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

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81–90 of 157 posts

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

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> on house arrest, wearing an ankle monitor, and if he flees his parents will never recover financially. What's the problem? That it’s not a jail. Jails are tougher to get out of than ankle bracelets. His parents are going to spend the rest of their lives fighting civil lawsuits, if not criminal cases of their own. Losing their home is a matter of time. It is difficult to even say to what degree their plight matters…

What do you believe their motivation is for contributing towards his bail based on the consequences they're facing? It seems somewhat strange they didn't say, "nah, lock him up until trial" considering the sword of Damocles above their estate and past performance of the accused.

> What do you believe their motivation is for contributing towards his bail based on the consequences they're facing?

The love of a parent for their son. That's a benefit of doubt I'd need to see extraordinary evidence of sociopathy to discard.

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

#82
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> believe he's guilty beyond a shadow of doubt, it shouldn't disturb you that he's on house arrest instead of in prison I don’t believe in his guilt beyond even reasonable suspicion. I do think he is a flight risk. He is delusional enough to attempt it, and may have the hidden means by which to make it.

Okay. So he's on house arrest, wearing an ankle monitor, and if he flees his parents will never recover financially. What's the problem?

Some people may see it as unjust that SBF gets to chill in a $4mm Palo Alto house while some of his depositors may not have houses as a result of having their funds stolen by SBF.

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

#83
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This has nothing to do with the chart. FTX terms of service promised that if customers had a simple account, without signing up for higher-risk stuff, then FTX would hold their full assets at all times without putting them at risk. Then SBF allegedly moved those assets over to Alameda for risky trades, and also pulled some out to buy fancy houses.

It's still early to tell but as far as I can see, there's deposits missing, and even insofar as those are missing, they have been stolen and not destroyed.

The "billions destroyed" seems more likely to refer to the general "destruction" of nominal wealth which, I posit, wasn't real to begin with.

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

#84
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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.

If he has hundreds of millions hidden away, he could easily ensure that his parents get some of it later to compensate them.

That said, I don't think he will run. His parents are both Stanford law professors and he has an insane number of connectionsand people that owe him favors. I think he will go to court and put up a very strong defense and end up with around ten years in jail at the end of it all.

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

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably their careers are now both collectively and irreversibly ruined. Like the Nobel prize winner that invented some major form of fertilizer that turned out to be a nazi

Assuming you are talking about Haber, you couldn't be more wrong. He was actually a German Jew (convert to Lutheranism) who was forced out of his position when then Nazis came to power than died en route to Mandatory Palestine in 1934. He discovered the Haber process around 1911, which was well before WWII and it was intended for fertilizer only. Eventually people realized that mass ammonia production was very helpfu…

Mandatory Palestine is a new term that has been invented post world war 2. Back then, it was simply a country called Palestine, as can be seen from passports issued in that era.

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

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stole like 10 billion dollars from his customers. Not sure how much of it he managed to subsequently destroy vs. successfully convey to other people, but does that matter?

Well one way in which it matters is that destroyed wealth is irrecoverable. It no longer exists. Stolen wealth might still exist somewhere and might be recoverable.

Also is it $10B in stolen deposits?! I seem to be coming across a $1-2B figure but admittedly haven't been following super closely.

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

#87
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a constitutional right to it. He's presumed innocent in the eyes of the law.

Agreed, I'd like to see SBF prosecuted as much as anyone else, but I want it to be a legal trial. His statements should be accepted in the most generous possible light, and the case against him should be ironclad enough to hold. (Otherwise there isn't much point to the justice system existing at large).

There isn't much point to the justice system if a rich dude can give them an iou for bond. Do you think if a poor person got 2500 bond they could give the court 4$ and and a im good for the rest of it?

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

#88
post #30
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and we can use a bond to ensure he'll appear That is really the crux of the matter, and where people are (reasonably) disagreeing with you. Does a $4M bond (from his parents' assets, not his) and a $246M IOU really ensure SBF will show up in court rather than fleeing?

What's the reasoning why it wouldn't, and why are we forgetting that he's also wearing an ankle monitor?

There are a lot of people building their understanding of this situation out of breathless headlines and misleading tweets. And I think there's an element of something like, "if he escapes, that means he really was a genius all along, and now I feel a little less bad for losing my money/believing in him".

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

#89
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with the chart. FTX terms of service promised that if customers had a simple account, without signing up for higher-risk stuff, then FTX would hold their full assets at all times without putting them at risk. Then SBF allegedly moved those assets over to Alameda for risky trades, and also pulled some out to buy fancy houses.

It's still early to tell but as far as I can see, there's deposits missing, and even insofar as those are missing, they have been stolen and not destroyed. The "billions destroyed" seems more likely to refer to the general "destruction" of nominal wealth which, I posit, wasn't real to begin with.

Where are you getting this $2B figure? The claimed "liquidity shortfall" was $8-10B and most of the assets (MAPS, SRM, OXY, FTT) are worthless. I would expect people in the FTX creditors telegram group for example to post about it if there was news that caused the expected value of our claims to increase from 10-30c to 80c.

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

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Right, so he stole $x and "destroyed" $y. My position is that the theft is real and the destruction is not.
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