Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried cashed out $300M during funding spree

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 217 posts

Re: FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried cashed out $300M during funding spree

#101

Post by brindlejim »

thepasswordis wrote: post #42

Just a general statement on people commenting on this saga: Sam wasn't doing effective altruism. He was lying about doing effective altruism. It's weird to me that people talk about this as an indictment of EA...but this rings similar to me as claiming that this is an indictment of DeFi or cryptocurrency generally. Sam/Caroline weren't doing DeFi, and neither were they really doing anything related to cryptocurrency.…

Kind of.

Sam was not doing what EAism says you should do.

But he was embedded in the EA movement, close to many of its other members, and abetted by people like Will.

So if you look at EA descriptively, Sam was very much doing EA.

He was lying about his business. But he wasn't lying about giving the money away. That was very real, and a big part of what "doing effective altruism" is.

Sam/Caroline were also doing crypto.

The two movements -- EA and crypto -- clearly want to excommunicate them. But both those movements were happy to work with them when they appeared to be successful, non-fraudulent billionaires.

Nobody knows you when you're down and out.

Re: FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried cashed out $300M during funding spree

#102

Post by DennisP »

kjs3 wrote: post #24
slap_shot wrote: post #5

> the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals. The most fascinating part of this whole story to me is just how few checks and balances there were in this company. Even without a board, did major investors not get his quarterly financials? If the leaked balance sheet was any indication of their level financial engineering cap…

I thought that was the whole point: unregulated (or at least extremely minimally regulated, preferably in a jurisdiction that has a looooong history of looking the other way and in a perfect world with no extradition treaties), decentralized, anonymous financial systems. It doesn't surprise me in the least that these clowns were running across the high wire without a net using other peoples money. The fascinating par…

There was nothing decentralized about FTX. It was just a centralized exchange in the Bahamas that happened to trade crypto around.

The whole point of defi is to build systems where nobody can do what FTX did. Uniswap for example doesn't even have admin functions. Nobody can move your funds on Uniswap besides you.

Re: FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried cashed out $300M during funding spree

#103

Post by rglover »

Tenoke wrote: post #87
rglover wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially when the definition of what is "effective" is totally subjective and up to the adherents belief system(s). Which sadly appears to have been funneling "donations" to bog standard NGO/political nonsense, not impactful things like making sure kids can eat or caring for veterans who've been disposed of.

That's not really an accurate characterization. The most promoted cause by EA has been the Against Malaria Foundation because it saves the most money per $ spent. If you donate to GiveWell (a basic recommended way to donate in EA) they mostly donate to Malaria and similar causes. Obviously, some members do a lot more but Political causes aren't the standard, that stuff is.

Most-promoted, but is it the most funded? For example, their landing page just links to the AMF's donors list page while claiming EA provided "significant support" with the only mentions of EA being people they've inspired to donate in relatively small amounts (relative to the billions moving through FTX). I'd imagine they're buried in there somewhere but if they're a major supporter I'd assume they'd be plastering that number all over the place.

Sorry, but this whole FTX thing isn't just an "oopsie." They knew exactly what they were doing and tried to justify it with a few targeted donations. The landing page alone only showcases 6 initiatives, 50% of which are exactly what I described above.

Re: FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried cashed out $300M during funding spree

#104

Post by slibhb »

gruez wrote: post #91
slibhb wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an indictment of EA because many prominent EA people were associated with FTX/Sam. That shows poor judgement and, on some level, EA is about smart people making judgements about long-term good. How can we trust them to make those judgements when they decide to hitch their wagon to FTX?

>That shows poor judgement and, on some level, EA is about smart people making judgements about long-term good. How can we trust them to make those judgements when they decide to hitch their wagon to FTX? Charities in general aren't exactly known for conducting thorough due diligence on their donors. Sure, it might make sense to make sure the person you're getting money from isn't some sort of ruthless dictator or em…

I wasn't talking about charities specifically, I was referring to stuff like this: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xafpj3on76uRDoBja/...

At least one of the people involved (MacAskill) is a big name in EA circles.

Re: FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried cashed out $300M during funding spree

#105

Post by KptMarchewa »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #38
wmf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this mean that Sam was the one who sold Binance the FTT which Binance subsequently used to cause FTT to collapse? Yes exactly. Binance triggered FTX's downfall by dumping FTT I don't know if they actually dumped; they just announced it. It doesn't matter now.

It matters! Because that'd be hilarious. Is that really true that an announcement of a pending large sale (but no actual sale) was enough delta to topple the house of cards? Fascinating.

AFAIK they weren't able to sell everything before FTX collapsed, leaving them at a loss.

Re: FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried cashed out $300M during funding spree

#106

Post by DennisP »

skizm wrote: post #72

The amounts of money we’re talking about here are sort of staggering. I know they did a pretty good job of not keeping any records of depositors, but do we have any sense of depositor demographics, total number of depositors, or average account size? Any KYC at all? Like did retail “investors” really pump close to $16B into this? Could the scam here be crypto whales used this as an off ramp to turn their crypto into…

Apparently some hedge funds had money at FTX, which is why there's talk about "contagion."

Re: FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried cashed out $300M during funding spree

#107

Post by drowsspa »

thepasswordis wrote: post #42

Just a general statement on people commenting on this saga: Sam wasn't doing effective altruism. He was lying about doing effective altruism. It's weird to me that people talk about this as an indictment of EA...but this rings similar to me as claiming that this is an indictment of DeFi or cryptocurrency generally. Sam/Caroline weren't doing DeFi, and neither were they really doing anything related to cryptocurrency.…

Back during the Brazilian dictatorship, they used to say "we have to grow the cake to split it afterwards".

What actually surprises me is that EA was apparently taken seriously. It does explain a lot of the fake goodness Silicon Valley is well known for.

Re: FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried cashed out $300M during funding spree

#108

Post by abhv »

slibhb wrote: post #73
thepasswordis wrote: post #42

Just a general statement on people commenting on this saga: Sam wasn't doing effective altruism. He was lying about doing effective altruism. It's weird to me that people talk about this as an indictment of EA...but this rings similar to me as claiming that this is an indictment of DeFi or cryptocurrency generally. Sam/Caroline weren't doing DeFi, and neither were they really doing anything related to cryptocurrency.…

It's an indictment of EA because many prominent EA people were associated with FTX/Sam. That shows poor judgement and, on some level, EA is about smart people making judgements about long-term good. How can we trust them to make those judgements when they decide to hitch their wagon to FTX?

(1) Any theory that encourages people to suspect working directly on important local causes that are meaningful to them, but instead, seek out the highest paying jobs in order to donate to EA causes is just hiding a special kind of ponzi scheme ("get more people in to fund the good work of the current people").

(2) EA creates an excuse to act outrageously evil "for the good of the longterm"

Re: FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried cashed out $300M during funding spree

#109

Post by jliptzin »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #98
jliptzin wrote: post #86

Dump your life savings into a crypto exchange based in the Bahamas, sure. But god forbid you invest $20k in a startup without being an “accredited investor”

I'm not sure what your point is. You can invest in whatever you want in the Bahamas without being accredited (as far as I know). If anything, the blowup of FTX seems to justify why investments in unregistered securities in US-based companies aren't allowed to be marketed to unaccredited investors. Are you saying we should allow companies with the level of oversight FTX had more free reign to operate and market their…

I am saying the whole “accredited investor” thing should be abolished

Re: FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried cashed out $300M during funding spree

#110

Post by cwkoss »

thepasswordis wrote: post #42

Just a general statement on people commenting on this saga: Sam wasn't doing effective altruism. He was lying about doing effective altruism. It's weird to me that people talk about this as an indictment of EA...but this rings similar to me as claiming that this is an indictment of DeFi or cryptocurrency generally. Sam/Caroline weren't doing DeFi, and neither were they really doing anything related to cryptocurrency.…

When people use moral identifiers, like 'altruist' or 'philanthropist' , etc. they are trying to shortcut past the normal societal repetitional mechanisms to be viewed as a moral person.

The people who want to take these shortcuts tend to be the least moral people. Same force that leads the immoral to be more likely loudly publicly identify with a religion.

EA may be an interesting perspective, but I'm immediately wary of anyone who self-identifies as an "effective altruist".

Post reply on HN