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Annotated: Sam Bankman-Fried's “FTX Pre-Mortem Overview”

mollywhite.net

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Re: Annotated: Sam Bankman-Fried's “FTX Pre-Mortem Overview”

#101

Post by breck »

rodgerd wrote: post #92
breck wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto is a 24/7 global, resilient payments network. It increases the velocity and transparency of money, which will have a huge impact on global economy. Also, if you think customers losing a $8B to FTX is bad, wait until you read about retail banks in the USA taking $30B a year from their customers: https://breckyunits.com/the-great-bank-robbery.html

> Crypto is a 24/7 global, resilient payments network. Which crypto?

I pay almost all our team with NEAR coin. USA, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Pakistan, India, etc.

No problems.

All of my headaches come from a the very few I can't pay with crypto (Venmo, paypal, etc).

Re: Annotated: Sam Bankman-Fried's “FTX Pre-Mortem Overview”

#102

Post by breck »

naijaboiler wrote: post #78
breck wrote: post #19

> Judge Dorsey ultimately overruled objections to their retention by two individual FTX creditors. I think Molly White defaults to too much credibility in judges and lawyers. SBF's main argument is that Sullivan & Cromwell misled him into going the Chapter 11 route, which he later learned was more motivated by its ability to make hundreds of millions rather than helping his customers. He made a mistake in trusting th…

It might be true that FTX customers would be better off with FTX still running with or without SBF. But that does not negate the fact that lending customer money to Almeda is capital F fraud.

> But that does not negate the fact that lending customer money to Almeda is capital F fraud.

I think you are probably right here. If SBF does not have the ability to make customers whole, then I agree.

Re: Annotated: Sam Bankman-Fried's “FTX Pre-Mortem Overview”

#103

Post by stouset »

notch656c wrote: post #97
jakelazaroff wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, what’s the upside here? The end result of that scenario is that money gets redistributed from poor people to people offering unregistered securities. Why is society better off if we allow this to happen?

Why is society better off when I'm allowed to drop bands on the truck stop stripper instead of buying toys for my kid? The individual should not be forced at all steps to selflessly act in the benefit of society. There are a non-zero number of scenarios where unregistered securities have paid off to investors. Individuals should not be forced at every step to prove their acts benefit collectively society.

Because society has a demonstrated track record of "actively letting people get scammed en masse" resulting in widespread misery and an enormously disproportionate number of resources needing to be committed to enforcement, and the current status quo—while inarguably suboptimal—is clearly an improvement?

The libertarian ideal is akin to assuming that people are frictionless spheres operating in a vacuum instead of recognizing that a significant amount of laws and regulation are written in metaphorical blood, and simply striking them from the books just invites a return to the conditions that necessitated them in the first place.

Re: Annotated: Sam Bankman-Fried's “FTX Pre-Mortem Overview”

#104

Post by tasuki »

SilasX wrote: post #70
wpietri wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed! And I should mention that Molly has a Substack: https://substack.com/profile/6775195-molly-white I pay her money because I am glad to have her pushing back against the tide of cash funding crypto promotion. The other two have Patreons that I also support: https://www.patreon.com/davidgerard/ https://www.patreon.com/amycastor/

Hold on there. If you're getting coverage like this, where someone comes and takes flattering photos of you, that's the kind of thing you get when you or your supports can fund a PR team to wrangle major journalists into covering you. I think she's fine on support. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/29/molly-w... https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/07/11/business/meet-molly-w... https://www.protocol.com/f…

> takes flattering photos of you

You know, some people just look good? From the photos you linked, the second one even has rather unflattering lighting.

Re: Annotated: Sam Bankman-Fried's “FTX Pre-Mortem Overview”

#105

Post by notch656c »

stouset wrote: post #103
notch656c wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is society better off when I'm allowed to drop bands on the truck stop stripper instead of buying toys for my kid? The individual should not be forced at all steps to selflessly act in the benefit of society. There are a non-zero number of scenarios where unregistered securities have paid off to investors. Individuals should not be forced at every step to prove their acts benefit collectively society.

Because society has a demonstrated track record of "actively letting people get scammed en masse" resulting in widespread misery and an enormously disproportionate number of resources needing to be committed to enforcement, and the current status quo—while inarguably suboptimal—is clearly an improvement? The libertarian ideal is akin to assuming that people are frictionless spheres operating in a vacuum instead of re…

What are the conditions that "necessitated" that someone with a $1B value mansion as their primary residence and $999,000 in the bank isn't qualified to invest in these securities while someone with $1,000,001 in the bank is?

Re: Annotated: Sam Bankman-Fried's “FTX Pre-Mortem Overview”

#106

Post by jjeaff »

ur-whale wrote: post #39
wpietri wrote: post #8

I am truly grateful for people like Molly White, David Gerard, and Amy Castor. As the crypto grift circus expanded and expanded, I just got worn out. There was so much to pay attention to as it metastasized. All those writers have been diligently following it for years with a critical eye, and all of them have taken a lot of heat for it. As the wheels come off, it's great to have their detailed insights.

> As the crypto grift circus expanded crypto != FTX

Pedo Catholic Priests != Catholic Church

Re: Annotated: Sam Bankman-Fried's “FTX Pre-Mortem Overview”

#107

Post by wpietri »

detrites wrote: post #65
wpietri wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are a very small number of people who were interested in crypto from the get-go for what I'd consider good, socially positive reasons. To the extent that those people didn't cash in and are mad about how it turned out, I respect their pain. It's always hard to watch the beautiful dream get corrupted. It would have been a very interesting alternate timeline if those few pure souls were left to innovate q…

Maybe because the fruits of those few well-intentioned founders labours aren't blasted on the news 24/7 like SBF was, doesn't mean they don't exist? I've seen people in parts of South America where the banking system can be completely unusable, using their phone to send and receive crypto payments cheaply and reliably, enabling them to safely transact with family. I've heard of this also happening in Africa. Others,…

One, I never said a good side didn't exist. In fact, I was careful to not say that. So easy on the straw men.

Two, I have been hearing vague, anecdotal claims like this for years. It reminds me of how back in the day I would get vague, anecdotal claims for why open mail relays were useful to people. But if you want to claim a meaningful fraction of crypto activity is valuable in ways for which there are no equivalent, you'll have to provide data.

Three, I'm very skeptical that there aren't other good non-crypto ways to solve the nominal problems. Good or better, really. As an example, take M-Pesa. [1] It started around the same time as Bitcoin, but has done vastly more to bank the unbanked in Africa. If you'd like to demonstrate actual superiority for significant use cases, I'm all ears. But I'm coming up on a decade of dealing with vague, handwavey replies about how crypto is akshually good, so I'm really going to insist on specifics here.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa

Re: Annotated: Sam Bankman-Fried's “FTX Pre-Mortem Overview”

#108

Post by wpietri »

SilasX wrote: post #70
wpietri wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed! And I should mention that Molly has a Substack: https://substack.com/profile/6775195-molly-white I pay her money because I am glad to have her pushing back against the tide of cash funding crypto promotion. The other two have Patreons that I also support: https://www.patreon.com/davidgerard/ https://www.patreon.com/amycastor/

Hold on there. If you're getting coverage like this, where someone comes and takes flattering photos of you, that's the kind of thing you get when you or your supports can fund a PR team to wrangle major journalists into covering you. I think she's fine on support. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/29/molly-w... https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/07/11/business/meet-molly-w... https://www.protocol.com/f…

Excellent FUD. No actual claims, just casting vague aspersions based on nothing but some absolutely generic photos that are typical of what a newspaper photographer will produce.

As long as we're making unsupported allegations, can you prove that you aren't funded by the crypto industry or otherwise benefiting financially from crypto? Because it seems suspicious that you're going to go out of your way to produce high-quality FUD for free.

Re: Annotated: Sam Bankman-Fried's “FTX Pre-Mortem Overview”

#109

Post by wpietri »

notch656c wrote: post #105
stouset wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because society has a demonstrated track record of "actively letting people get scammed en masse" resulting in widespread misery and an enormously disproportionate number of resources needing to be committed to enforcement, and the current status quo—while inarguably suboptimal—is clearly an improvement? The libertarian ideal is akin to assuming that people are frictionless spheres operating in a vacuum instead of re…

What are the conditions that "necessitated" that someone with a $1B value mansion as their primary residence and $999,000 in the bank isn't qualified to invest in these securities while someone with $1,000,001 in the bank is?

Picking nits like this not only fails to advance the discussion, but in my opinion makes it worse.

You can do the same thing with literally any rule. Why does one have to be 18 to buy cigarettes, an addictive product that will kill you if you use it long enough? Does something magically happen at age 17.9999 plus epsilon? Of course not.

Regulations often draw arbitrary lines because that's a relatively easy way to improve a situation without getting bogged down in some sort of much more complicated test. E.g., we could mandate each person who wanted to buy cigarettes undergo a deep psychological evaluation looking at their personal history and testing their ability to make truly adult decisions. But that would immediately be seen as unduly burdensome (and nitpicked exactly as you're doing now).

And in any case, you have missed or are ignoring that one can now pass a test to become an accredited investor, no capital requirements at all. So in addition to being tiresome, your point is also out of date.

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