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SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities

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Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities

#371

Post by siftrics »

wins32767 wrote: post #316
siftrics wrote: post #202

Say it with me: Blockchains mathematically prevent fraudulent misuse of deposits Yes, on/off ramps are an issue. Yes, blockchains do not prevent physical threats of violence or profound custodial negligence. No, SBF would not have been able to defraud millions of depositors on a blockchain where everyone self-custodied.

Hardly anybody wants to self custody. It's the literal reason banks got started. If blockchain can't even solve the most basic use case of the financial system, it's not going to replace it.

I'm not claiming banks don't serve a good purpose.

I'm not claiming anyone should hold all their net worth on a blockchain.

But blockchains do have extremely desirable properties in preventing fraud _on the chain_.

I would love to have mathematical proof that my government is not fraudulently misusing my tax dollars, at least at some level. Who wouldn't?

I would love to hold some portion of my assets in a way that no one, even the government, can seize it or freeze it. What if my government is Cyprus in 2013? What if my government is the 1940s Nazi government? I want to be able to flee the country without losing my livelihood to tyranny and abuse.

Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities

#372

Post by mrhands556 »

siftrics wrote: post #326
mrhands556 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you’re saying the way they prevent misuse is because the ledger is public and it’s trackable by anyone who wants to look at the ledger. If I’ve mistaken your argument then please correct me. I’m familiar with blockchain and have contributed to multiple projects in the open source community back when I saw potential and promise in blockchain tech.

Yes, you're mistaken. If you're the only person with the private key, you're the only person who can move the funds. It's math. Unless you have a mathematical argument as to how to move funds without the private key, you're ignorant and uninformed.

If you’re depositing into a bank or exchange it’s not like 1 person is controlling that entire entities wallet(s). Deposits have the same risk of being misused in crypto as in fiat.

Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities

#373

Post by acdha »

rosnd wrote: post #110
323 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still pass through passport control. There was talk that he was followed around everywhere in Bahamas by the police. Like I said, there are ways to keep someone on an island without arresting them. Especially in this case, what was he going to do, sue?

>You still pass through passport control. On a boat? Usually not. Most people island hopping in the Caribbean definitely aren't going through any kind of passport controls. Unless the cops were following him everywhere he went, Bahamas would be one of the easier places to escape.

How many of those other countries have people who lost money? What are the odds that some of the people he ripped off have very muscular friends who want to have a private chat about repayment timeframes? What are the odds that they know the kind of people you’d need to get fake ID or live undercover?

Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities

#374

Post by [deleted] »

Sebguer wrote: post #281
woeirua wrote: post #262

This is good for Crypto. Seriously. Because SBF is probably going to help the US make their case against Binance and that will flush out all the bad actors. Many coins will go to zero. The entire ecosystem will wither and die, but if Crypto survives it will be because there is some fundamental value to it besides digital beanie babies.

But, it doesn't, so it'll die! Which is the best possible outcome.

[deleted]

Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities

#375

Post by sheepscreek »

g42gregory wrote: post #341
moralestapia wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure SBF has plenty of dirt on her as well, and he'll start talking much sooner than anticipated. She will go to jail, definitely.

He is a much bigger "prize" for the prosecution. She had low profile and not all that well known to the electorate. Plus, prosecuting her may not even look all that good, for identity politics reasons. If she cooperated first, there is a good chance of immunity or very low sentence.

Yep. And he lives in a $40M penthouse apartment overlooking the ocean. That is sure to get people riled up (a jury - if it every goes to trial).

Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities

#376

Post by CydeWeys »

g42gregory wrote: post #341
moralestapia wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure SBF has plenty of dirt on her as well, and he'll start talking much sooner than anticipated. She will go to jail, definitely.

He is a much bigger "prize" for the prosecution. She had low profile and not all that well known to the electorate. Plus, prosecuting her may not even look all that good, for identity politics reasons. If she cooperated first, there is a good chance of immunity or very low sentence.

> Plus, prosecuting her may not even look all that good, for identity politics reasons.

Strongly disagree with this. Look at how they threw the book at Elizabeth Holmes (vs, say, Adam Neumann, or any other male founder from the last decade plus). If anything women have been getting it harder.

Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities

#377

Post by lloydatkinson »

johnfn wrote: post #15

Alright, well, now that that's done - let's go find all those people in the past threads who were saying things like SBF will never be arrested.

Reminds me of the times other HN threads were full of people saying tick tock is perfectly safe and does not send all your data to their servers, hahaha.

Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities

#378

Post by cycomanic »

hgdfhgdfhgdf wrote: post #151
object-a wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure reporting that Alameda + FTX had little to no financial controls, terrible accounting, and unaccounted for deposits is really puffery, unless you stretch the definition. And I've seen stories about SBF spending FTX money on personal loans and Bahamas real estate all over the legacy media. Even the restructuring CEO couldn't account for all the lost funds until recently

Coindesk said this about The New York Times' interview with SBF after the collapse: "Yaffe-Bellany says Bankman-Fried stayed on the line for over an hour – and yet there are no direct quotes concerning the conflict of interest between FTX and Alameda, neither a confirmation or denial that SBF illegally commingled funds between the two or further admissions of guilt. There's little sense SBF, who stepped down from the…

Somebody quoted further up:

> The NYT profiles I've seen is pretty clear that Alameda and FTX were mingling customer funds, that he refused to answer questions about the handling of funds, and that he was under investigation.

>> But he would offer only limited details about the central questions swirling around him: whether FTX improperly used billions of dollars of customer funds to prop up a trading firm that he also founded, Alameda Research. The Justice Department and the S.E.C. are examining that relationship.

OK no quote, but if there's no information why should they quote three repeated "no comments"? If he did not answer the question there's nothing quotable there, that doesn't make it a puff piece.

Maybe coinbase has political motivation to call reporting from certain media puff pieces?

Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities

#379

Post by siftrics »

polygamous_bat wrote: post #368
siftrics wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does self-custody hand control to someone else?

Someone else is still controlling the network updates and the "tokenomics", or even hard forks! See Ethereum DAO hack hard fork, for example: https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/the-dao-hack-makerdao

There's no mathematical law that blockchains will survive forever or hard forks will retain the worth of the token.

I never argued for that and I'm not arguing that that is the case.

Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities

#380

Post by kelnos »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #327
throw_m239339 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe this was the only way to ensure he testified Nope, it doesn't make any sense to arrest him if the goal was to force him to testify in front of congress. Once he is placed under arrest then I'm pretty sure the house cannot make him testify if he is in custody, he becomes at the mercy of a judge and I imagine bail conditions will not allow him to talk in public about the case either.

People in jail and prison testify in court all the time. They are transported to and from the court by guards, have a guard assigned to them in the courtroom, and sometimes testify in prison uniforms etc. I don't know why a house subpoena would be any different. If you are out on bail, I have never heard of bail conditions restricting what someone can say, that's not what bail is, I don't think that's even a thing. J…

> People in jail and prison testify in court all the time.

I think the point the GP is trying to make is that his arrest does not obligate him to testify in front of anyone: his "right to remain silent" and all that. Prior to being arrested, voluntarily testifying (or complying with a subpoena to do so) before Congress could have been useful to him if he could manipulate things well enough to get the heat turned down. (I don't think he'd actually be successful at that, but that's another story.)

Now that he's in jail, he may actually listen to the advice I'm sure his lawyer has been giving him all along: shut the hell up. And he's perfectly within his rights to do that. Even if he is hauled before Congress, he can simply assert his 5th Amendment rights after every question, and that might actually be the best move for him now.

Edit: re-reading the GP, I realize what you were objecting to, the "I'm pretty sure the house cannot make him testify if he is in custody" bit; I agree with you in that I don't think that's the case. Still, though, even if Congress can force him to testify, they can't actually force him to answer questions. They technically couldn't do that before, but now that he's been arrested it's likely even less in his best interests to talk.

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