Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) debacle with FTX (1 Viewer)

[thecatch]

SBF got obliterated by the prosecution on cross during a hearing yesterday, and Michael Lewis is still fawning over him on Lewis's podcast today and even accuses the judge of being biased at one point. I have totally lost my previously extremely high level of respect for him.

 

[DA RAIDERS]

SBF himself will be testifying the next two days, He'll be up there, vibrating in the witness box.

Every sentence this guy speaks usually begins with "So...um, like you know...."

The court stenographer should program that into her hotkeys.

Josh mcdaniels ?

 

[Poke_4_Life]

SBF got obliterated by the prosecution on cross during a hearing yesterday, and Michael Lewis is still fawning over him on Lewis's podcast today and even accuses the judge of being biased at one point. I have totally lost my previously extremely high level of respect for him.

For the first part, I expect it to be even worse today in front of the jury. Going to be an epic collapse.

For the second part, I listened to the podcast also and totally agree although I didn't have a high level of respect for him to begin with.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

I just can't understand being attracted to Ellison. She was with another boyfriend when she got raided, according to testimony. She's one of the strangest looking creatures I've ever seen.

Boys can be gold diggers too?

Not SBF obviously, but the other guy.

 

[CletiusMaximus]

SBF got obliterated by the prosecution on cross during a hearing yesterday, and Michael Lewis is still fawning over him on Lewis's podcast today and even accuses the judge of being biased at one point. I have totally lost my previously extremely high level of respect for him.

Same. I was a big fan - read several of his books and am reading one now. I was leaning against this new book after the 60 minutes episode but after hearing that podcast this morning there is no way I would read his book about FTX. Lewis is completely charmed by SBF to the point he's lost all credibility.

 

[massraider]

Sam Bankman-Fried doesn’t recall

Here comes a special boy.

www.theverge.com

This writer does NOT think SBF is doing well

 

[General Malaise]

Sam Bankman-Fried doesn’t recall

Here comes a special boy.

www.theverge.com

This writer does NOT think SBF is doing well

Oh man......this part:

There was more. Had Bankman-Fried referred to FTX as safe in numerous public statements? He couldn’t recall. Did he remember tweeting that the acceptable number of issues when it comes to a client’s money is zero? He couldn’t recall. Had he tweeted that lying to customers broke “sacred rules of conduct” everyone knows to follow? He couldn’t recall. Did he remember that he supported regulation only as long as it protected consumers? He couldn’t recall.

Every single question was followed by evidence of Bankman-Fried publicly using the precise language Sassoon had offered. Several journalists were in the courthouse — some even in the courtroom — as their articles about Bankman-Fried were read aloud. It was obvious to everyone in the courtroom what was going on. Bankman-Fried stuck to his “do not recalls” anyway.

Still, he hadn’t made any of those statements under legal oath, had he? Well… that remained true until we reached his Congressional testimony. Bankman-Fried read aloud testimony he’d submitted to Congress: that trading platforms’ obligations included maintaining sufficient liquid assets that customers could withdraw on request. That platforms should ensure appropriate bookkeeping to prevent misuse of customer assets. Ensuring appropriate management of risks. Avoiding conflicts of interest.

Sassoon immediately followed this with direct messages Bankman-Fried had sent to Kelsey Piper, in which he said this was all just public relations, and “**** regulators.”

At this point, my notes simply read “Jesus Bleepity Christ” in all caps.

This guy is fried.

 

[beer 30]

This guy is fried.

Rightfully so, him and all the rest of his brood.

 

[thecatch]

Juries can be weird, though.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Sam Bankman-Fried doesn’t recall

Here comes a special boy.

www.theverge.com

This writer does NOT think SBF is doing well

Oh man......this part:

There was more. Had Bankman-Fried referred to FTX as safe in numerous public statements? He couldn’t recall. Did he remember tweeting that the acceptable number of issues when it comes to a client’s money is zero? He couldn’t recall. Had he tweeted that lying to customers broke “sacred rules of conduct” everyone knows to follow? He couldn’t recall. Did he remember that he supported regulation only as long as it protected consumers? He couldn’t recall.

Every single question was followed by evidence of Bankman-Fried publicly using the precise language Sassoon had offered. Several journalists were in the courthouse — some even in the courtroom — as their articles about Bankman-Fried were read aloud. It was obvious to everyone in the courtroom what was going on. Bankman-Fried stuck to his “do not recalls” anyway.

Still, he hadn’t made any of those statements under legal oath, had he? Well… that remained true until we reached his Congressional testimony. Bankman-Fried read aloud testimony he’d submitted to Congress: that trading platforms’ obligations included maintaining sufficient liquid assets that customers could withdraw on request. That platforms should ensure appropriate bookkeeping to prevent misuse of customer assets. Ensuring appropriate management of risks. Avoiding conflicts of interest.

Sassoon immediately followed this with direct messages Bankman-Fried had sent to Kelsey Piper, in which he said this was all just public relations, and “**** regulators.”

At this point, my notes simply read “Jesus Bleepity Christ” in all caps.

This guy is fried.

This Sam Bankman-Fried guy doesn't sound like he's completely on the up-and-up.

 

[massraider]

Juries can be weird, though.

According to the author, this jury has been visibly annoyed with him.

 

[thecatch]

Juries can be weird, though.

According to the author, this jury has been visibly annoyed with him.

I saw, but that kind of tea leaf-reading isn't always very indicative of how they are going to vote on the charges.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

This guy is fried.

Yes we know. And I think Fried is in big trouble too.

 

[GroveDiesel]

What’s kind of wild is that this guy is going to (rightfully) go to prison for a very long time.

But when Wells Fargo fraudulently creates millions of fake accounts costing customers billions of dollars, a large fine is issued but nobody goes to prison.

 

[Dickies]

What’s kind of wild is that this guy is going to (rightfully) go to prison for a very long time.

But when Wells Fargo fraudulently creates millions of fake accounts costing customers billions of dollars, a large fine is issued but nobody goes to prison.

Usually the fine is smaller than the profit generated by the fraud. Cost of doing business.

 

[GreenNGold]

He has been found guilty on all 7 counts.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Good.

 

[Ridgeback]

Hopefully he rots there for the rest of his life. But I'm sure he'll get paroled within 10 years while staying at a country club for a prison.

 

[Redwes25]

Hopefully he rots there for the rest of his life. But I'm sure he'll get paroled within 10 years while staying at a country club for a prison.

OFFICE SPACE: Lawyer's Advice

Scene from OFFICE SPACEOF COURSELY I DO NOT OWN THIS MATERIAL, IM JUST A WEED SMOKER

m.youtube.com

 

[massraider]

Hopefully he rots there for the rest of his life. But I'm sure he'll get paroled within 10 years while staying at a country club for a prison.

I think his life is pretty much over at this point, whatever time he spends in prison. I am on the side that the punishment will be fair, in total

 

[Major]

Glad he's not walking. Seeing the love fest that Michael Lewis was showing for him I was afraid there was some info I was missing. I don't think he'll get the Madoff treatment but a stiff sentencing seems in order (25 years or so).

 

[Sand]

What’s kind of wild is that this guy is going to (rightfully) go to prison for a very long time.

But when Wells Fargo fraudulently creates millions of fake accounts costing customers billions of dollars, a large fine is issued but nobody goes to prison.

Heck, HSBC was found guilty of laundering billions for the Mexican cartels. No jail time anywhere. The...uhhh...people, yeah people, in charge at the time regarded HSBC as systemically risky, so went easy on them. That still pisses me off.

On this one I'm very interested to see what SBF's henchmen get. How much is turning worth in jail time currency?

 

[Desert_Power]

Glad the justice system got this one right. Dude committed fraud on a massive scale and should be buried under the prison.

 

[Yo Mama]

Hopefully he rots there for the rest of his life. But I'm sure he'll get paroled within 10 years while staying at a country club for a prison.

I think his life is pretty much over at this point, whatever time he spends in prison. I am on the side that the punishment will be fair, in total

He made a lot of rich, powerful, political (on both sides) friends with all that money. He’ll find his way into a soft landing.

 

[Desert_Power]

Hopefully he rots there for the rest of his life. But I'm sure he'll get paroled within 10 years while staying at a country club for a prison.

I think his life is pretty much over at this point, whatever time he spends in prison. I am on the side that the punishment will be fair, in total

He made a lot of rich, powerful, political (on both sides) friends with all that money. He’ll find his way into a soft landing.

That's why he needs to stay behind bars.

 

[Desert_Power]

What’s kind of wild is that this guy is going to (rightfully) go to prison for a very long time.

But when Wells Fargo fraudulently creates millions of fake accounts costing customers billions of dollars, a large fine is issued but nobody goes to prison.

Heck, HSBC was found guilty of laundering billions for the Mexican cartels. No jail time anywhere. The...uhhh...people, yeah people, in charge at the time regarded HSBC as systemically risky, so went easy on them. That still pisses me off.

On this one I'm very interested to see what SBF's henchmen get. How much is turning worth in jail time currency?

There's a whole industry of plausible deniability and diffusion of responsibility going on in these larger financial firms.

SBF was admitting his guilt on freaking podcasts.

 

[Bozeman Bruiser]

He will likely be pardoned on January 19 2025.

 

[The Z Machine]

He will likely be pardoned on January 19 2025.

That makes me want to vomit.

 

[John123]

One of the more shocking things to me about this one was the speed at which it was resolved. Most high profile trials take years to happen. He got his verdict literally like a year to the day since this thing hit the news. That's crazy fast.

 

[massraider]

He will likely be pardoned on January 19 2025.

I'll give you odds. Name the amount.

Whatever 'friends' SBF had were rented, not bought. And they gone now.

Unless you guys have seen a video from Tom Brady praying for a lighter sentence that I might have missed?

 

[General Malaise]

One of the more shocking things to me about this one was the speed at which it was resolved. Most high profile trials take years to happen. He got his verdict literally like a year to the day since this thing hit the news. That's crazy fast.

The evidence was pretty stacked against him, his colleagues all rushed to turn on him and his defense was pathetic. How long did the jurors need to convict him?

 

[Sand]

He will likely be pardoned on January 19 2025.

I'll give you odds. Name the amount.

Whatever 'friends' SBF had were rented, not bought. And they gone now.

Unless you guys have seen a video from Tom Brady praying for a lighter sentence that I might have missed?

Funny thing is if this guy kept his business boring - scrape in the 400M in fees every year and subsist off of that he'd be golden. Literally.

One small caveat to all this is after all is said and done it's quite likely that customers will be made 100% whole. They made one bet on AI that looks to pay off bigly and get them back to even.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

Anything that becomes an overnight sensation and takes over all the media air time for commercials 24/7, you know it's not gonna end well

FTX reminds me of Ultimate Bet/PokerStars back when the Feds shut those guys down.
Way different verticals but still I see similarities and there are other examples of this.
I'm shocked DraftKings is able to fully function like it does. I'm waiting for the FF community to get hammered one of these years.

 

[massraider]

Everyone goes on and on

One of the more shocking things to me about this one was the speed at which it was resolved. Most high profile trials take years to happen. He got his verdict literally like a year to the day since this thing hit the news. That's crazy fast.

The evidence was pretty stacked against him, his colleagues all rushed to turn on him and his defense was pathetic. How long did the jurors need to convict him?

Four hours, including dinner.

Funny thing is if this guy kept his business boring - scrape in the 400M in fees every year and subsist off of that he'd be golden. Literally

Yeah maybe.

I kind of think people got a little over their skis about what a super genius he was.

Went to MIT, worked at Jane St, OK that's impressive. He's intelligent. But what's evidence that he's any smarter than any other crypto bro that set up an exchange and then stole money ?

Everyone remember how he got started after Jane St? He had an arbitrage play. Buying crypto in one place, and re-selling it elsewhere. That little loophole closed, and they moved right into opening an exchange, and immediately started using their little made up coin as collateral. Making money on an arbitrage play, and then stealing money is all the proof we have that he's really smart.

We have much more evidence that he's a GD moron.

 

[Sand]

Everyone goes on and on

One of the more shocking things to me about this one was the speed at which it was resolved. Most high profile trials take years to happen. He got his verdict literally like a year to the day since this thing hit the news. That's crazy fast.

The evidence was pretty stacked against him, his colleagues all rushed to turn on him and his defense was pathetic. How long did the jurors need to convict him?

Four hours, including dinner.

Funny thing is if this guy kept his business boring - scrape in the 400M in fees every year and subsist off of that he'd be golden. Literally

Yeah maybe.

I kind of think people got a little over their skis about what a super genius he was.

Went to MIT, worked at Jane St, OK that's impressive. He's intelligent. But what's evidence that he's any smarter than any other crypto bro that set up an exchange and then stole money ?

Everyone remember how he got started after Jane St? He had an arbitrage play. Buying crypto in one place, and re-selling it elsewhere. That little loophole closed, and they moved right into opening an exchange, and immediately started using their little made up coin as collateral. Making money on an arbitrage play, and then stealing money is all the proof we have that he's really smart.

We have much more evidence that he's a GD moron.

The fee based profit from the FTX platform was ~400M a year before it imploded, if memory serves. It was a good, successful business. It was all the extraneous crap that got him in the pokey.

 

[massraider]

The fee based profit from the FTX platform was ~400M a year before it imploded, if memory serves. It was a good, successful business.

For how long? One guy rendered their token worthless with a single tweet.

I am not disagreeing with you that they had something good and wrecked it, to be clear., You 100% right.

I dunno how stable that business was (in fact lol using the word 'stable' with anything crypto), and their fees all came on there trades where they let people leverage real money with their fake money, and crypto was going up for everyone, so it was a good business. Was it fundamentally sound? I doubt it.

 

[John123]

One of the more shocking things to me about this one was the speed at which it was resolved. Most high profile trials take years to happen. He got his verdict literally like a year to the day since this thing hit the news. That's crazy fast.

The evidence was pretty stacked against him, his colleagues all rushed to turn on him and his defense was pathetic. How long did the jurors need to convict him?

I'm not surprised at how quickly the jurors reached a verdict. I'm surprised at how quickly this went to trial.

 

[Capella]

One of the more shocking things to me about this one was the speed at which it was resolved. Most high profile trials take years to happen. He got his verdict literally like a year to the day since this thing hit the news. That's crazy fast.

The evidence was pretty stacked against him, his colleagues all rushed to turn on him and his defense was pathetic. How long did the jurors need to convict him?

Guarantee you they spent 3 of those hours having lunch.

 

[CletiusMaximus]

One of the more shocking things to me about this one was the speed at which it was resolved. Most high profile trials take years to happen. He got his verdict literally like a year to the day since this thing hit the news. That's crazy fast.

The evidence was pretty stacked against him, his colleagues all rushed to turn on him and his defense was pathetic. How long did the jurors need to convict him?

I'm not surprised at how quickly the jurors reached a verdict. I'm surprised at how quickly this went to trial.

Compare to Elizabeth Holmes - The WSJ bombshell article was published in 2015; lots of civil / securities lawsuits and fines for a few years but the criminal indictment came in summer of 2018, the trial began in August of 2021 and the jury verdict came in January 2022 (there was a covid delay in there, and she had a baby.) Her sentencing was delayed until November of 2022 and she did not have to surrender to custody until May of 2023. The speed of the SBF criminal process is shocking in comparison. Of course, one big difference is he was not out on bail the whole time like she was.

 

[massraider]

and she had a baby

Just an awful person.

 

[titusbramble]

FTX reminds me of Ultimate Bet/PokerStars back when the Feds shut those guys down.

Those two sites are literal polar opposites in terms of how they handled their customers, at least at the time you mention. UB were scummy as hell, but Stars were extremely reliable and remain so in terms of balance security, even if their customer service has gone down the toilet since the initial owners sold up. Could be you are thinking of a different site and/or are misremembering, but nobody in the poker community would ever compare UB to Stars with a straight face

 

[FairWarning]

Anything that becomes an overnight sensation and takes over all the media air time for commercials 24/7, you know it's not gonna end well

FTX reminds me of Ultimate Bet/PokerStars back when the Feds shut those guys down.
Way different verticals but still I see similarities and there are other examples of this.
I'm shocked DraftKings is able to fully function like it does. I'm waiting for the FF community to get hammered one of these years.

I’m not sure how DK and other fantasy sites can operate in states where online gaming is illegal. All I can think of it’s considered skill vs gaming, so its a different licensing deal.

 

[massraider]

I’m not sure how DK and other fantasy sites can operate in states where online gaming is illegal. All I can think of it’s considered skill vs gaming, so its a different licensing deal.

they cannot. When my brother accesses DK in California on his phone, he can'y use it.

I am sure there are workarounds, but that's what I have seen

 

[Sand]

I’m not sure how DK and other fantasy sites can operate in states where online gaming is illegal. All I can think of it’s considered skill vs gaming, so its a different licensing deal.

they cannot. When my brother accesses DK in California on his phone, he can'y use it.

I am sure there are workarounds, but that's what I have seen

When I access here in Alabama all I get is scripture and hunting gear commercials.

 

[The Z Machine]

When I access here in Alabama all I get is scripture and hunting gear commercials.

but that's like most of the internet, right?

 

[FairWarning]

I’m not sure how DK and other fantasy sites can operate in states where online gaming is illegal. All I can think of it’s considered skill vs gaming, so its a different licensing deal.

they cannot. When my brother accesses DK in California on his phone, he can'y use it.

I am sure there are workarounds, but that's what I have seen

Actually vpn’s don’t work.

 

[BassNBrew]

Anything that becomes an overnight sensation and takes over all the media air time for commercials 24/7, you know it's not gonna end well

FTX reminds me of Ultimate Bet/PokerStars back when the Feds shut those guys down.
Way different verticals but still I see similarities and there are other examples of this.
I'm shocked DraftKings is able to fully function like it does. I'm waiting for the FF community to get hammered one of these years.

I’m not sure how DK and other fantasy sites can operate in states where online gaming is illegal. All I can think of it’s considered skill vs gaming, so its a different licensing deal.

Yup...game of skill

 

[dickey moe]

Will his parents be facing any charges? They hafta be guilty of something, right?

 

[thecatch]

Will his parents be facing any charges? They hafta be guilty of something, right?

It’s unlikely but hopefully the bankruptcy trustee can hit them with a fraudulent transfer action or something.

 

[D-Day]

and she had a baby

Just an awful person.

Please don’t take this personally, but I think you are being a little harsh and presumptive to write off a person so early in life. I honestly believe that the baby can turn its life around in due time.