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Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang are cooperating in the criminal case against SBF

nytimes.com

271–280 of 338 posts

Re: Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang are cooperating in the criminal case against SBF

#271

Curious to see if they also strike a deal with Nishad Singh. He was the director of engineering at FTX that supposedly authored the code that exempted Alameda from liquidation.

How many deals do they need? I'm afraid of prosecutors cutting too many deals, being too lenient on the guilty, just to make their jobs easier - making practically certain cases 1% more certain in exchange for not punishing appropriately. I think it's good to get one or two insiders - Ellison and Wang seem ideal. Why does the state need more?

I think that's hugely dependent on whether you believe the cost function for prison is linear? I would expect most people to say no. The difference between 0 and 10 years is much greater than 10 and 20 years.

If that is the case, then putting 10 people away for 10 years due to greater certainty of conviction, but also more lenient sentences, has greater social utility (as a detterrent) than only putting one person behind bars for 100 years, with 9 others getting off scot-free.

Re: Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang are cooperating in the criminal case against SBF

#272

It's hard for me to fathom being so privileged and then essentially throwing away your life. I have no idea what they were thinking.

People are a lot like ChatGPT, in that they fill in their next action based on what is most likely according to their training given what actions came before it.

I agree. I have never held to anything special about the way I or my brain function. I appear to be pattern-matching my way through the day 99% of the time — and forgetting 99% of it as well, only noting the perceived anomalies.

Re: Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang are cooperating in the criminal case against SBF

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol... I'm not making excuses. If you read my post history, you'll note I've been a constant critic of crypto and the accompanying scams. i'm just pointing out that the people who commit some of the worst crimes often convince themselves they are doing great good. Most of us believe that we would never do bad things. However, most of us are quite capable of it because we justify our actions to ourselves, and it's ver…

100% this. the most dangerous situation is when people convince themselves that their goal is objectively good and thus adopt a Machiavellian attitude that the ends justify the means. i imagine the thought process goes something like "it doesn't matter how we obtain all these money, as long as we ultimately use the money to do good. the good outweighs the bad, and as long as we get away with it, people will eventuall…

Until you see them buying massive mansions and hiding their money away and even that is a lie too. If you could show me one truly charitable thing they've actually done, rather than ego reinforcing projections, I'm listening.

Sure, they're justifying their means, but none of it has any actual good intentions.

Re: Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang are cooperating in the criminal case against SBF

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that FTX is the extent of the DOJ and SEC investigations. SBF is going to be offered a deal - "Spend the rest of your life in prison or give us CZ/Binance and all the other big players and be out in 10". Remember, in addition to their chat group labeled "Wirefraud" they also had another one called "Exchange coordination" that the heads of other exchanges participated in. In addition to SBF, CZ (Binanc…

Not saying that nefarious things weren't happening, but keeping lines of communication open between exchanges is reasonable and is not per se evidence of wrongdoing. For example, if someone steals a bunch of coins from exchange A then you would want exchanges B and C to be able to made aware of that ASAP so that they can stop the movement of those coins.

Or if there's a network split or issue, you ideally want exchanges to take similar actions.

Re: Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang are cooperating in the criminal case against SBF

#275

There is a good chance SBF will be released on bail so he does not have to spend time in detention in NYC. The charges against him are all nonviolent crimes. The question I have is if the judge releases him from custody, "Will SBF do more interviews?" Lots of people are speculating on sentencing, some are comparing SBF to Holmes, but IMHO it's likely in this case he is going to plead guilty. Whatever comes out in a c…

Very well put.

Re: Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang are cooperating in the criminal case against SBF

#276

Any ideas why these prosecutions are moving forward so fast? Usually this stuff takes forever as evidence is carefully gathered. Curious if anyone has any insights here.

A couple weeks ago you had people here asking why they were moving forward so slowly.

Re: Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang are cooperating in the criminal case against SBF

#277

Having scanned the documents, I can imagine a dynamic where Ellison was the CEO, but SBF was really pulling the strings. I bet many companies are like that, where investors or a chairman are the real decision maker and the CEO is managing downwards only. Especially when you have a complex corporate setup where you are told to request funds and resources from a parent org etc. If I am in a C-level position again I wou…

> If I am in a C-level position again I would definetly avoid a situation where I was C-level in name only if only to avoid the legal risk. How much are they paying, exactly?

Barely fits in an int32.

Re: Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang are cooperating in the criminal case against SBF

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>decades in prison Something tells me they'll be okay. Just look at Liz Holmes of Theranos.

She got 11 years of which she'll have to serve at least around 9 because it's federal, and that was for something that probably wasn't fraudulent from the very beginning. So, seems like they... won't be okay.

She's going to a prison that more resembles a country club (it has no fences or walls) There is no way she'll serve 9 years. She's appealing and the feds are extremely forgiving if you have great lawyers when it comes to white collar crime.

Re: Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang are cooperating in the criminal case against SBF

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means they won't do this. https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-business-34deb7d885d... > Prosecutors urged a judge Wednesday to impose a “very substantial” prison sentence on Michael Avenatti for trying to extort millions of dollars from Nike. > Prosecutors noted in a Manhattan federal court submission that Probation Office officials recommend an eight-year prison term for the California attorney who gained fam…

Based on what is now known about how Trump wielded the IRS it may be worth looking into the motivation of these prosecutors.

No. Avenatti they caught dead to rights doing all sorts of shitty things. His being anti-Trump didn’t make him a good person.

Re: Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang are cooperating in the criminal case against SBF

#280
post #226

They all could have just been basic rich people pulling $600k[0] a year at Jane Street, but they just couldn’t get enough. [0]This number is completely made up and betrays my total lack of knowledge about what finance people make.

As far as I understand they were making pretty good bank with Alameda doing crypto arbitrage. Could probably have been set for life just doing that.

Human psychology is funny. Not content with being stinking rich in their 20's, they embarked on a massive fraud to get even richer.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, I'm not sure they set out to commit fraud, just make money off suckers, but when the temptation presented itself they couldn't resist it seems.

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