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Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

nytimes.com

411–420 of 1001 posts

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#411
post #393

> You’d think this MIT graduate would wise up, but he never did. The MIT campus has a major public road running through the middle of it, one of the busiest surface streets in the area. You don't have to stand there very long to see a crowd of students almost get hit by a car because they didn't look before they crossed the street. Point is, the old cliche is true, there really is such a thing as a person with a lot…

His problem was not a lack of common sense. His problem was he was dishonest, a conman, and a thief.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They always appeal.. "Dad, why is the American government the best government? "Because of our endless appeals system" Thank You for Smoking

Appealing a criminal conviction is quite hard. It's certainly his right to file an appeal, but he's likely going to be detained for the duration of the appeals, and the likelihood of being successful seems pretty low to me.

He can only appeal on grounds that were raised during trial. Did his lawyers even object to anything? Did they try to prevent the admission of key evidence? Did they raise any points of constitutional law?

If not, he might be fucked. Appeals aren't just "the lower court convicted me and I want to try again", they are "the lower court got it wrong, my lawyer brought the point up, but then they ignored it".

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#413
post #128
post #120

Interestingly, FTX made a $500 million USD investment in Anthropic; supposedly, this was made while Anthropic was valued at $4.6 billion (unconfirmed). Now, Anthropic is nearing $30 billion. Anyone know the latest on this? Is FTX going to sell that stake off to pay back the debts? [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-bankman-frieds-anthropic...

It's being debated in the bankruptcy court. Some creditors want to sell it off and others want to let it ride. Because this is crypto, some people want to issue a crypto token that represents claims on the estate.

That reminds me, it's been nearly two months now since we heard from either Kyle Davies or Zhu Su...

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#414
post #353

Remember: this is not a cryptocurrency problem, it's a banking problem. This guy created a literal bank. People deposited funds in it. Instead of simply being a custodian, he took the money and "invested" it. And lost it all. I wish this sort of thing would happen every time bankers screwed things up. Instead the government bails them out.

Sam didn't create a bank. If he did, this wouldn't have been fraud and he wouldn't be going to jail. All documentation, marketing, interviews, statements, tweets, general understanding, and government licensing had FTX implemented as a full custodial trust. FTX promised to hold any funds you deposit in safe, low-interest bank accounts or secured cryptocurrency wallets, ready to withdraw at any time. They explicitly p…

Yeah. I was under the misconception that every cryptocurrency exchange operated like a fractional reserve bank with savings accounts, loans and everything. Further down this thread, wmf set me straight. The situation is even worse than I made it seem.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#415
post #120

Interestingly, FTX made a $500 million USD investment in Anthropic; supposedly, this was made while Anthropic was valued at $4.6 billion (unconfirmed). Now, Anthropic is nearing $30 billion. Anyone know the latest on this? Is FTX going to sell that stake off to pay back the debts? [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-bankman-frieds-anthropic...

Looking online I see reports that FTX owes its creditors $3B. If Anthropic has 6.5x then the initial $500 million is now worth $3.25B. Is it actually possible that all creditors will get their money back? Pretty crazy if so.

Someone has to buy and liquidate all that stock. Seems unlikely.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#416
post #393

> You’d think this MIT graduate would wise up, but he never did. The MIT campus has a major public road running through the middle of it, one of the busiest surface streets in the area. You don't have to stand there very long to see a crowd of students almost get hit by a car because they didn't look before they crossed the street. Point is, the old cliche is true, there really is such a thing as a person with a lot…

His problem was not a lack of common sense. His problem was he was dishonest, a conman, and a thief.

True--but nobody made him talk to the media in the time before the trial, and nobody made him take the stand and thereby make himself vulnerable to cross examination. So in addition to "dishonest," "conman," "thief," and "convicted felon likely to die in federal prison," we can also reasonably call him "dumbass".

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#417
post #393

> You’d think this MIT graduate would wise up, but he never did. The MIT campus has a major public road running through the middle of it, one of the busiest surface streets in the area. You don't have to stand there very long to see a crowd of students almost get hit by a car because they didn't look before they crossed the street. Point is, the old cliche is true, there really is such a thing as a person with a lot…

To be fair, those students are contending with people driving in and out of Boston. The odds are not in their favor.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#418
post #393

> You’d think this MIT graduate would wise up, but he never did. The MIT campus has a major public road running through the middle of it, one of the busiest surface streets in the area. You don't have to stand there very long to see a crowd of students almost get hit by a car because they didn't look before they crossed the street. Point is, the old cliche is true, there really is such a thing as a person with a lot…

Perhaps so, but I also think this situation is less of an indictment upon academia than it is upon, say, bankers - which is basically what his career was, both before his crypto work, and during it.

After all, it's not difficult to find an effective book teaching one to safely cross a road.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Convicted

#420
post #393

> You’d think this MIT graduate would wise up, but he never did. The MIT campus has a major public road running through the middle of it, one of the busiest surface streets in the area. You don't have to stand there very long to see a crowd of students almost get hit by a car because they didn't look before they crossed the street. Point is, the old cliche is true, there really is such a thing as a person with a lot…

To be fair, those students are contending with people driving in and out of Boston. The odds are not in their favor.

You're not wrong--but all the more reason to be on your guard, and maybe wear running shoes.
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