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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

#321

Post by yieldcrv »

jerf wrote: post #160
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 filing is amazing: https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/33/188450/042020648... Don't forget to read this with the "diplomatic/legal/lawyer" mindset. These are not internet comments, these are legal filings. Sentences like "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 inte…

> are not the words of someone seeking updoots, this is a very serious individual in a serious legal filing

eh. until a criminal trial occurs, these really are just updoots. the gravity of this doesn't change that people write colorful language for clout in the process. if you're read enough filings like this, you'll have seen it all.

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

#323

Post by LilBytes »

rattlesnakedave wrote: post #276
camjohnson26 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

He’s pro crypto regulation (keep competitors out of his space), and fuck any regulation that might reveal his massive fraud.

Yeah he's not pro regulation is pro _regulatory capture_.

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

#324

Post by rippercushions »

jerf wrote: post #160
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 filing is amazing: https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/33/188450/042020648... Don't forget to read this with the "diplomatic/legal/lawyer" mindset. These are not internet comments, these are legal filings. Sentences like "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 inte…

A few favorites:

The Debtors did not have the type of disbursement controls that I believe are appropriate for a business enterprise. For example, employees of the FTX Group submitted payment requests through an on-line ‘chat’ platform where a disparate group of supervisors approved disbursements by responding with personalized emojis.

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 CPA firm to officially open its Metaverse headquarters in the metaverse platform Decentraland.”

Mr. Bankman-Fried, whose connections and financial holdings in the Bahamas remain unclear to me, recently stated to a reporter on Twitter: “F* regulators they make everything worse” and suggested the next step for him was to “win a jurisdictional battle vs. Delaware”.

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

#325

Post by HDThoreaun »

Schweigi wrote: post #303
HDThoreaun wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Coinbase probably does all this because they want to be a reliable, profitable and somehow auditable business. If you don’t care what happens to customers funds, sure, yes, provide leverage and all kinds of tokens to your customers. I guess in a way you get what you pay for…

Right, Coinbase's problems aren't because of politics, they're because they're trying to be a reliable, profitable and somehow auditable business, and that's not what crypto traders are interested in.

Most crypto volume will continue to be in unregulated exchanges, traders just maybe will be more vigilant about not leaving money in them.

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

#326

Post by ShamelessC »

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…

Not from finance - what is meant here by “potentially compromised”? Is that just as vague in context?

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

#327

Post by andrekandre »

datavirtue wrote: post #222
alfalfasprout wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which require compliance with them. If you work at a company that cares to actually comply they will. I luckily work somewhere where it's taken seriously. But it's shockingly easy not to and auditors couldn't possibly catch all of the instances of non-compliance

The banking, finance, and corporate accounting world and their practices would shock most devs to the core. Most people just assume that certain controls are being enacted with precision. Things like: customer account reconciliation, bank account reconciliation, etc. Most of the time people just aggregate values and never inspect the detail. They record those aggregates in the GL and move on. I have never seen granul…

  > They record those aggregates in the GL and move on.

 what is gl?

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

#328

Post by rippercushions »

stale2002 wrote: post #211
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.

I think the way to attack this would be on them having US customers. Yeah, technically they "banned" US customers. They were also doing sponsorships, and advertisement in literal US basketball stadiums. Clearly they knew they had US customers and were attempting to get them.

FTX had two exchanges: FTX.us for US customers (with limited features), and FTX.com for the rest of the world.

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

#329

Post by ShamelessC »

mrguyorama wrote: post #204
gabcoh wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why it would feel like that. The EA community came out immediately and very forcefully in opposition to SBF and this perversion of EA philosophy since the FTX blow up [1] and they have been vocally opposed to shady practices in the service of EA since long before the last week. [1]: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XHrHsrQGyr4NnqCA7/...

In what way is "scam your way to billions so you can donate billions" incompatible with EA? Honestly it seems like it would be the expected outcome. EA is the pinnacle of "the ends justify the means"

Insofar as EA depends on the delusion that one is and always will be incredibly lucky, or was born into fortune. (Does it? Genuinely curious- it comes across rather tone deaf as an outsider)

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

#330

Post by rippercushions »

lordnacho wrote: post #91
moneycantbuy wrote: post #28

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

I've had one of the mentioned firms invest in a place I was a partner at, and it surprises the hell out of me. I remember the investment guy would tell the rest of us "on Wednesday, wear a shirt and tie, X big name is coming" and that's what we'd do. And millions of questions about the strategy, though didn't know much about those details. Current theory is there's some sort of investment U shape curve. Either people…

This is called countersignaling. Basically, if everybody else invests into doing X and somebody conspicuously does not, it's taken as a signal that they're so good that they don't need to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersignaling

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