An insight on Bitcoin

[jonnysensible]

i like how binance is trying to raise money for bailout funds and pretending its clearly not for himself. Same auditors as ftx?

[hellhamster]

i like how binance is trying to raise money for bailout funds and pretending its clearly not for himself. Same auditors as ftx?

CZ is too megalomaniacal to steal customer funds, funds are SAFU. If crypto does indeed succeed or gets even bigger, he will be one of the the most influential people on the planet.

This whole thing with other exchanges not having money is blown way out of proportion. Because FTX is a shitstain, it doesn't mean all of them are. Coinbase posted proof of them having €30B in reserves for instance after being pressurised. Gemini has a liquidity issue for their lending platform, not customer funds.

Anything is possible, but we'll see.

[Zan15]

CZ is too megalomaniacal to steal customer funds, funds are SAFU. If crypto does indeed succeed or gets even bigger, he will be one of the the most influential people on the planet.

This whole thing with other exchanges not having money is blown way out of proportion. Because FTX is a shitstain, it doesn't mean all of them are. Coinbase posted proof of them having €30B in reserves for instance after being pressurised. Gemini has a liquidity issue for their lending platform, not customer funds.

Anything is possible, but we'll see.

seems to me each time there is a huge liquidity issue and bankruptcies in crypto they claim that was the last of the bad companies or that there are not that many left. But then a few months go by and then it happens all over again.

Guess this is what happens with an unregulated "currency" system/industry.

[cubby]

SBF/FTX bought interest in a tiny (26th smallest in the United States) bank in the midwest. Doubled their deposits with an infusion of $11M. Bank had no crypto capability, didn't even do mortgages because "the paperwork was too much work".

Nothing fishy about that at all. No sir-ee.

- - - Updated - - -

SBF posted a long explanation of what happened on twitter. I have a finance background (not in crypto) but I can't make heads or tails of it. His descriptions don't match up to what happened, like he said they went from 30 billion of collateral and 2 billion in liabilities to 25 billion in collateral and 8 billion in liabilities, but his explanation is "most of the credit in the industry drying up at once" - umm, that doesn't explain why your liabilities quadrupled dude! He then admits that there were 8 billion of liabilities that weren't in the system, oopsie!

He also says, "I did not realize the full extent of the margin position" which my guess has to do with how they justified giving customer money to Alameda to cover losses based on the value of their made up currency. He claims that the business was worth 1 billion when he declared bankruptcy, which I'm sure is inaccurate - I'm sure they just hadn't discovered the next 9 billion dollar oopsie yet.

The whole thing feels like a 4-year long con. The $1B "loan" to SBF screams scam. Plus the other FTX insiders received loans as well.

[jonnysensible]

blockfi eating it, another obvious ponzi lol

[Edge-]

blockfi eating it, another obvious ponzi lol

Whoever is the last exchange standing after all this is going to be the de-facto centralized king of the decentralized currency/security/whatever the fuck crypto is called nowadays.

[Belize]

[video=youtube_share;rY0WxgSXdEE]https://youtu.be/rY0WxgSXdEE[/vid

Whoever is the last exchange standing after all this is going to be the de-facto centralized king of the decentralized currency/security/whatever the fuck crypto is called nowadays.

There's a nonzero chance no exchange will be left standing since they're all built from the same house of card

[Draco-Onis]

There's a nonzero chance no exchange will be left standing since they're all built from the same house of card

There will be one left to capitalize, it will be the least shaky house. If you look at the past banks used to be like this there were always a few left standing and they just kept consolidating. The problem with crypto though is I don't know if any company is going to want the kind of scrutiny that will come in the aftermath of this bloodbath.

[Rasulis]

Miami nightclubs mourn absence of high-rolling crypto entrepreneurs

Would be interesting to see the impact of the crypto collapse on Southern Florida venture capital funding. Too lazy to look it up, but I recall reading that 60% of Southern Florida 2021 through 3rd Q 2022 venture capital funding was in crypto.

[jonnysensible]

Miami nightclubs mourn absence of high-rolling crypto entrepreneurs

Would be interesting to see the impact of the crypto collapse on Southern Florida venture capital funding. Too lazy to look it up, but I recall reading that 60% of Southern Florida 2021 through 3rd Q 2022 venture capital funding was in crypto.

have to go back to cocaine and people traffickers, pillars of the florida community. Funny enough alot of the oligarchs from the ME are buying up property there.

[Slant]

Can I just say FTX? Said it many times, crypto is for gamblers and crooks. Nobody else.

[Rasulis]

have to go back to cocaine and people traffickers, pillars of the florida community. Funny enough alot of the oligarchs from the ME are buying up property there.

I felt that there is something significant why crypto bros flocked Miami. Rather than San Francisco. After all, the funding availability is in order of magnitude higher in San Francisco.

Also, we got lucky that the crypto meltdown occurred during a bear market. If it had happened during the peak, instead of 70b market loss, we would be looking at half a trillion.

[Edge-]

I felt that there is something significant why crypto bros flocked Miami. Rather than San Francisco. After all, the funding availability is in order of magnitude higher in San Francisco.

Also, we got lucky that the crypto meltdown occurred during a bear market. If it had happened during the peak, instead of 70b market loss, we would be looking at half a trillion.

If I had to take a guess, they're all severely out of shape and suck at ultimate frisbee, so they knew they could never make contacts and network in Silicon Valley/SF.

This is not an entirely serious guess. It's also not entirely a joke, either.

[Rasulis]

If I had to take a guess, they're all severely out of shape and suck at ultimate frisbee, so they knew they could never make contacts and network in Silicon Valley/SF.

This is not an entirely serious guess. It's also not entirely a joke, either.

I was thinking more in term of women outnumbered men in Miami. It is the other way around in San Francisco. The women in San Francisco are not easily impressed by big bank accounts either. No beach culture. Beach bunnies are almost non-existent here. Even in the summer, it is too cold to prance around in skimpy swimsuits. It is all about surfing.

[Edge-]

I was thinking more in term of women outnumbered men in Miami. It is the other way around in San Francisco. The women in San Francisco are not easily impressed by big bank accounts either. No beach culture. Beach bunnies are almost non-existent here. Even in the summer, it is too cold to prance around in skimpy swimsuits. It is all about surfing.

Ah true. I guess with FTX's in-house psychiatrist saying that the company that was compared to a "Chinese harem" was actually quite undersexsed that makes a lot more sense.

[cubby]

A very good article walking through an initial full-evaluation of FTX's actions and possible criminal charges.

Two of many summary nuggets:

Executives at FTX reportedly received a total of $4.1 billion in loans from Alameda Research, including massive personal loans that were likely unsecured. As revealed by bankruptcy proceedings, Bankman-Fried received an incredible $1 billion in personal loans, as well as a $2.3 billion loan to an entity called Paper Bird in which he had 75% control. Director of Engineering Nishad Singh was given a loan of $543 million, while FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame received a $55 million personal loan.

The FTX situation has more smoking guns than a shooting range in Texas, but you might call this one the smoking bazooka – a glaringly obvious sign of criminal intent.

and

Examiners have discovered that Alameda Research invested $11.5 million into the miniscule Farmington State Bank community bank, an amount more than double the bank’s prior net worth. This may be illegal even in a vacuum: As both a non-U.S. entity and an investing firm, Alameda should have cleared a number of regulatory hurdles before it could acquire a controlling interest in a U.S. bank.

In the broader context of the FTX story, the bank stake goes from “questionably legal” to “incredibly ominous.” Controlling a U.S. bank could have allowed Alameda and FTX to engage in any number of further shenanigans. Compare this, for instance, to attempts to buy U.S. banks by the Pakistan-founded Bank for Credit and Commerce International, which U.S. regulators repeatedly blocked.

Once again - I will gladly fork over the $29.95 to whichever investigative journalist gets this long-con bank-heist's entire story into print.

[Poopymonster]

A very good article walking through an initial full-evaluation of FTX's actions and possible criminal charges.

Two of many summary nuggets:

and


Once again - I will gladly fork over the $29.95 to whichever investigative journalist gets this long-con bank-heist's entire story into print.

MMO's second favorite lawyer put out a video on this.

[Edge-]

A very good article walking through an initial full-evaluation of FTX's actions and possible criminal charges.

Two of many summary nuggets:

and


Once again - I will gladly fork over the $29.95 to whichever investigative journalist gets this long-con bank-heist's entire story into print.

I haven't kept up with every twist of this story, but is this largely looking like a massive failure of regulator oversight overall, especially within the crypto space?

Because that's what it sure seems like.

[cubby]

I haven't kept up with every twist of this story, but is this largely looking like a massive failure of regulator oversight overall, especially within the crypto space?

Because that's what it sure seems like.

I think the massive failure of oversight is just the start. It's starting to look like SBF had some kind of complicated long-con going with crypto and ended up in personal control of $3B and almost zero methods of investors getting it back.

- - - Updated - - -

MMO's second favorite lawyer put out a video on this.

Interesting summary. Video does a nice job of summarizing how SBF got to FTX, how FTX got to what amounts to an almost fraudulent (see also bernie madoff) valuation of FTX, and then several faux-illegal uncollateralized loans to SBF and Friends (amounting to almost $4B).

And FTX/SBF's defense basically comes down to "we weren't smart enough to keep track of what was going on" - which is frankly silly, given that leadership cabal were all literal geniuses.

What it really looks like is a long-con based on crypto when SBF realized he couldn't make the big bucks on the arbitrage margins of crypto trading.

And to make it even more insidious, SBF/FTX were incorporated in the Bahamas, which will claim jurisdiction over the entire Bankruptcy affair, taking additional years to sort out, vis a vis SCOTUS rulings. Plus, it's possible SBF gave hundreds of millions to Bahaman officials to keep this messy affair completely messy.

Essentially SBF saw a way to gain a few billion dollars by inflating the value of an entire crypto exchange. And SBF is essentially setting the stage to lay a defense against fraud.

The phrase "ponzi-scheme" shows up a LOT in the lawsuits being filed against SBF/FTX and a number of celebrity endorsers. SBF basically did a Madoff, but did it in a much shorter period of time, and was able to pull out liquid and retainable cash.

There is already uncertainty as to what agency regulates it - FTC or the Commodities Exchange Commission. It's brilliant.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I'll drop some of my deeper thoughts on the subject of crypto. These days it's becoming harder and harder for entrepreneurs to burst onto the scene and make a real name for themselves. The barriers between rich and poor are starting to solidify as wealth accumulates and stagnates at the top. Many young people who are forced into low wage jobs are highly discontent, and looking for other ways to amass a fortune. That's my theory on why crypto is so popular among some of the younger crowd - especially the more tech savvy. They're looking to carve out their own fortune in a space where everything is not already owned by everyone else.

The only problem is that crypto tends to not add any inherent value to itself. And while crypto bros claim the same thing about "old world" currencies is true, at least currencies like the dollar and the euro have vast numbers of people and businesses willing to accept them as payment for goods and services. That's ultimately going to be the biggest barrier for crypto to truly make it as a main stream currency. It's going to require a large number of individuals and businesses to recognize crypto as having a value.

That and - crypto needs to clean house and get rid of all the scams, which account for something like 95%+ of all currencies out there.