Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 1001 posts

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#301

Post by aftbit »

bodiekane wrote: post #181

It's wild that 99% of the "point" of crypto and a Bahamas-based exchange was to avoid all the laws around securities trading, banking, money transferring (anti-money laundering, taxes, etc), etc and yet when things go south, people still expect the government to come in and enforce a tiny subset of the financial laws they've otherwise been operating outside of. This is a weird form of "privatize the profits, socializ…

Let me just provide a counter-point. As an early crypto advocate, and someone who has lost thousands of USD to hackers and scammers, I did not ever expect the government to bail me out. As you said, the whole point of crypto was to free ourselves from these regulations, which means high risk high reward investments, and the opportunity to create truly innovative products. High risk means sometimes you lose your money, even to illegal and unethical actions.

The real tragedy is that NFTs turned into digital trading cards and DAOs turned into pump and dump scams. The really interesting use cases will appear once the USDT Tether books are exposed and Bitcoin price plummets. Imagine NFTs attached to shipping containers tracking custody throughout a series of mutually distrusting last mile carriers. Or DAOs that allow people to organize for collective action with radically transparent finances to prevent corruption and grift.

Of course I'm sure this will not go over well here on HN, where everyone reflexively hates crypto and loves government regulation. It's a bit ironic for a forum where the majority of members are engaged in the business of "disrupting" one or another traditional industry. Of course the industry of finance is too sacrosanct to risk such disruption. Why should Uber have to pay for taxi medallions though?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#303

Post by FireBeyond »

compiler-guy wrote: post #290
rootusrootus wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Parole is available after 1/3 of term IIRC it's 85%. Federal prison does not have parole, but they do give some credit for good behavior, up to 15%.

This was true for a long time, but the "First Step" act, passed I think in 2021, increased the good behavior credit maximum to 50%. Realistically then, SBF is looking at 11.5 years if he can stay out of trouble, which is relatively easy for white-collar criminals in relatively low security prisons. Federal rules still don't have parole.

The big problem for SBF I think is that he's been shown to have "no filter", or no regard for accepted norms. That could bite him even in federal prison (and he has to go to a medium security, I believe, because of the length of the sentence).

Piss off an inmate and get in an even slight altercation, lose some of your good behavior points.

12.5 years would be possible only if he scored 100% on good behavior.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#304

Post by jjtheblunt »

jedberg wrote: post #240
jjtheblunt wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be interesting to see if they now prosecute his parents, who were entirely, shamelessly complicit.

Why do you think that? From everything I've read, they had no idea what was going on, they just put their names on things because their son asked them to. If anything their crime was not being inquisitive enough to ask why.

https://slate.com/technology/2023/09/sam-bankman-fried-paren...

In short, the forensic accounting for FTX claims they have adequate evidence they were complicit, and they've been sued for such, so far.

But, to your point, that's rather vague.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#305

Post by tempsy »

carabiner wrote: post #257
maxclark wrote: post #195

SBF is 32 years old - 25 years isn't a death sentence for him Parole is available after 1/3 of term, realistically he won't serve 100% There's still a chance for him to get something out of his life post jail

He'll be out around 2040: https://x.com/wagieeacc/status/1768798879959400776?s=46&t=N5... Shkreli far and away has been providing the most informed analysis of this case. He trashed the letters to the judge from SBF's parents, then Judge Kaplan went on to raise the exact points Shkreli said he would.

That’s an old tweet from 2 weeks ago.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#306

Post by dfxm12 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #224
bodiekane wrote: post #181

It's wild that 99% of the "point" of crypto and a Bahamas-based exchange was to avoid all the laws around securities trading, banking, money transferring (anti-money laundering, taxes, etc), etc and yet when things go south, people still expect the government to come in and enforce a tiny subset of the financial laws they've otherwise been operating outside of. This is a weird form of "privatize the profits, socializ…

> people still expect the government to come in and enforce a tiny subset of the financial laws they've otherwise been operating outside of. I don't see how people ever expected the government not to enforce these financial laws on electronic currencies.

I agree, the average citizen would have expectation that the government would enforce these laws. However, I do think OP can be more clear that when they say "people" here, they don't mean your average citizen, but proponents of crypto who would agree that 99% of the "point" of crypto and a Bahamas-based exchange was to avoid all the laws.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#307

Post by dubcanada »

hnthrow9009 wrote: post #103

[flagged]

"commit a violent crime with a silencer on your pistol" is an odd way of saying murdering someone.

There is quite a difference between murdering someone, and stealing a bunch of peoples money to the justice system. I am not saying that makes sense, but it's really hard to judge a crime when the year count starts getting into 10+ years. Would you be happy if it is 5x lifetime? Or some other silly number that means nothing?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#308

Post by skybrian »

bodiekane wrote: post #181

It's wild that 99% of the "point" of crypto and a Bahamas-based exchange was to avoid all the laws around securities trading, banking, money transferring (anti-money laundering, taxes, etc), etc and yet when things go south, people still expect the government to come in and enforce a tiny subset of the financial laws they've otherwise been operating outside of. This is a weird form of "privatize the profits, socializ…

Murder is still murder even if it’s a dispute between two criminals. I suppose the same is true of fraud. Law enforcement is always a socialized cost.

Though, there are fines. Apparently, FTX might owe $9 billion in fines and penalties and $10 billion other government litigation [1]? The creditors might not get much at all.

I don’t know what the users of a cryptocurrency exchange expect. I think there’s always some chance of a “rug-pull?”

[1] https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/US-v-...

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

#309

Post by compiler-guy »

FabHK wrote: post #276
setgree wrote: post #176

An uncle once commented about a cousin of ours that he demonstrated how it's possible to screw things up so badly that you can't possibly recover. I think that's true for Sam. I hope it's not true for the people in his orbit; I hope they can get out from under this and try to find meaning, ideally from repairing the harm they've done. As Rick Heicklen writes, "We are not ever going to be Sam. But we could be Caroline…

FWIW, I didn't find Lewis's book as bad (or amoral) as it's often made out to be. Yes, he didn't put his judgement in every paragraph, but his description of SBF was: a) absolutely damning! SBF's lack of empathy, his notion that (given that everyone else is stupid) he knew best and should basically ignore the advice of everyone else (particularly his elders), his naive utilitarianism without any deontological/virtue…

Lewis also soft-sells the polyamorous relationships and complications that caused around SBF's relationship with Caroline Ellison. Caroline wants to go public, and why that would be a much bigger deal in the polyamorous world they were living in.

It's similar in many of Lewis's other analysis of SBF's relationships. Lewis avoids context that makes SBF look much worse.

Post reply on HN