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

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

#171

Post by memish »

foobarian wrote: post #16

This whole mess makes me wonder, what if they did everything right, with proper accounting and compliance practices etc.? Would we have ended up with a successful crypto business that would advance the whole field forward? Perhaps Coinbase is an example of that, though maybe not as well known due to less drama?

Coinbase did all the right things with compliance and ethics, but went through hell because of their no politics at work stance. The media did hit pieces on their CEO because of it. He and Coinbase were villainized on social media.

FTX and SBF avoided this and really any scrutiny by repeating the correct words and opinions, but were actually fraudulent under the surface.

It goes to show how shallow it all is.

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

#172

Post by ilamont »

moneycantbuy wrote: post #28

how did ftx successfully raise so much vc money recently? do these top vc firms do no due diligence?

The venture capitalists at Sequoia—the powerful investors behind Silicon Valley success stories like Google and PayPal—were certainly taken (or taken in) by him. Three months ago, one of the firm’s partners, Michelle Bailhe, offered a breathless take in a firm-sponsored story about SBF:

“Of the exchanges that we had met and looked at, some of them had regulatory issues, some of them were already public,” Bailhe wrote. “And then there was Sam.” FTX, Sequoia felt, was “Goldilocks-perfect.”

In colorful language, Sequoia partners reveled in their appreciation for his pitch for FTX.com as the center of all monetary transactions. In their own words:

“I LOVE THIS FOUNDER,” typed one partner.

“I am a 10 out of 10,” pinged another.

“YES!!!” exclaimed a third.

The firm has since deleted the article.

https://www.commonsense.news/p/the-32-billion-crypto-scammer

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

#173

Post by camjohnson26 »

tootie wrote: post #165
boh wrote: post #114

In a separate article Ray also said: “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” And this is the same man who oversaw the liquidation of Enron. "Ray said he had found at FTX international, FTX US and Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research trading company “compromised systems integrity”, “faulty regulatory o…

The guy who says regulations are dumb has no idea what he spent his money on or even how many employees he has. This guy is almost worse than Elizabeth Holmes.

He was saying the opposite, one of the biggest supporters of regulation in the space, and reportedly had several one on one conversations with Gary Gensler of the SEC and was the second largest donor to Joe Biden

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

#174

Post by nemo44x »

dahdum wrote: post #36
foobarian wrote: post #16

This whole mess makes me wonder, what if they did everything right, with proper accounting and compliance practices etc.? Would we have ended up with a successful crypto business that would advance the whole field forward? Perhaps Coinbase is an example of that, though maybe not as well known due to less drama?

> Perhaps Coinbase is an example of that, though maybe not as well known due to less drama? Coinbase is about the least exciting exchange out there. They don't offer the derivatives, futures, and leverage the others do and are very slow to add any new tokens or coins. They don't fly as high and fast as others, but there was never a high chance of crashing and burning. Now that they are public it's even lower. The com…

Also, it gives Coinbase plenty of growth opportunities ahead. This makes Coinbase, IMO, a great way to get exposure to the crypto space.

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

#175

Post by texaslonghorn5 »

moneycantbuy wrote: post #28

how did ftx successfully raise so much vc money recently? do these top vc firms do no due diligence?

lots of the money came in 2021 and 2022.

the audits done in july 2021 were by armanino and prager metis, both of which are trying to expand into the digital asset space and would stand to benefit from continued growth and success by ftx. the implication i am making is that there was no way for the audits to be unbiased.

if the audits weren't junk, the company probably wouldn't have been big enough to cause such a mess

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

#176

Post by camjohnson26 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #157
memish wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's interesting is how little scrutiny was applied to FTX and they're the one who lost people's money. Tether has been under intense scrutiny for years and is still working just fine. No one has lost their money in Tether despite huge outflow events. There's a lesson in here.

FTX is younger than Tether and it was actually subject to scrutiny. Tether has also been subject to scrutiny and was found, at the time, to be lying about their reserves and backing. And this was before they printed a lot more! It doesn’t make sense to write them off as having withstood the test of time when they literally failed to stand up to the first legal scrutiny that got access to their books.

The lesson learned is that frauds can go on for a long time. It took decades and a once in a generation market crash to expose Bernie Madoff. Enron spent years running their sketchy accounting. Wirecard was only finally exposed after the German government essentially lobbied on their behalf against the journalists trying to expose the fraud.

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

#177

Post by digianarchist »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #113

To be honest: I'm just happy I get to experience another Enron, but this time I can watch it in real time on Twitter!

The Enron scandal would have been much more interesting if their CEO had tweeted through it.

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

#178

Post by [deleted] »

three_seagrass wrote: post #130
ryandrake wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if those other reasons simply were the guy's background and pedigree. Silicon Valley is no different than Wall Street in its obsession with having the "right" educational background, having the "right" parents, having the "right" connections and so on. So many doors in corporate hiring can be bypassed with "Went to MIT" and "Stanford parents" and I wonder if they can also be bypassed by founders looking for…

That's at least one strong reason - VCs look at the person as much as the business. Crypto was filled with sleazy car-salesman "investor" types at the time Alameda Research was looking for funding. So when in came someone with a Jane Street background and not a single flashy Ferrari in their driveway, the dam broke on VCs finally being able to pour money into the crypto space on a decent looking founder.

[deleted]

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

#179

Post by alecco »

gdw2 wrote: post #126
boh wrote: post #114

In a separate article Ray also said: “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” And this is the same man who oversaw the liquidation of Enron. "Ray said he had found at FTX international, FTX US and Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research trading company “compromised systems integrity”, “faulty regulatory o…

I wonder if this could result in another round of costly SOX-like regulations?

I bet it's going to be used to push CBDC.

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

#180

Post by texaslonghorn5 »

hcrisp wrote: post #134
tppiotrowski wrote: post #90

"including a loan of FTT tokens to BlockFi Inc. in a principal amount of FTT tokens valued at $250 million as of September 30, 2022." [1] [1] https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/33/188450/042020648...

SBF seems to have claimed that funds sent to Alameda were loans. Can he do that here too (even if accounting was sloppy)? If so how does that differ from what other financial institutions do, unless it is in the degree of leverage and risk they take on? I am just imagining a headline like " used corporate funds to purchase employee home".

ftx created new tokens and loaned them to alameda, and then alameda posted them as collateral to borrow money from ftx customers.
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