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Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

wsj.com

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Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#341

Post by knorker »

cdchn wrote: post #332
blobbers wrote: post #237

SBF decided to testify against CZ to try to save his own ass, giving justice dept and sec something to fine CZ with. Govt collects a big crypto fine, fine makes the big losers in FTX whole, problem solved. CZ should have just bought FTX and closed the deal and made people whole, woulda saved himself some drama.

CZ is the one who pretty much orchestrated the FTX collapse. Chickens, home to roost, etc.

I've seen analyses showing even without CZ it was just a matter of time before the house of cards collapsed.

"It's only when the tide goes out that you see who's swimming naked". The tide was going out even without CZ's actions. And FTX was swimming naked to the bone.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#342

Post by SilasX »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #258
roland35 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yup Tether is the biggest fake money printing machine that keeps BTC afloat

I think so too however it looks like they may have printed their (counterfeited) way into solvency. Basically: buy cheap BTCs, print shitload of tethers, sell BTCs for real USD to the tune of tens of billions and now store these real USD in short term US treasuries (they don't own chinese treasuries anymore) bringing in 5% and more. They're claiming they now have excess money (!) to back their tether due to the fact…

Tether absolutely had the chance to become solvent in the weekend of the SVB collapse. In that time, everyone was rushing out of USDC and DAI into Tether (USDT). Liquidity pools were drained of all their USDT and smartcontracts showed all available units being borrowed at 100+% APR. Tether was trading for $1.01-$1.10 that entire weekend, with demand insatiable. They could have repeatedly issued new Tethers and sold them for more than a dollar[1], while only incurring a dollar of liabilities.

Coinmarket cap shows the USDT market cap going up by about $2 billion during that weekend, but it's not clear if they were using this strategy. (which would have profited ~1-10% of that figure).

[1] or, depending on how much risk they wanted to take, traded them for USDC and DAI! Those were trading for as little as $0.90.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#343

Post by dragonwriter »

bumby wrote: post #331
mschuster91 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as those who are affected by some kind of loss are (reasonably) made whole, most legal systems won't give a flying f..k about anything.

Tort/civil lawsuits are about being "made whole." Criminal lawsuits are not because they represent crimes against the state/society.

> Tort/civil lawsuits are about being "made whole."

Only at the “modelling a cow as a perfectly thermoconducting sphere” level of analysis.

Actual damages and preliminary injunctions to preserve a situation remediable by damages are about that, other parts of what happens in civil cases are often not. E.g., punitive damages are, as the name suggests, punitive, not compensatory.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#344

Post by grotorea »

blululu wrote: post #180
spamizbad wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean has Venezuela ever claimed it was communist? I always thought it was socialist. Also its oldest standing communist party technically sits in opposition to Maduro.

FWIW The Soviet Union never stated that it was communist. They were officially socialist with the constitutional goal of establishing communism. for that matter the Mensheviks predate the Bolshaviks and always opposed Lenin.

They were ruled by the communist party, so they were communist by ideology.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#345

Post by cdchn »

Nevermark wrote: post #278
rchaud wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CZ is much smarter, he didn't have any number 2s that could testify against him, and had already moved to a non-extradition country years ago. SBF thought he was cleverer than everybody and testified himself straight into a 8x10 cell for the foreseeable future.

Every move SBF made after his fall seemed extremely poorly thought out. Not a hater, just processing the dichotomy of his genius image with his ingeniously ungenius self-immolation. Lesson: Looking like you make lots of money makes you look very smart.

"Everyone is a genius in a bull market"

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#346

Post by grotorea »

bfung wrote: post #67
fhinson wrote: post #9

Perhaps this was the final takedown necessary to pave the way for BTC ETF approval.

Why does BTC need an ETF at all, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of owning one’s own wallets? Also… exchanges defeating the purpose of decentralization…

I don't think experience shows most people should or want to own their own wallets. And transactions are much easier without owning one. If you just want BTC exposure as an investment an ETF is much better.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#347

Post by play_ac »

asterix_pano wrote: post #208
Enogoloyo wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Light to final blow against crypto the horrible CO2 production and the annoying get rich apps. Let's hope it dies sooner than later.

There are now lots of efficient cryptos and some that can run on a single wind turbine. But I am with you, hoping the energyvore ones die as fast as possible.

The efficient ones are still outright scams if not blatantly illegal. All cryptocurrencies should die. After more than a decade it's clear by now that blockchains are a useless technology and the investors are getting more and more desperate to pass the bag.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#348

Post by lordfrito »

blobbers wrote: post #237

SBF decided to testify against CZ to try to save his own ass, giving justice dept and sec something to fine CZ with. Govt collects a big crypto fine, fine makes the big losers in FTX whole, problem solved. CZ should have just bought FTX and closed the deal and made people whole, woulda saved himself some drama.

FTX has a ~$8B hole.

It was far cheaper for CZ to pay the $4.3B fine.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#349

Post by grotorea »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #315
bogota wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly. It is just pricing in the risk of the government making the on/off ramps impossible to access.

There should not be any on-off ramps to begin with. People should just transact in XMR directly. That's what crypto was supposed to have been like.

This does have the network effect disavantage of requiring everything to move to XMR immediately.

Also, except maybe for purely digital there will be "on-off ramps" anyway, except it will be for real goods instead of fiat currency. The government can ban you from paying the gardener or buying milk with XMR.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#350

Post by chipgap98 »

lordfrito wrote: post #348
blobbers wrote: post #237

SBF decided to testify against CZ to try to save his own ass, giving justice dept and sec something to fine CZ with. Govt collects a big crypto fine, fine makes the big losers in FTX whole, problem solved. CZ should have just bought FTX and closed the deal and made people whole, woulda saved himself some drama.

FTX has a ~$8B hole. It was far cheaper for CZ to pay the $4.3B fine.

Depends if buying FTX would have stabilized the price of their FTT coin. That would have filled in some of the hole. And then CZ wouldn't have had to step down
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