclaimer in the article. Also it would be silly of Vox to leave that disclaimer out as it' was publicized earlier so they can't run from it.

He's thinking he's chatting with an accomplish who's going to help him spin some positive PR to help his last ditch fund raising.

But in fact he's chatting with someone who's desperate to distance themselves from a person they received money from, so as not to end up looking like they got paid for biased coverage, which lets be honest is what most likely happened.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#232

Post by chris_wot »

The guy thinks he is smarter than everyone else. And he’s not. He’s certainly not smarter than his lawyers (you’d have to assume right now that he has lawyers). Those lawyers would be telling him to shut the fuck up.

But no, he’s giving interviews to Vox.

All these fawning interviews beforehand. All this assumption that he’s a crypto-messiah. All the true believers.

At this point, crypto is a cult. And the sooner it implodes and/or explodes so we can be done with it, the better off society will be.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#233

Post by ceejayoz »

threeseed wrote: post #219
burkaman wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, incompetence could be a legal strategy - https://www.axios.com/2022/11/16/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-incom... > Lawyers tell Axios the main criminal risk Bankman-Fried faces is an indictment on charges of fraud — one of the more common charges in white-collar prosecutions. But to convict, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone had knowledge or intent to commit fraud, whi…

There are some parallels with Elizabeth Holmes. And we are yet to see whether they throw the book at her.

She didn't immediately publicly confess to a reporter, though, right?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#234

Post by CuriousCosmic »

jaywalk wrote: post #44
SevenNation wrote: post #23

> Bankman-Fried has maintained that FTX has never invested the deposits of crypto account holders on the exchange. I pressed him on that point via Twitter, and while he continued to insist that FTX did not directly use account money in this way, he said that Alameda — which he also owns — had borrowed far more money from FTX’s balance sheet for investments than he had realized, which ultimately left FTX vulnerable to…

FTX loaned the deposits to Alameda, and Alameda invested them. It's totally different from FTX making the investments themselves! /s

It's somehow even worse given that according to SBF, they didn't even loan all the deposits. Something like $8B of them were being deposited to Alameda directly from users without their knowledge.

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24202784/S...

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#235

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

burkaman wrote: post #152
expazl wrote: post #124

It this real? Is he really THAT stupid? His defense against "you took user deposits and gambled the money" is "No, I took user deposits, loaned them to myself and then gambled the money". I mean this is like nested layers of stupidity. You'd be stupid to do this, you'd be stupid to think it's not a major crime, you'd be stupid to think that this was in any way acts as a defense of your crime and you'd be stupid to ac…

For FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, incompetence could be a legal strategy - https://www.axios.com/2022/11/16/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-incom... > Lawyers tell Axios the main criminal risk Bankman-Fried faces is an indictment on charges of fraud — one of the more common charges in white-collar prosecutions. But to convict, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone had knowledge or intent to commit fraud, whi…

He made tweets at the end of September when there were huge movements of FTT from Alameda to FTX where he lied and tried to downplay them as "wallet rotation". I posted about that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33568688.

There is a paper/tweet trail a mile long that SBF was trying to cover up malfeasance that pretty clearly shows mens rea in my opinion.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#236

Post by superfrank »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #140
dragontamer wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I imagine my question would be "hey, where'd all the deposits go?" But we know where they went. To Alameda Research. Then Alameda Research sent them somewhere else. The money isn't coming back, and Alameda Research's collateral of FTT tokens is worthless. So that's that, its done. Its actually quite a simple story here. FTX lent the money to someone else (even if Alameda Research is also owned by SBF), and that oth…

> FTX lent the money to someone else (even if Alameda Research is also owned by SBF), and that other group lost the money One minor clarification: "lent" should be "stole". If I can't pay my mortgage, I'm not allowed to go break in to my neighbor's house to steal some cash that I'll "borrow" in the hopes of paying back later. FTX's Ts&Cs we're very clear - customer deposits were not FTX's to lend. This is a simple, s…

> One minor clarification: "lent" should be "stole"

Not a lawyer, but I think the correct term is "embezzled".

> The crime of embezzlement is defined as the fraudulent appropriation of property of another by someone who has been entrusted with its possession. Unlike theft where the property is taken unlawfully, in embezzlement the property comes lawfully into the possession of the embezzler who then fraudulently or unlawfully appropriates it. The key aspect of embezzlement is the fiduciary relationship that exists between the embezzler and the victim of the embezzlement as embezzlement requires that the property be appropriated by a person who was entrusted with its possession. A senior executive who uses company funds to pay for his personal yacht is guilty of embezzlement even if he intended to return the funds or had the means to do so.

Source: https://www.bayarea-attorney.com/CM/Articles/Theft-Offenses-...

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#237

Post by artificial »

quirk wrote: post #154
expazl wrote: post #124

It this real? Is he really THAT stupid? His defense against "you took user deposits and gambled the money" is "No, I took user deposits, loaned them to myself and then gambled the money". I mean this is like nested layers of stupidity. You'd be stupid to do this, you'd be stupid to think it's not a major crime, you'd be stupid to think that this was in any way acts as a defense of your crime and you'd be stupid to ac…

I think he probably declared it. "I declare bankruptcy".

You have to walk in a circle three times after stating this.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#238

Post by lazide »

bb88 wrote: post #169
burkaman wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, incompetence could be a legal strategy - https://www.axios.com/2022/11/16/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-incom... > Lawyers tell Axios the main criminal risk Bankman-Fried faces is an indictment on charges of fraud — one of the more common charges in white-collar prosecutions. But to convict, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone had knowledge or intent to commit fraud, whi…

So you're saying is that a defense for fraud is stupidity? Oh dear god, it can't be that simple can it?

A large class (but not all!) of crime requires ‘mens rea’ or a guilty mind.

If you can plausibly convince everyone, for instance, that you legitimately thought that the car you got into and drove away was your car, then you didn’t commit car theft.

Good luck with that 99.9% of the time of course.

This is in comparison to strict liability crimes, like drug possession or statutory rape that don’t require knowledge or intent.

Fraud requires that you knew you were lying (essentially), or should have known, to be fraud.

You can’t accidentally commit fraud.

Near as I can tell, SBF would have to somehow convince everyone he had been brain dead while collecting billions of dollars to pull that off here, but hey - defense attorneys have to try something I guess?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#239

Post by throwaway821909 »

kragen wrote: post #62

tfw you forget the old friend you're dming on twitter about your life problems is now working as a reporter for vox and is going to post your whole dm thread as an article

I'd never heard of the guy until now so maybe it's obvious but you do wonder in these situations, he must have realised that the questions were leading to an article but did he expect the transcript to be published verbatim?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself

#240

Post by ceejayoz »

superfrank wrote: post #223
expazl wrote: post #124

It this real? Is he really THAT stupid? His defense against "you took user deposits and gambled the money" is "No, I took user deposits, loaned them to myself and then gambled the money". I mean this is like nested layers of stupidity. You'd be stupid to do this, you'd be stupid to think it's not a major crime, you'd be stupid to think that this was in any way acts as a defense of your crime and you'd be stupid to ac…

This text resonates with me a bit: > like, "oh FTX doesn't have a bank account, I guess people can wire to Alameda's to get money on FTX" > ..3 years later.. > 'oh fuck it looks like people wired $8b to Alameda and oh god we basically forgot about the stub account that corresponded to that and so it was never delivered to FTX' I'm not trying to defend his actions him and I think he should be prosecuted to the fullest…

If they could afford to hire an on-staff performance coach, they probably could and should have hired an on-staff accountant to manage literally billions of dollars rather than having the CEO put things in a spreadsheet.
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