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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”

#131

Post by detrites »

wpietri wrote: post #124
detrites wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were two links provided in my post, one with it's own decent links and another from investing.com regarding action by the Bank for International Settlements (the Bank of Banks) - so I'm not sure what you're on about?

Ok. You say you don't understand. I am happy to take you at your word, and don't see and benefit in going further. Thanks for participating.

Ah, reading back, I think you misinterpreted my use of the word "random". It was intended to highlight how easy it was for me to locate a high quality article on the topic that even I hadn't previously seen before.

As such, while it was found randomly - I still read/assess its content for you as being well-referenced, as one would expect in the good spirit of conversation. But no big loss, if it turns out you won't engage in good spirit.

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

#132

Post by SilverBirch »

jasonhansel wrote: post #7

SBF also wrote a later post about FTX US's balance sheet: https://sambf.substack.com/p/ftx-us-balance-update-2023-01-1... Is that post at all accurate or is it even more lies?

One of the reasons that people keep on saying "this kid is insane for continuing to talk" is because they're rightly worried that he would admit to something that he'll go to prison for. In that post, he essentially does so.

What the new CEO did in bankruptcy is he wrapped up the business into 4 silos, one of which (WRS) contains FTX US, LedgerX, FTX NFTs and a load of other stuff. Now what Sam is doing is saying "Hey look! WRS does have enough cash to pay back the FTX US customers!", but if you count all the money that WRS has, what you're saying is that FTX US's customers weren't held as deposits, it's just that the total assets of the company exceeed customer deposits. Which means he's basically saying "Yes, I did do the illegal comingling of your deposits, but in total the company has enough cash to pay you back if, for the purposes of accounting, we split out an arbitrary part of the company and ignore the shortfall in the rest of the company".

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

#133

Post by Terretta »

detrites wrote: post #46
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.

There needs to be a differentiation between good and bad actors in this drama as opposed to the lazy and inaccurate idea of "the crypto grift". These recent billion-dollar grifts plaguing crypto have primarily been enabled by actors working steadfastly against all of crypto's core principles: decentralisation, secure your own money, no middle-man. These players are employing all of the same tactics enabled by the tra…

> lazy and inaccurate idea of 'the crypto grift'

'Lazy' ideas are also called heuristics, and work.

Do you have any "more than half" sets or classes of examples of not-grift other than a couple of the original company-less chains? I don't mean any given example, I mean where a class of things are all safe, all not-grift.

Bitcoin is possibly not-grift. ETH, possibly not-grift.

Arguably, by-and-large every company-sponsored chain, every token, every NFT, every custodial wallet company, every lender, BnL every everything else, is grift.

When it's that by-and-large universally the case, it's neither lazy nor inaccurate for normals to be taught a simplifying and clarifyingly protective thought: "it's all grift" or "everything since BTC and ETH is grift". Their choices would be much more sound.

It's all grift is how it should be held, so any new project starts facing skepticism rather than hype. The sooner we accept that, the sounder the future of distributed ledger and blockchain based tech.

// I have and use BTC and ETH. I use DLT for work.

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

#134

Post by baobabKoodaa »

wpietri wrote: post #120
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like seeing Molly White and David Gerard in the same sentence. Molly White is a legit journalist with the mind of a scientist who cares about truth. David Gerard is a crank who will take any story and spin it to support his "crypto bad" narrative. They both like making fun of crypto, but that's about where the similarities end.

That's quite a take in that White doesn't talk about herself as a journalist but a programmer who does some writing, whereas Gerard has been writing articles and books about this since 2016 and sees himself as a journalist. As do I, for what it's worth. Anyhow, as somebody who has reading them for years, I think they both have equally negative takes about crypto, although Gerard is certainly more salty about it. I th…

I'm not interested in getting into an identity politics argument about who identifies as a journalist, who identifies as a woman, or who identifies as an attack helicopter. If David Gerard wants to be called a "journalist", that's fine, he's a journalist. But he's also a crank who will spin any story to support his narrative. Even if tomorrow Bitcoin would somehow magically end world hunger, Gerard would find a way to make the argument that it's actually bad for humanity because hunger makes you strive for better things, or whatever.

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

#135

Post by wpietri »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #134
wpietri wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite a take in that White doesn't talk about herself as a journalist but a programmer who does some writing, whereas Gerard has been writing articles and books about this since 2016 and sees himself as a journalist. As do I, for what it's worth. Anyhow, as somebody who has reading them for years, I think they both have equally negative takes about crypto, although Gerard is certainly more salty about it. I th…

I'm not interested in getting into an identity politics argument about who identifies as a journalist, who identifies as a woman, or who identifies as an attack helicopter. If David Gerard wants to be called a "journalist", that's fine, he's a journalist. But he's also a crank who will spin any story to support his narrative. Even if tomorrow Bitcoin would somehow magically end world hunger, Gerard would find a way t…

Oh? In that case, it should be very easy for you to go back into his archives and find some things where his supposedly egregious anti-crypto bias led him to say things that have been proven false.

I think you'll have a hard time doing that, because what you see as bias looks to me like him correctly spotting the BS early on.

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

#136

Post by baobabKoodaa »

wpietri wrote: post #135
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not interested in getting into an identity politics argument about who identifies as a journalist, who identifies as a woman, or who identifies as an attack helicopter. If David Gerard wants to be called a "journalist", that's fine, he's a journalist. But he's also a crank who will spin any story to support his narrative. Even if tomorrow Bitcoin would somehow magically end world hunger, Gerard would find a way t…

Oh? In that case, it should be very easy for you to go back into his archives and find some things where his supposedly egregious anti-crypto bias led him to say things that have been proven false. I think you'll have a hard time doing that, because what you see as bias looks to me like him correctly spotting the BS early on.

Sure! Here's David Gerard from 2 months ago, speculating what will happen with SBF:

> SBF will be able to disappear with total facial reshaping also total arm and leg reshaping and total concrete shoe reshaping

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/yubrvg/sucker_voi...

It's been 2 months and SBF still hasn't done total facial reshaping, neither has he done total arm reshaping, nor has he done total leg reshaping. And also he hasn't died ("concrete shoe reshaping").

This dude's a crank.

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

#137

Post by wpietri »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #136
wpietri wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh? In that case, it should be very easy for you to go back into his archives and find some things where his supposedly egregious anti-crypto bias led him to say things that have been proven false. I think you'll have a hard time doing that, because what you see as bias looks to me like him correctly spotting the BS early on.

Sure! Here's David Gerard from 2 months ago, speculating what will happen with SBF: > SBF will be able to disappear with total facial reshaping also total arm and leg reshaping and total concrete shoe reshaping Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/yubrvg/sucker_voi... It's been 2 months and SBF still hasn't done total facial reshaping, neither has he done total arm reshaping, nor has he done total leg r…

If the best you can do is point to a joke Reddit comment that you apparently haven't fully understood as a joke, then I think we're done here.

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

#138

Post by baobabKoodaa »

wpietri wrote: post #137
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! Here's David Gerard from 2 months ago, speculating what will happen with SBF: > SBF will be able to disappear with total facial reshaping also total arm and leg reshaping and total concrete shoe reshaping Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/yubrvg/sucker_voi... It's been 2 months and SBF still hasn't done total facial reshaping, neither has he done total arm reshaping, nor has he done total leg r…

If the best you can do is point to a joke Reddit comment that you apparently haven't fully understood as a joke, then I think we're done here.

Here's what you asked:

> find some things where his supposedly egregious anti-crypto bias led him to say things that have been proven false.

I showed you an example where his egregious anti-crypto bias led him to say some things that have been proven false. And your response is "it was just a prank bro", and "I think we're done here"? Yeah, doesn't look like you care about evidence that challenges your beliefs. You have that in common with mr Gerard.

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

#139

Post by wpietri »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #138
wpietri wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the best you can do is point to a joke Reddit comment that you apparently haven't fully understood as a joke, then I think we're done here.

Here's what you asked: > find some things where his supposedly egregious anti-crypto bias led him to say things that have been proven false. I showed you an example where his egregious anti-crypto bias led him to say some things that have been proven false. And your response is "it was just a prank bro", and "I think we're done here"? Yeah, doesn't look like you care about evidence that challenges your beliefs. You h…

I think you are smart enough to have figured this out, but let me spell it out for you explicitly just in case.

You are claiming that he is failing as a journalist because of an anti-crypto bias. I am looking for proof of that. So what I'm talking about is statements made in a journalistic context where he has gotten something important about the crypto world provably wrong because of his supposed bias.

Your best evidence is not, say, taking a citation from his book, or even his blog, and then showing with actual facts that he made an error, and then demonstrating how his anti-crypto bias led him to a conclusion that was not only proven wrong, but that he at the time should have clearly known was wrong about something important to the topic. It's taking a random reddit comment that you apparently can't recognize as a joke and say it hasn't happened yet.

To me this makes you look entirely unserious. I can't even tell that you know what journalism is from your behavior here. So yeah, talking with you further looks like a waste of my time. As crypto proponents have generally been for me since 2015, honestly. So yeah, if you want to think bad things about me, go wild, plenty of crypto adherents do.

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

#140

Post by baobabKoodaa »

wpietri wrote: post #139
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what you asked: > find some things where his supposedly egregious anti-crypto bias led him to say things that have been proven false. I showed you an example where his egregious anti-crypto bias led him to say some things that have been proven false. And your response is "it was just a prank bro", and "I think we're done here"? Yeah, doesn't look like you care about evidence that challenges your beliefs. You h…

I think you are smart enough to have figured this out, but let me spell it out for you explicitly just in case. You are claiming that he is failing as a journalist because of an anti-crypto bias. I am looking for proof of that. So what I'm talking about is statements made in a journalistic context where he has gotten something important about the crypto world provably wrong because of his supposed bias. Your best evi…

> You are claiming that he is failing as a journalist because of an anti-crypto bias. I am looking for proof of that. So what I'm talking about is statements made in a journalistic context where he has gotten something important about the crypto world provably wrong because of his supposed bias.

Ok, here's better evidence for you: in 2016 David Gerard was actively defacing crypto-related Wikipedia articles without any kind of understanding or knowledge about the subject matter. He has since learned a great deal about the subject matter, but my point is that he is a crank and a vandal, not a respectable journalist.

For example, this is what David Gerard said about Ethereum's codebase, in the context of heavily editing the Ethereum wikipedia page: "I believe Ethereum's codebase is based on the Bitcoin codebase (though I don't have a cite), so it's a fork of that (as most altcoins are)." (source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4b76i4/who_is_dav...)

The claim that Ethereum is a fork of Bitcoin is false and anyone who googles the subject matter for more than 20 seconds would learn that. Somehow, a major editor of the Ethereum Wikipedia article didn't care to do that.

Here's one of many instances where David Gerard vandalizes the Ethereum Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethereum&type=rev...

Notice how the addition of the phrase "like any other cryptocurrency" serves no other purpose except to talk down / make fun of Ethereum, and the removal of the phrase "smart contracts" serves no purpose other than to vandalize the article (removing descriptions of the distinguishing features of Ethereum).

> So yeah, talking with you further looks like a waste of my time. As crypto proponents have generally been for me since 2015, honestly. So yeah, if you want to think bad things about me, go wild, plenty of crypto adherents do.

I'm not a crypto proponent. I already told you how much I respect Molly White's work, and despite that you think I must be a crypto proponent? Just because I expressed criticism of another person in the anti-crypto camp? I hope you don't view all of life with such a tribalist attitude.

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