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The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

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Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#601

Post by vkou »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #578
vkou wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would be beyond furious if I was expected to help make someone else whole. Such are the wages of being a beneficiary of a ponzi scheme. It would be a good incentive to do better research.

Madoff operated for close to twenty years before being exposed. He was regularly lauded for being the best by well informed people. What is an amateur supposed to do? If the argument is, “Nobody is that good, you should know better”, does that mean Buffet’s scheme will start crumbling any day now?

> What is an amateur supposed to do?

You have two options.

1. Don't be unlucky. [1]

2. Or, you can make sure your society has socialized old age pensions, and that it puts in the work necessary to keep them solvent, and its citizens taken care of once they are past their working years.

[1] The easiest way to not be unlucky is to buy into a boring, diversified index fund. Berkshire may be a fraud, but it's unlikely the entirety of the SP500 is.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#602

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

HWR_14 wrote: post #588
Panzer04 wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine there's a huge problem in that FTX did not declare bankruptcy until the vast majority of their liquid assets had been removed by the bank run. If they had declared bankruptcy before the run, most people might have gotten out with a 50% haircut. Instead, after the run, those left over will get nothing and those who got out will got 100%.

Those who got out will be told they need to give back 50% (assuming you are right that that is how much was left).

Even non-US customers? How?

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#603

Post by l33t233372 »

HWR_14 wrote: post #583
massysett wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is opportunity cost. People invested in Madoff to grow their money. So if I invest $100 in Madoff and ten years later they say “we recovered $90, congrats,” yeah that’s better than nothing. But if I had put that into a legitimate investment, maybe I’d have $180. Other folks got money out of Madoff during his scam years, and the trustee says “I’m taking that money back to pay back others.” So much of crypt…

While Tom Brady's endorsement has little economic value, it was money paid to him. I believe a bankruptcy court can undo past transactions, so that cash might be recoverable.

They can’t give Tom Brady his time back.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#604

Post by marssaxman »

breck wrote: post #462

Here is SBF's full statement: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenehrlich/2022/12/13/exclus... Worth a read

The aggressively useless chin mask in the lead photo sends a certain message.

I wonder what he means by saying that "the password to my LinkedIn account still hasn't been returned". Is he claiming that the "Chapter 11 team" has taken over his account and changed his password? Is that... normal?

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#605

Post by dehrmann »

joeblubaugh wrote: post #455

Is there going to be any reckoning for the VCs who poured money into this ridiculous business? I don’t see how you respect Sequoia’s judgement after this.

Other than the reputational hit unless they knew about the embezzlement, what would it be? They probably didn't know what was going on, either. They had their ill-timed puff piece a few months back, and they make money on exits. No way FTX would have made it to the public markets once auditors saw it.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#606

Post by austenallred »

jacquesm wrote: post #548
austenallred wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A16Z didn't invest in FTX

No, but they've been all over crypto: https://a16zcrypto.com/

Yes, but crypto didn’t steal billions of dollars. Individual companies did.

A lot of people are still reasonably very excited about Bitcoin and crypto.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#607

Post by jacquesm »

austenallred wrote: post #606
jacquesm wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but they've been all over crypto: https://a16zcrypto.com/

Yes, but crypto didn’t steal billions of dollars. Individual companies did. A lot of people are still reasonably very excited about Bitcoin and crypto.

A lot of people are un-reasonably excited about Bitcoin and crypto, in large part because VC backed companies are pushing the story that there is money to be made there.

A lot of those people will lose their savings and/or their shirts because they are not made aware of the fact that those companies are on the sell side. You can do your utmost best to try to separate that from 'Bitcoin and crypto' but to your average victim that doesn't really mean much.

I've used crypto, I think I understand the main limitations, have mined a single bitcoin back in the day when this was still possible on a GPU, received donations and made donations using bitcoin, in the end I see it is of limited usefulness, mostly related to when people are unbankable for a variety of reasons, but I do not buy the hype.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#608

Post by HPMOR »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #545
HPMOR wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He should not go to prison for life. Nobody should ever go to prison for life, for wasting money. Money is literally made up. Sure, opportunity cost is real, but seriously nobody should ever lose their life for money.

What happens if they money was someone else's means to pay for their health care? Money is made up - that doesn't mean it doesn't have consequences.

I am of the mindset that non-violent offenders, should not suffer a life penalty regardless of their alleged crime. They played a game and lost, they should not lose their head as well.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#609

Post by HPMOR »

cellis wrote: post #566
HPMOR wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He should not go to prison for life. Nobody should ever go to prison for life, for wasting money. Money is literally made up. Sure, opportunity cost is real, but seriously nobody should ever lose their life for money.

DPR is rotting for life, for contracting a hit on an entirely fictional person and mostly conducting a very upstanding market. I never thought that was fair, but US laws are US laws.

I'm not familiar with what you are referring to, however I would argue that attempted assassination losing custodial funds.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#610

Post by johnnyApplePRNG »

pseingatl wrote: post #127

Can we discus recovery? The Madoff trustee was able to recover something like 90% of the Madoff Ponzi. Alameda and FTX's real estate purchases have value, as do their VC investments, purchases of bank stock, etc. In other words, it's not all gone. My understanding is that even some of the political contributions can be clawed back. FTX's purchases of IOU's (i.e., crypto) that declined in value are not likely to be re…

If this was purposefully orchestrated as the indictment suggests, it's very likely that 100% of every deposit made to FTX could be lost for good. Minus the real estate purchases of course.

Crypto transactions are irreversible.

All of the money that Alameda Research lost (which they borrowed from FTX investors) to bad bets could have easily been won by SBF et al on the other side of the trade... withdrawn to safety and put in a cold wallet for whenever they all see the light of day again.

The majority of the money that Alameda lost to bad bets was propping up shitcoins.

SBF could have created an account on FTX under a pseudonym and taken the short side of all of those shitcoin trades, knowing exactly how much financial support they had and how to break them.

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