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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

#251

Post by paxys »

memish wrote: post #171
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.

No one other than a handful of internet commenters gives a shit about Coinbase's stance on internal politics one way or another.

The company is having problems because they have too many employees (5000+), sky-high expenses, and very little revenue (due to falling crypto prices and the implosion of NFTs). If they want to succeed, they need to be making money. It's as simple as that. Cries of "we're getting cancelled!!" isn't going to save the company.

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

#252

Post by boring_twenties »

w23j wrote: post #74

Those are some candid remarks by the new CEO. "I have over 40 years of legal and restructuring experience. [...] 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. From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of in…

> I am really looking forward to the next Matt Levine column going through this filing!

Got u fam: https://archive.ph/VaSw8

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

#253

Post by peanuty1 »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #250
bhouston wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling he will come out worse that Elizabeth Holmes because it feels like a complete fraud and pilfering of their client's money for their own spoils. While Elizabeth ran a known fraud she didn't quite pilfer the money to completely enrich themselves like the FTX crew did.

Also at least Elizabeth wasn't stupid enough to give an interview to Vox where she admitted everything was a fraud and then told the regulators to fuck themselves. SBF's parents are both Stanford law professors, they or someone really needs to tell the kid to just stop talking.

And his girlfriend (Alameda CEO) Caroline Ellison's dad is Gary Gensler's former boss at MIT.

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

#254

Post by spfzero »

realist20222 wrote: post #228
SoftTalker wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious prison time for the executives involved would probably be more effective.

>> Serious prison time for the executives involved would probably be more effective. Top executives, especially well-connected ones never get prison time. Instead, you usually have Indian/Chinese scapegoats or someone equally disliked. The entire flash crash was blamed on a lone indian man living with his parents: https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-51265169 Nevermind Citadel, 2Sigma, Jane Street, Goldman Sachs The 2…

Bernie Madoff was a top executive, with great connections.

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

#255

Post by HDThoreaun »

memish wrote: post #171
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.

Coinbase went through hell because their product is worse than offshore exchanges. Less tokens available, much higher fees, no leverage. Why would any serious trader use coinbase when the alternatives exist? On top of that their expenses are far higher than their competitors, it's easy to see that the politics thing was the least of their issues.

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

#256

Post by jandrese »

Tenoke wrote: post #140
jaywalk wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had to bail out Alameda because Alameda was propping up FTX. I have seen nothing that indicates FTX would have been fine standing alone, and plenty to indicate the opposite. It was a giant scam. All of it.

I mean, I don't see how it could've been losing money. Even if it had less users surely the fees they take more than make-up for the costs the exchange itself has.

They were paying out guaranteed 15% returns "with no risk" to investors.

Basically a textbook Ponzi scheme pitch and yet again it worked.

https://www.theblock.co/post/186187/alameda-promised-high-re...

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

#257

Post by _yb2s »

emehex wrote: post #22
bombcar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want that XLSX file. I want to print out that spreadsheet for my bedsheet. It's a work of art; it should be hung in every office in the country as a reminder.

Here it is! https://d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net/production/7ab64a3b-6c...

To me the biggest red flag is the comment about a "run on the bank." He was never running a bank, but an exchange, and seems unaware of this! He had no right to do anything but store the exact amount of each transaction, in the exact quantity and form it was made in.

Banks are insured against runs, that's kind of the definition and point of a bank in modern times.

Also, this supposed "theft" by an "ex employee" is obvious bullshit also. No way they made it possible for even the most compromised ex employee to keep the crypto keys, and if they had, they would have taken the money before FTX crashed. He's not dumb enough to believe that story, so the only possible explanation is that the thief is SBF himself.

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

#258

Post by jaywalk »

tedunangst wrote: post #247
jaywalk wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money laundering.

That's always the "next level" explanation for fraud, but how and why? What did Sequoia get out of this? Who's giving them dirty money?

It isn't necessarily that Sequoia (or any of the other VCs) had dirty money to launder. It could have also been that they wanted to use clean money for unclean purposes.

To be clear: I'm just letting my mind wander in response to your question, not saying that's what happened.

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

#259

Post by reddog »

tibbydudeza wrote: post #198

SBF is a fraudster and criminal - he "loaned" 3.3 bullion from Almeda Research. It makes Enron seem like side show.

No, the Enron scandal was much, much bigger. In 2000 Enron had a market cap of over $60 billion and was "reporting" $100 billion in revenue. It ended up losing it's sharholders $74 billion and all 20,000 employees their jobs. At the time it's bankrupcy was the largest in history.

The scandal also drove Enron's accounting firm, Aurthur Anderson, out of business costing all 85,000 their employess their jobs.

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

#260

Post by oblio »

marcosdumay wrote: post #223
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it? FTX wasn’t playing by existing US regulations anyway. Even the most basic regulations would have squashed FTX’s entire fraud from the start. They weren’t bothering to play by any rules because they knew they could get away with it.

The favorite pastime of politicians is creating regulations to make safer an environment where nobody follows regulations.

This is provably wrong and it would take you 2 minutes to find out why.

Yes, there are failures.

But we have minimum wages, no child labor, protection against harassment, seat belts, fraud laws, etc, etc, all thanks to regulation.

Regulation created by politicians.

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