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Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

coindesk.com

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Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#41

Post by nkurz »

moralestapia wrote: post #8
nkurz wrote: post #2

I think this article is "directionally correct", but wrong (or at least misleading) about some key details. > Instead, Bankman-Fried’s parents promised to pledge their Palo Alto, California, home as collateral. The Palo Alto home is rumored to be worth $4 million. And that is the full extent of the collateral pledged to guarantee the $250 million bond. No other collateral was posted or promised. The first couple sent…

What a weird argument you're making, >2 non-parent sureties to sign bonds in lesser amounts to be agreed to I'll be extremely generous and interpret that as two bonds worth 3.99...M each or the absolute max. value that is less than the 4M house. Would you extend a 250M credit to someone who offers you 11.8M in illiquid assets? Also, they happen to be the parents of one of the biggest fraudsters in recent years ... Co…

> What a weird argument you're making

What argument do you think I'm making? The argument I'm trying to make is that an article serving as an explainer of a complex legal topic should be factually correct, even if it complicates the desired narrative. Do you disagree with this?

> Would you extend a 250M credit to someone who offers you 11.8M in illiquid assets?

As to the bigger question of whether this bail arrangement is reasonable, I don't think we have enough information yet. $250M is an arbitrary large number, and I don't think a percentage is important. The real question is whether whatever agreement has been made is sufficient to pressure Sam into showing up for the trial. Personally, I'm worried that he may still have control of sufficient funds that he can afford to flee and repay in excess whoever takes the loss. But depending on who the unnamed unrelated party (or parties?) are, and what other assets are available for collection, maybe this worry is unfounded. I think we should call attention to the possible impropriety of the arrangement, apply pressure to find out the missing details, but reserve judgement until we know more.

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#42

Post by jasonhansel »

moralestapia wrote: post #8
nkurz wrote: post #2

I think this article is "directionally correct", but wrong (or at least misleading) about some key details. > Instead, Bankman-Fried’s parents promised to pledge their Palo Alto, California, home as collateral. The Palo Alto home is rumored to be worth $4 million. And that is the full extent of the collateral pledged to guarantee the $250 million bond. No other collateral was posted or promised. The first couple sent…

What a weird argument you're making, >2 non-parent sureties to sign bonds in lesser amounts to be agreed to I'll be extremely generous and interpret that as two bonds worth 3.99...M each or the absolute max. value that is less than the 4M house. Would you extend a 250M credit to someone who offers you 11.8M in illiquid assets? Also, they happen to be the parents of one of the biggest fraudsters in recent years ... Co…

> Would you extend a 250M credit to someone who offers you 11.8M in illiquid assets?

Sounds like something SBF would find reasonable.

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#44

Post by whatshisface »

ethanbond wrote: post #37
BobbyJo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? He did plenty more harm to plenty more people than many others who had to wait in jail for their trial. I think it's perfectly rational to be upset that someone who destroyed billions in wealth is treated more kindly by the justice system than than people who've done far less damage.

Did he destroy billions in wealth? Seems to me that he made chart go up for no reason and everyone was perfectly happy with that, and when chart went down for the same reasons (i.e. fraud/no legitimate reason) then everyone is upset about it. If people are upset about lesser offenses getting handled more aggressively, they should spend some time lobbying for lesser offenses to get handled less aggressively.

He didn't destroy money, he transferred it from whoever trusted him to the people he bought things from or made losing trades with on the market. He destroyed wealth by directing it away from honest business, and that's very hard to quantify the effects of. If I had to guess how he justifies it all in his head, it's that he was taking money away from the financial sector and giving it to the Future Fund.

This is an absolute guess because I don't know, but I think a lot of it was average joe crypto-curious investors having their money stolen and then given to the smart financial firms who were on the winning side of his secret bad bets. There may also have been some pension fund involvement because they seem to be caught up in this stuff on a regular basis. (Because of the way bonuses work, managers can skim off the top by investing in known Ponzi schemes and taking the credit for the 20% returns. They know they're not going to have to pay those bonuses back when they're inevitably "surprised." This happened with Madoff and was a big contributor to his success.)

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#45

Post by loeg »

dragonwriter wrote: post #31
nkurz wrote: post #2

I think this article is "directionally correct", but wrong (or at least misleading) about some key details. > Instead, Bankman-Fried’s parents promised to pledge their Palo Alto, California, home as collateral. The Palo Alto home is rumored to be worth $4 million. And that is the full extent of the collateral pledged to guarantee the $250 million bond. No other collateral was posted or promised. The first couple sent…

> Which is to say, at least according to the published agreement, it is not true that "no other collateral was posted or agreed to". This is wrong, a signed surety bond is not collateral, its a binding commitment to liability. Security/collateral for that liability is a separate thing, abd the only security provided is the house. OTOH, federal law allows fully unsecured , personal bond of the accused if the jidge thi…

Extending a large unsecured personal bond to a fraudster seems pretty useless and I think laypeople can recognize that.

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#46

Post by kodah »

moralestapia wrote: post #8
nkurz wrote: post #2

I think this article is "directionally correct", but wrong (or at least misleading) about some key details. > Instead, Bankman-Fried’s parents promised to pledge their Palo Alto, California, home as collateral. The Palo Alto home is rumored to be worth $4 million. And that is the full extent of the collateral pledged to guarantee the $250 million bond. No other collateral was posted or promised. The first couple sent…

What a weird argument you're making, >2 non-parent sureties to sign bonds in lesser amounts to be agreed to I'll be extremely generous and interpret that as two bonds worth 3.99...M each or the absolute max. value that is less than the 4M house. Would you extend a 250M credit to someone who offers you 11.8M in illiquid assets? Also, they happen to be the parents of one of the biggest fraudsters in recent years ... Co…

The court is not a creditor and your credit worthiness (thankfully for most folks) does not apply in court. The court is taking the promise of property (defined widely) should Sam fail to appear. This system, if the value is high enough, will keep him in the country to face justice.

Phrased another way, we're about to find out if SBF is morally bankrupt enough to take away a huge portion of his parents assets as well.

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#47

Post by loeg »

ethanbond wrote: post #37
BobbyJo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? He did plenty more harm to plenty more people than many others who had to wait in jail for their trial. I think it's perfectly rational to be upset that someone who destroyed billions in wealth is treated more kindly by the justice system than than people who've done far less damage.

Did he destroy billions in wealth? Seems to me that he made chart go up for no reason and everyone was perfectly happy with that, and when chart went down for the same reasons (i.e. fraud/no legitimate reason) then everyone is upset about it. If people are upset about lesser offenses getting handled more aggressively, they should spend some time lobbying for lesser offenses to get handled less aggressively.

Yes, he destroyed (or stole) billions in customer deposits.

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#48

Post by itslennysfault »

georgeecollins wrote: post #6

For anyone who is not aware, in the US you sometimes have to put up bail money to get out of jail because you are a flight risk or there is a danger you will commit further crimes (assuming you are guilty which is at that point unproven). There are services that do this as a bond, called a bail bond. You typically don't put up the full amount, maybe 5-10%. The rest of the risk of you not showing up for your trial is…

It's different from state to state. In IL, for example, (until recently) someone awaiting trail would give the government 10% directly and the state would act as their own bondsman as bondsmen/bounty hunters are illegal. If they were deemed a low flight risk they could also be released on an "i-bond" aka "released on your own recognisance" meaning they're just trusting you to show up to trials.

I said "until recently" because IL became the first state to entirely outlaw cash bail this past election because heavily favors the wealthy and can destroy innocent people's lives while they wait in jail for trial. Now they can only hold someone if they can demonstrate that they are likely to offend again if released.

Re: Bankman-Fried's Shrinking ‘$250M Bond’

#50

Post by fanso99 »

maxbond wrote: post #33
BobbyJo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? He did plenty more harm to plenty more people than many others who had to wait in jail for their trial. I think it's perfectly rational to be upset that someone who destroyed billions in wealth is treated more kindly by the justice system than than people who've done far less damage.

I agree the inequity of the justice system is terrible. I disagree with what I perceive as calls for his head.

You are intentionally exaggerating this situation. People are calling for him to be jailed — a perfectly reasonable call.
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