This is a great preview of what will happen in the wake of the Great Tether Collapse.
We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX
251–260 of 440 posts
Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
SBF was one of the biggest political donors to the party in govt. He seems to have done all the shady stuff with Alameda (and said it was arms-length). And whilst Alameda's CEO said multiple things that would have got you in trouble with regulated products (saying they had $10bn in secret assets, making a public offer to buy FTT to manipulate the price)...this is crypto. I will make an exception to this: if they do n…
Hint: they're not making people whole, they don't have any assets with which to do so. That's why Binance ran the other direction.
Right, but if the choice is between SBF paying $5bn or going to jail for 30 years...then what? The facts aren't clear, but SBF has money outside FTX.
Even if the loss was manageable, I suspect that Binance never intended to do any deal. They had absolutely no incentive to do so.
Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's almost as if crypto tokens are intrinsically worthless!
Though that's not really the issue here. Obviously they were worth something to the people buying and selling them.
Crypto is worth something in that it can be sold at a higher price. USD is worth something in that at the point where it isn't you already have much bigger problems
Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Levine on SBF back in April: > I think of myself as like a fairly cynical person. And that was so much more cynical than how I would've described farming. You're just like, well, I'm in the Ponzi business and it's pretty good. I suppose he was right ;) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-25/sam-bankm...
Gambling with customers' funds works great for you when you win, and bad for your customers when you lose.
and this is why banks are not allowed to use customer deposits for such activities.
And if they do, they must have equity value to back it up - aka, the bank's share holders lose value _first_ when shit hits the fan, before customer deposits. Then lastly, the gov't has put up guarantees on the deposits in case bank equity cannot cover customer deposits when shit hits the fan.
Crypto has none of the above - so basically, it is exactly what happened in the early days of the US financial system - i'm talking in the 1800's!
Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX
#255In the thick of it, illiquidity and insolvency blur. But not after the fact. As usual, Levine put it best: “the problem is not a timing mismatch, in which FTX’s customers asked for their cash back but FTX did not have enough ready cash because it had long-term but money-good loans out. The problem is that FTX took its customers’ money and traded it for a pile of magic beans, and now the beans are worthless and there’…
Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not what I have heard. Specifically know people who have gotten offers, mostly in the 150k range with zero stock. Alameda research is also just random devs that went to MIT with a few years experience. Impressive to go to that school, but clearly not experienced enough to run a real finance operation. Zero real finance people. If they were serious they would have hired portfolio managers with decades of experi…
I've worked with a crypto trading firm before, one of FTX's otc clients. In that industry we hire based on referrals and rarely on credentials. A trustworthy person who earns the company $0 is worth more than an unvetted one that could stab the company in the back anytime in the future.
due diligence to maintain the ponzi scheme; incredible.
Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX
#257Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
BUSD is issued not by Binance, but by Paxos that is regulated in the state of New York under BitLicense. It is one of the toughest licenses to get in the world, so I would be surprised if BUSD somehow collapses.
Ah, if only that were true! Your claim smelled funny, so I looked it up: https://paxos.com/2022/04/07/busd-issued-by-paxos-on-ethereu... Tl;Dr: Paxos issues something called BUSD on Ethereum, which is regulated. Binance issues something that's kinda sorta related but not really, that's fully unregulated , only usable in their private chain, ALSO called BUSD, that is just monopoly money. They happen to have the same n…
Thank you for your smell comment. I am a nerd with bad hygiene, but people do not bring it up that often.
Binance pegged USD is not printed out of thin air. It is a bridged token from Ethereum to other blockchains. Because how smart contracts work, Binance cannot manipulate Binance pegged USD supply unless they seriously break BNB Chain.
You can verify the reserves and bridges here:
https://www.binance.com/en/assets-proof
If you do not believe this web page, you can also run your own node and ask it directly using JSON-RPC API.
Thus any Binance pegged USD (and other bridged tokens) are 1:1 backed by matching token on Ethereum chain. Binance pegged USD is not different from any other bridged token on other bridges and chains and there is no reason to suspect any foul play here.
Because it is transparent and on-chain there cannot be fraud. There could be, however, technical issues and hacks with the bridges.
The reason why Paxos do not directly issue tokens on other chains is that they 1) likely do not have infrastructure for it yet 2) they are limited by commercial agreements or agreements with a regulator.
Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX
#259Too bad FTX is crashing. I don't know where else I can buy (put) options on crypto.
Re: We will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX
#260What is so strange about this and seems a bit fishy is how quickly this has all happened. How has Binance decided in about 24 hours to not do the deal? With other deals of this type, this process typically takes weeks if not months. Any insights?