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Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

nytimes.com

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Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#701

Post by danpalmer »

berniedurfee wrote: post #670

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?

> Holmes got 9 years, but her actions had severe real world effects on people. Is that the ceiling for SBF?

I feel like for the most part Holmes had theoretical effects on people – tests that were fraudulent, but where an equivalent standard test was done at the same time, and so most likely everything was caught. I think the time she got made sense for the level of fraud, but thankfully I don't think her actions ended up being actively harmful to individuals (other than her employees) in almost all cases.

SBF on the other hand has conducted a significantly larger fraud in monetary terms, and caused many individuals to lose significant amounts of money. In a way I'd say these are bigger real-world effects. I think it's possible to conclude that he had a substantially bigger negative impact on the world than Holmes did, and therefore feels reasonable that his sentence will reflect that.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#702

Post by TacticalCoder »

grumblingdev wrote: post #329

What was the exact moment the fraud began? What should he have done instead?

> What was the exact moment the fraud began?

Very early on. Probably from the very start.

When Alameda, before FTX existed, gave investors leaflets saying Alameda had guaranteed 20% returns and it could sustain 20% profits on as many billions as they would get. This was a lie and criminally defrauding investors already.

SBF never did the Kimchi trade (i.e. arbitraging the US/Asia Bitcoin price differences) at scale (it's not even clear if he even managed to do it at all: he claims he did, but he's a pathological liar who kept lying in court).

So Alameda was already a scam. Then FTX was a bigger scam, to keep the Alameda scam going.

But the Alameda scam came first.

> What should he have done instead?

He should have kept playing LoL only.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#703

Post by jeremyjh »

paganel wrote: post #584
hintymad wrote: post #243

I was reading the trial report by Inner City Press. The AUSAs were incredibly thorough and strategic. The evidences were air-tight, the cross-examination was masterfully controlled with precision and incisiveness, and of course the closing argument was forceful. It was a great joy to read the report, as if I was watching an extended episode of The Good Fight. On the other hand, the defense was really weak, quite hand…

> on political donation, Fact is, this could have helped him and his company, eventually. Another two or three years of very sympathetic (bought) politicians on his side and his business could have become legit as a result of those politicians forcing the liquidation/closure of almost all SBF's competitors (certainly Binance would have become bust), and the US "standing behind" FTX as a beloved crypto assed in the fi…

It isn't a legal defense for the charges he's facing. He can't take money out of a customer's brokerage account and spend it on anything, and there is no political donation that could make that legal.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#705

Post by eddtries »

atoav wrote: post #566
_adzo wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worked in crypto and I got that vibe so left. Regret it. For every SBF there are hundreds who get away with it. Tons of talentless crypto millionaires still roaming free. Look at the Axie Infinite guys plundering a whole country. Token could collapse, but there’ll be no justice and they’re sitting on at least 8 figures individually

So you regret not being successful at fraud. Would you put this into an application letter at your next job?

Perhaps don’t put reading comprehension on yours?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#707

Post by suoduandao3 »

vishnugupta wrote: post #600
hintymad wrote: post #243

I was reading the trial report by Inner City Press. The AUSAs were incredibly thorough and strategic. The evidences were air-tight, the cross-examination was masterfully controlled with precision and incisiveness, and of course the closing argument was forceful. It was a great joy to read the report, as if I was watching an extended episode of The Good Fight. On the other hand, the defense was really weak, quite hand…

To be fair SBF convicted himself on a platter. Only he knows what made him think he'd get away by facing trial. Maybe he was just dumb, overconfident, ill-advised, or a combination of everything.

My money's on a bad case of grandiosity, he's clearly got an unusual appetite for risk.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#708

Post by HenryBemis »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #688
berniedurfee wrote: post #670

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?

In a way, who cares? People who had funds there should get about 0.5:1 back (which isn't too bad) and, hopefully, investors are now going to do at least five minutes of due diligence before investing in such people (five minutes of googling / searching on Twitter was all that was needed to see SBF was a ponzi scammer: the info was all out there but nobody wanted to listen. Maybe now they will). I don't care if he doe…

Well, we kinda all care. It's not that I bought an ice-cream and it was sour and I threw it away. You have to consider the absolute numbers, not just the percentages (50% as you write 0.5:1). I have $100 on Binance. If I lose it, I don't really care. Someone who put their life's savings though has a much bigger problem.

Then there are a BUNCH of lessons to learn here. You kinda touch on a couple: "kid genius", "altruism guru", "bahamas" and so on. So how can we all learn from this? 1) there is no fast money?, 2) turtle wins the race?, 3) regulations are there for a good reason (in most cases)? 4) when you see athletes promote financial products run away?, and many many more..

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#709

Post by MrsPeaches »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #666

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...

“if you’d like to gain greater insight about “valuable boxes” with no economic use case that go “to infinity” because of “the bullishness of people’s usage of the box”, don’t forget to sign up for the FT’s Crypto and Digital Assets Summit beginning Tuesday.”

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#710

Post by scott_w »

hintymad wrote: post #243

I was reading the trial report by Inner City Press. The AUSAs were incredibly thorough and strategic. The evidences were air-tight, the cross-examination was masterfully controlled with precision and incisiveness, and of course the closing argument was forceful. It was a great joy to read the report, as if I was watching an extended episode of The Good Fight. On the other hand, the defense was really weak, quite hand…

> On the other hand, the defense was really weak, quite hand-wavy, and resorted to arguing about not-so-irrelevant specifics like how hard SBF worked.

To be fair to SBF's lawyers, you're going to have a hard time coming up with a good defence when your defendant is bang to rights.

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