Live data from Hacker News

FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

cnbc.com

141–150 of 451 posts

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#141
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. They have already siphoned enough money through shell companies to buy many houses. International money trails are almost impossible to disentangle.

>Nah. They have already siphoned enough money through shell companies to buy many houses. Is there any evidence of this? Sure, maybe wearing a t-shirt and flip-flops, driving a Corolla, and sleeping on beanbags is some sort of act to divert attention, but the simpler explanation is that he just fucked up. Not everything has to be a heist.

I mean, page 9 of the bankruptcy filing says Alameda Research loaned SBF $1,000,000,000 [1], and a couple billion in loans to other owners or companies owned by the owners.

Maybe he just fucked up. But when the music stops and instead of having your customers' money, you have a bunch of loans to the owners of the company... I'm not sure if "he just fucked up" is the simpler explanation, or the more credulous one.

[1]: https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/FTXFILING.pdf

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#142

How can anybody be surprised ? The 2 biggest players - Tether and Binance are much worse and still very well alive. Both are several times bigger (on paper) than FTX. Binance is already banned in most countries and without headquarters. Do anybody believes they have a proper gouvernance ? Tether was proved to lie about it réserves several times, recently started publishing attestations about reserves - attestations t…

> both could disappear tomorrow with all the money If they go then the magic beans are worth $0. In which case - what are the damages? They've ran away with magic beans worth $0. To quote Monty Python: "I mean, what have you got to lose? You know, you come from nothing. You're going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing."

Tether prints tokens in exchange for money. Them disappearing means they took the money and abandoned their magic bean IOUs.

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#143
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The FTX Group received audit opinions on consolidated financial statements for two of the Silos – the WRS Silo and the Dotcom Silo – for the period ended December 31, 2021. The audit firm for the WRS Silo, Armanino LLP, was a firm with which I am professionally familiar. The audit firm for the Dotcom Silo was Prager Metis, a firm with which I am not familiar and whose website indicates that they are the “first-ever…

>Armanino LLP, Oh look, the same one that "audits" Kraken.

[deleted]

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same question. My best guess is that these VCs need to deploy so much capital that they don't really do due diligence, instead they go by "founder vibes" and "vision", a watered down version of "invest in the team, not the product". Sequoia, SoftBank, a16z all seem to be guilty of this. Anecdotally, Chamath Palihapitiya, in the recent All-in Podcast [0], said that they met with SBF and as a condition to in…

> but a16z's $350M investment in Adam Neumann's newest Thing makes me think that we are still flush with money ready to be thrown at anyone that has the connections to get a coffee chat in Sand Hill Road. They have loose morals. Kevin O'Leary, of Dragon's Den fame, who is now a creditor in the FTX bankruptcy (ie wiped out) recently said in an interview that he would invest with SBF again. The guy literally had money…

Tim Draper still supports Elizabeth Holmes: https://fortune.com/2022/01/05/venture-capital-tim-draper-el...

I don't know how. Maybe he's just fucking stupid, or too prideful to admit he was wrong.

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#145
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aged poorly in what sense? 1. "FTX is very well capitalized" - given that August 2021 was in the middle of the crypto bull market, that statement was probably true at the time. Sure, it became poorly capitalized later, but that wouldn't make the comment age poorly, any more than a statement like "the fed has inflation under control" in 2019 would age poorly. 2. "Can you show me even napkin math that shows FTX going u…

It was never well capitalized. They used their own made up token as an asset and assigned a fake inflated valuation to it.

It's wild to me that they can basically print counterfeit USD and put it on their SEC filings, and the Treasury is just okay with it.

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#147
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That its community idealized and gathered around a man with no moral center You make it sound like SBF was the prophet/leader of effective altruism, but I don't think that's the case. The wikipedia article certainly doesn't paint him as some sort of leader, and only gives a passing mention to SBF. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism

Using Wikipedia as a barometer doesn’t always works. In this case it probably wouldn’t work even if SBF was much bigger than he was with EA. There’s a middle ground. He wasn’t a prophet but he wasn’t nobody either. He was a leading non-academic figure/celeb of EA that didn’t get too much pushback.

>There’s a middle ground. He wasn’t a prophet but he wasn’t nobody either. He was a leading non-academic figure/celeb of EA that didn’t get too much pushback.

That's the non-controversial opinion, but where does this leave OP's comment? Should we push back more on billionaires in movements? Should we assume that everyone who's in movements is in it for cynical reasons? Or maybe only billionaires? A new yorker article on effective altruism suggests that SBF got in before his crypto riches. How does that work? Did SBF suddenly turn cynical once his wealth crossed the $1B mark?

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/the-reluctant-...

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> both could disappear tomorrow with all the money If they go then the magic beans are worth $0. In which case - what are the damages? They've ran away with magic beans worth $0. To quote Monty Python: "I mean, what have you got to lose? You know, you come from nothing. You're going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing."

Tether prints tokens in exchange for money. Them disappearing means they took the money and abandoned their magic bean IOUs.

Do they actually exchange them for money or are they just creating them? There has never been a reputable audit of Tether.

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#149
post #39
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will somebody please do a Benford's law on this one? I am too busy counting my virtual coins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law

I don't think you even need Benford's law - "Hidden, poorly internally labled 'fiat@' account" has to trigger some more fundamental law.

This phrase will become legendary in business and accounting.

Re: FTX used corporate funds to purchase employee homes, new filing shows

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> both could disappear tomorrow with all the money If they go then the magic beans are worth $0. In which case - what are the damages? They've ran away with magic beans worth $0. To quote Monty Python: "I mean, what have you got to lose? You know, you come from nothing. You're going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing."

Tether prints tokens in exchange for money. Them disappearing means they took the money and abandoned their magic bean IOUs.

You'd still have your token though.
Post reply on HN