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Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, pleads guilty to seven offences

theguardian.com

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Re: Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, pleads guilty to seven offences

#91

Post by HWR_14 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #44

>In the absence of a comprehensive regulatory framework over digital assets, the CFTC will use all of its existing power and authority to protect all market participants, while ensuring the integrity of commodity markets Honestly it's good to see that the responsible American institutions still seem to be reasonably quick and effective when it comes to prosecuting the relevant people here, but can we finally get that…

Let's not get a legal framework. I don't want to make crypto more respectable. There is a reason no one is talking about FTX getting bailed out or triggering a recession. Unlike in 2008, they are isolated from the rest of the economic system.

Re: Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, pleads guilty to seven offences

#92

Post by rocket_surgeron »

nemo44x wrote: post #46

What a Queen. Massively connected and after destroying the life of thousands of working class chumps she gets to walk free after getting her wrist slap.

It is difficult to feel sorry for the chumps.

If someone came up to me and said they were selling magic beans that would grow a vine up to the moon where riches await, I would politely decline.

It doesn't matter if the seller substitutes the word "crypto" for "beans".

What's even better are the "pros". In their pitch deck, only shown to whales, they promised "High Returns With No Risk".

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FhUdRVMXgAATCGU?format=jpg&name=...

Anyone who looks at a slide or printout with "high returns" and "no risk" on the same page and who doesn't immediately come to the conclusion that they're being scammed deserves every penny of loss they suffer.

Here I sit with "enough" (more than billions of others on Earth, really) watching a clawing mass of rabid others, each possessing way more than "enough" already, frantically scrambling for their spot at the trough so they can go to the moon and get a yacht or some stupid shit like that-- laughing.

Re: Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, pleads guilty to seven offences

#93

Post by Gustomaximus »

Lapsa wrote: post #41
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She mentioned she’s not a fan of stop losses At the volume they were trading, stop losses are no longer practical. The market is not infinitely deep.

I've never understood how stop losses are supposed to help. Traders read heaps of news, do God knows what technical analysis yet simple "moves bit too much in wrong direction" is supposed to be an acceptable exit strategy.

It's about recovery.

A loss of 10 percent necessitates an 11 percent gain to recover. Increase that loss to 25 percent and it takes a 33 percent gain to get back to break-even. A 50 percent loss requires a 100 percent gain to recover and an 80 percent loss necessitates 500 percent in gains to get back to where the investment value started.

Re: Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, pleads guilty to seven offences

#94

Post by neilv »

samwillis wrote: post #12

Extensive previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34088840

Those comments have a flagged thread (started by me) in which some commenters cited evidence that the Effective Altruism angle was a conscious lie:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34089377

Re: Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, pleads guilty to seven offences

#95

Post by this_user »

Lapsa wrote: post #41
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She mentioned she’s not a fan of stop losses At the volume they were trading, stop losses are no longer practical. The market is not infinitely deep.

I've never understood how stop losses are supposed to help. Traders read heaps of news, do God knows what technical analysis yet simple "moves bit too much in wrong direction" is supposed to be an acceptable exit strategy.

Professionals always have an exit strategy before they even enter a trade. That exit strategy contains conditions under which you assume the trade is no longer good, and needs to be exited at a loss.

Stop-losses are one mechanism for implementing that, but they are crude, and big players don't actually use them. In that regard, she was correct. For one thing, if you trade size, you don't want to dump everything with a marketable order at once, you have to scale out even if you are wrong. Secondly, some strategies will always perform worse if you add stop loss levels, notably mean reversion. But they can make sense, for instance, for trend following, because there are clear levels at which you can say that a trend has ended. Lastly, high-frequency traders like market-making firms, which Alameda was supposed to be, don't use stop loss orders, because they are not trying to take directional bets, they are just trying to capture the spread while keeping their book balanced.

Re: Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, pleads guilty to seven offences

#96

Post by ReaLNero »

ummonk wrote: post #67
klipt wrote: post #3

I wonder if something similar will eventually happen to the Tether people? To my understanding they're printing money (USDT) which they claim is backed 1:1 by USD but really isn't. These USDTs can then be spent to pump up various other crypto assets. Seems a very shady business.

My conspiracy theory is that USDT is actually well backed, but the Tether people intentionally make it look shady so they can buy the dip and arbitrage against panic selling. Some volatility would actually increase their ability to profit.

I mean if they're going to act (or rather, seem) malicious then they might as steal the backed assets they have right now rather than hope to pump-and-dump enough to make more money. It's not like either is more legal than the other.

Re: Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, pleads guilty to seven offences

#97

Post by Zpalmtree »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #92
nemo44x wrote: post #46

What a Queen. Massively connected and after destroying the life of thousands of working class chumps she gets to walk free after getting her wrist slap.

It is difficult to feel sorry for the chumps. If someone came up to me and said they were selling magic beans that would grow a vine up to the moon where riches await, I would politely decline. It doesn't matter if the seller substitutes the word "crypto" for "beans". What's even better are the "pros". In their pitch deck, only shown to whales, they promised "High Returns With No Risk". https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fh…

you could have been just holding usdc on FTX, and got fucked. Of course, not your keys, not your crypto always applies, but it's easier to feel sorry for folks like this.

Re: Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, pleads guilty to seven offences

#98

Post by ChuckMcM »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #69

Strange (re: The Guardian, not HN). By today's 24-hour news cycle standard, this is arguably "old news". These documents have been available for at least 24h. I know because I submitted them to HN yesterday. Ellison's Plea Agreement https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/r478tCuj... CTFC v SBF, Ellison and Wang Amended Complaint https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rRCRC2hQ... Wang's Plea…

Not particularly strange. There are whole web pages devoted to the "right time of day" to submit something to this site to catch the most early up votes.

Re: Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, pleads guilty to seven offences

#100

Post by randerson »

jjulius wrote: post #60
sillysaurusx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But she’s highly regarded! It’s all just a little joke. Check out https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets . Also https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jg85H26wyLk She certainly earned her sentence, and I have no sympathy for her. But isn’t it hard not to be at least a little impressed with the sheer scale of her losses? Getting in the record books for “most money lost by a single individual” is a hard thing to do in general.

>It's all just a little joke. Super funny to every single person who lost money to the person "getting in the record books for 'most money lost by a single individual'".

I've been trying to find an account of anyone who had a large portion of their wealth in FTX and not just some highly speculative investment they could afford to lose. Was anyone actually trusting these people with their life savings?
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