671–680 of 1001 posts
The SBF "magic box" interview with Matt Levine where he casually describes yield farming as nothing more than a Ponzi scheme never gets old. https://www.ft.com/content/eac0e56c-f30b-4591-b603-f971e60dc...
Anyone know where to get good details? Specifically: do they know where the money went? If not, how did they prove intent (I assume they proved intent)? Edit: another thing I'm wondering is about jurisdiction, since most of this occurred offshore and didn't involve US customers.
This is complicated, but often it's possible to try someone in a single country, especially if it's their home country. In CSAM cases this often happens, the facts might happen in Asia, but someone is tried in their home country. I know the law in my country has provisions specifically for this and murder cases among others.
Anyone know where to get good details? Specifically: do they know where the money went? If not, how did they prove intent (I assume they proved intent)? Edit: another thing I'm wondering is about jurisdiction, since most of this occurred offshore and didn't involve US customers.
If you want a good summary of each day of trial: https://www.theverge.com/authors/elizabeth-lopatto and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHD5JP6xZcE&list=PLySrw1Nvf-... If you want a really detailed overview of his testimony and cross-examination: https://www.youtube.com/@molly0xfff/streams > do they know where the money went Not all of it (at least, not for the trial). They showed significant components of it as part…
https://www.youtube.com/@overpricedjpegs
Extremely informative and fun to watch (if you can get past the "sponsor breaks" for NFT platforms and the like).
So what’s the final outcome? A long prison sentence or a few years hanging out on appeal followed by a few years in a low security federal penitentiary and a long career doing speaking engagements and appearances? Holmes got 9 years, but her actions had severe real world effects on people. Is that the ceiling for SBF?
But considering that he was found guilty on all accounts and after the mess he was making during the trial, his sentence will most likely be no good news for him.
He is also kind of being made an example of to encourage more due diligence in the industry. Being bad at business is one thing, but handling billions without basic risk management is basically gambling with customer funds.
So what’s the final outcome? A long prison sentence or a few years hanging out on appeal followed by a few years in a low security federal penitentiary and a long career doing speaking engagements and appearances? Holmes got 9 years, but her actions had severe real world effects on people. Is that the ceiling for SBF?
My guess is that he’ll get something closer to Bernie Madoff’s sentence than Elizabeth Holmes. She at least was pregnant at the time of sentencing and her defense was seemingly successful in painting her business partner as the puppeteer.
So what’s the final outcome? A long prison sentence or a few years hanging out on appeal followed by a few years in a low security federal penitentiary and a long career doing speaking engagements and appearances? Holmes got 9 years, but her actions had severe real world effects on people. Is that the ceiling for SBF?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't have to pick an exact moment, but there are several clear moments of fraud. The biggest moment of fraud was whenever alameda's FTX account was allowed to have a riskier position than a normal account, including holding a negative balance. This is something FTX specifically allowed and publicly lied about (SBF on twitter said they were treated as a regular account, which we now know is false). This fraud bec…
Hold your horses! What startups are lying about what they do? I don’t get the impression this is the case at all. MVP and move fast tactics are not fraud. Saying your SOC2 compliant or something when you are not probably is.
I liked the article detailing how poorly he did on the stand: https://www.thefp.com/p/humiliating-cross-examination-sam-ba... “Did you say in private, ‘Fuck regulators?’ ” “Did you call some customers ‘dumb motherfuckers?’ ” “Did you fly to the Super Bowl in a private plane?” “Most FTX customers did not have a line of credit, correct?” “Do you deny that Alameda had a $65 billion line of credit?” And on, and on, and o…
> You’d think this MIT graduate would wise up, but he never did. I think there were potentially two problems. First, for the previous 10 years, lying and taking massive risks actually did work for him: Even if some people became disillusioned and stopped buying what he was selling, he could just walk away from them and start working with people who would. Secondly -- well, what else could he have done? It's a bit lik…