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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

#351

Post by mchaver »

jandrese wrote: post #246
mchaver wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a bunch of kids I don't think we should refer to them as kids. It seems to absolve them of responsibility. Kids are given leniency when they do wrong. The FTX/Alameda people are adults that graduated from one of the highest ranked universities in the world. They are foolish, but not kids. Part of me wonders if there is media narrative that wants them to be referred to as kids because powerful people don't want them…

I think a lot of the "kids" narrative comes from the CEO that looks like jailbait. Most people weren't paying much attention to FTX before they exploded, and the first impression you get from looking at the "about us" pages is that they look like a bunch of teenagers, and this family of companies was worth billions out of nowhere. It is mind blowing that supposedly serious investors were tripping over themselves to d…

I agree with what you say that their appearances and behavior do not seem to fit the role, but that is part of the narrative that plays into the interests of Sam Bankman and company that will help them get lighter sentences.

Their image as kids playing League of Legends who were trying to make money to give it away benefits them a lot.

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

#352

Post by texaslonghorn5 »

Tenoke wrote: post #86
_fat_santa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is Coinbase is the thing that FTX was claiming to be, a well run exchange. Looking back, them purchasing the naming rights to Miami's stadium and all the A list celebrities prompting it just added this fake layer of trust. It's very easy to see the celebrity endorsements, puff pieces and the companies name plastered over a stadium as endorsements of how solid the business is, after all, a bunch of kids…

FTX wasn't just like Coinbase, they were a better exchange than Coinbase with more products. They just ruined that by using the exchange's money to bail out Alameda's unrelated investments. As far as I can tell if they hadn't done that Alameda would've died and FTX would've just kept being a good exchange.

not sure why this is flagged, some of this analysis is accurates

the problem was FTX customer deposits ended up being borrowed by Alameda (using as collateral ftt that was fraudulently created and then loaned to them), if no one did the ftt fraud then who knows what might have happened.

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

#353

Post by lajosbacs »

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 cares about their politics one way or the other, they simply have much higher fees than their competitors.

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

#354

Post by ShamelessC »

vkou wrote: post #346
ShamelessC wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It means that after looking at the books for a week, he thinks that key employees at the firm may have been crooks, as opposed to idiots.

Heh, gotcha. Thanks!

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

#355

Post by ineedasername »

rippercushions wrote: post #324
jerf wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fa…

Hey look at that! Someone was actually using the Metaverse, and for a financial auditing business no less! Zuckerberg should be patting himself on the back over that milestone achievement.

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

#356

Post by zevra »

andrekandre wrote: post #327
datavirtue wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

general ledger?

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

#357

Post by donw »

batman-farts wrote: post #292
SkyMarshal wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For a certain sort of prospective law student, I’m sure this makes Stanford even more appealing. You’ll be able to learn from not one but two professors who helped their own son cop a federal plea deal!

Should be a cakewalk given FTX’s campaign donations.

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

#358

Post by thioweri234 »

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…

Not surprising no. Tons of Western companies have fucked up, what with leaking AWS credentials, and leaking personal info online.

God forbid if an Indian company does it (see yesterday's post on Infosys), and all the previously suppressed hate (I still don't understand Europe's mind. Whether this hate is racial, or religious, or a mix) starts gushing out. You see this everywhere in the West (often to a greater extent outside the Anglosphere).

Even the reporting on India is the same - a PM who's not compromised to the Anglophone elites of India gets elected, and what do the "liberated, enlightened" cretins of the occident do ? Rush in to support their colonial garrison, regurgitating the same old tropes that were used to rape and plunder the "devil-worshipping heathens". You see this even with countries like Japan (god, these bitchy 'expats' are unbearable).

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

#359

Post by BoiledCabbage »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #301
texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Crypto people complain about governments “just printing money” and then go and do shit like this. It boggles the mind.

It's almost as if crypto is mainly just scams, and people in the process of being fooled by scams.

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

#360

Post by ineedasername »

SBF: “You know what was maybe my biggest single f----p?” he asked. “Chapter 11.”

~1 Week in to the melt down of a massive, hilariously horrifying structure of $Billions intricately tied up in a mixture of hubris, malfeasance, scam artistry, good intentions (maybe?) and...

his biggest regret is that in, perhaps, a moment of sanity he filed for bankruptcy in a jurisdiction that is expert in handling the fallout from this kind of thing. (well, I'm not sure Delaware has actually ever seen this kind of thing before)

This does not reflect well upon his character and perhaps belies his claims that all he wants to do now is find some way of rescuing things from the ashes to make whole the folks whose assets were incinerated

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