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FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

reuters.com

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Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#501

Post by polygamous_bat »

shorthistory wrote: post #452
wombat-man wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he probably thought the value of the coins would keep rising. Hell everyone who bought in at sky high prices thought that.

But how, if you had spent time being a market maker, that is to say you understand market neutral strategies, would you convince yourself to take this bet? It seems contrary to his presumed understanding of the markets.

My personal hypothesis is that people keep attributing the successes of SBF to his intellect rather than a mix of intellect and luck, like the rest of us mere mortal. That list could as well include SBF himself. One can be lucky often but not forever, and sooner or later the "prodigies" see the fault in their impeccable algorithms.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#502

Post by beefield »

djinnandtonic wrote: post #431
Alupis wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For someone that only dabbles in crypto - what are the reasons people choose to use high-risk exchanges like FTX, and buy even higher risk "sh*t coins" on them? Especially the exchange-created-and-owned coins - of which I have yet to see one actually do what it promised. Is Coinbase just not cool anymore, or is there some advantage to using exchanges like FTX until they go belly-up?

For someone that only dabbles in investing, what are the reasons people choose ultra-high-risk investments like crypto?

Broadly speaking, either they are financially illiterate, or they like gambling. Or both.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#503

Post by vkou »

Julesman wrote: post #463

I'm not a luddite (on hacker news lol) and I can clearly see the revolutionary potential of blockchain. But, for the love of God, can we STOP the blind short-term speculation on the promise of extreme wealth. Moderate investment can support development without the kind of hype that ruins lives and sullies public perception of the technology.

We already tried that, that was the wave 2 of Crypto, when people were trying to build tokens with utility. Things like Filecoin.

Eventually everyone realized that the value-add of the utility those tokens bring is roughly ~$0, and the only reason tokens in general, and those tokens in particular have any value at all is because people buy them so they could sell them to a bigger fool.

Token producers thus took the next logical step[1] - dispense with any promises of token utility, and go straight to minting NFTs and fartcoins. Why bother actually developing a product and ecosystem when the only thing people buying from you care about is the pump and dump?

[1] I'm omitting the various ponzicoins, here, those are straight up, unabashed fraud, without even a fig leaf to cover themselves with. :)

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#504

Post by shaburn »

shorthistory wrote: post #423

Can anyone speculate what Bankman-Fried's exit plan was? Was this a fraud that got out of control, or premeditated? If it was premeditated, what was the exit plan? Did he expect to be able to gamble with customer funds indefinitely? Were the Effective Altruism intimations genuine? Why, if Alameda was a market maker, and they therefore presumably have some form of insight into the markets, did they then decide to take…

10 Billion dollar question: Who were the counter parties to these trades where customer funds were "lost".

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#505

Post by dottrap »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #36
leereeves wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, just yesterday SBF tweeted: > This was about FTX International. FTX US, the US based exchange that accepts Americans, was not financially impacted by this shitshow. https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1590709195892195329

That’s the one. Thanks for linking it. Was he in denial? Lying? Clueless? I have no idea at this point. He seemed earnest and genuine, but everything he’s saying is the exact opposite of reality. Maybe he was having an anxiety attack. I had one once, and it completely sucks. It ruins your ability to form logical thoughts. (It’s rare to see someone so powerful be so confidently mistaken. The confidence is the part I’m…

Rumors were that he was still trying to raise some kind of last minute savior financing after Binance backed out. If so, his best cards are to show that not everything he has is a shitshow and there may still be some real value financiers might be able to buy for pennies on the dollar if they save him from complete collapse.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#506

Post by bogomipz »

purple_ferret wrote: post #219
ransom1538 wrote: post #143

Anyone here able to do a tl;dr; for us? The FTX story is super confusing. Why are they screwed? What happened?

here's the way I understand it: -SBF's other pet project Alameda Research suffered huge loses after Luna blew up. -Alameda Research, a 'backer' of FTX was given billions of FTT tokens that they 'owned' by FTX because they participated in its 'ICO', transferred it FTX, and then used it as collateral to 'borrow' FTX user assets, hoping they could gamble with it and make back their money. CZ, of Binance, got wind of thi…

I'm curious what was the intended utility of their FTT token and ICO? Was the token meant to be a type of equity in the FTX exchange then?

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#507

Post by deebosong »

nwah1 wrote: post #496
nu11ptr wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Separation of money and state is definitely a worthwhile goal in my opinion. Everything else is more questionable.

The state has a monopoly on the use of force. It can tax, expropriate, conscript, regulate, and otherwise redirect resources however it wants, and it can demand payments in any currency it chooses. The wishful thinking involved in trying to "separate" money and states is absurd. Even under a gold standard, the government can acquire resources from the public at will. The entire goal is nonsense. The root desire there…

Not the person you're responding to. But I concur. How will one separate money from state and then protect one's state-separated money without themselves becoming a "state" of sorts, that then is fused to their money? And then everyone becomes their own little island/state, that is fused to their money, and then you forge alliances and become allied island-states, and so on and so forth, until you become a nation of sorts?

Like cmon now. Isn't that the inevitable progression? And if so, doesn't that mean these folks who insist upon separating state from money just want to become the ruling class?

I dunno. That's just how it always comes across to me.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#508

Post by boshalfoshal »

gonehome wrote: post #299
throwaway0asd wrote: post #121

Where were the adults in any of this and why would people throw billions of dollars at unqualified children?

He worked at Jane Street prior to starting his own company which was built on a successful arbitrage. Whatever his issues - qualification isn’t one of them. I’m not defending this catastrophe (which seems like it was partly an execution by a rival), but this kind of comment is just bizarre on hacker news in the world of tech companies and startups. Age is not a good proxy for competence.

Don't know why you are getting downvoted. Yes, I believe that using customer funds to punt shitcoins at a supposed "quant market making firm" is really dumb, but people here really think the people in this operation are random idiots/got there via underhanded means. I think they just believed that the gravy train would last longer than they thought.

Several Alameda employees worked at JS, which is by far one of the most successful quant firms out there and they only hire the best. He also exploited a very creative arbitrage to start the firm, which is also not a fluke.

Then again, I would expect no less since the people on here constantly complain about leetcode interviews and "not wanting to interview for big tech for XYZ random reasons" when I know damn well they couldn't pass even if you gave them the answer.

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#509

Post by mkoryak »

monkmartinez wrote: post #494
Julesman wrote: post #463

I'm not a luddite (on hacker news lol) and I can clearly see the revolutionary potential of blockchain. But, for the love of God, can we STOP the blind short-term speculation on the promise of extreme wealth. Moderate investment can support development without the kind of hype that ruins lives and sullies public perception of the technology.

what do you see as the "revolutionary potential" in blockchain? Genuinely curious.

separating people from their money

Re: FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns

#510

Post by jonny_eh »

thwayunion wrote: post #491
Julesman wrote: post #463

I'm not a luddite (on hacker news lol) and I can clearly see the revolutionary potential of blockchain. But, for the love of God, can we STOP the blind short-term speculation on the promise of extreme wealth. Moderate investment can support development without the kind of hype that ruins lives and sullies public perception of the technology.

> can we STOP the blind short-term speculation on the promise of extreme wealth I first played around with blockchain in 2011 or so and I still don't know what actual utility this technology is supposed to have. I have never -- never -- encountered a value-producing use case for cryptocurrency that can't be solved by either signed git commits or a SQL database. Around 2015 a lot of people I thought were smart enough…

It's been 10+ years of a costly solution desperately looking for a problem.
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