There's quite a bit of interest in the FTX (Sam Bankman-Fried) trial just starting. One thing you hear a lot is how complex everything is, how convoluted and intricate it all is. The more I think of it, it seems really simple and increasingly clear...
They funneled money into the exchange, then, against the user agreement I assume, used it to buy huge things and used it to recklessly make terrible investments. Hence, they lost the money and the house of cards came crashing down.
Bankman-Fried will claim a lot of things, namely incompetence and ignorance and good intentions. The good intentions will likely be a key one...without intent, even a criminal act is not a crime. That's true, but negligence (i.e. incompetence and ignorance) does fulfill the intent qualification for a crime. You can't say you robbed the bank with the intent of giving the money away and expect that to fly.
So, what will happen is illustrated in the image I drew last month. Caroline evidently has already said, "Blame Sam," because it seems she's to testify against him. Sam will have nothing else to do but try to pin the misuse of funds on Alameda/Caroline. Sad, all the way around.
That's about right. His old college roommate testified against him yesterday. Unfortunately, you don't hear much talk about what I'm really interested in: Campaign contributions. In an honest system, the small fish get to make deals against the bigger fish: SBF testifying against Gary Gensler. But, it's not a fair system. Gensler is on the same team as the prosecution.
reply
The real winner in the FTX story was Larry David. He got paid $10 million to tell everyone to avoid crypto. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH5-SR--Jt0
reply
"naah, I don't think so."
Larry is the man.
reply
still the best bitcoin ad ever.
i retweeted it at the the time - not knowing SBF was a degen the whole time
reply
When I see FTX I always think about Tom Brady, the guy was at the peak of his life and then SBF came lol 😂
Millions evaporated, reputation crushed and hot wife gone. Always remember kids, this is what crypto does to your life, it's worse than drugs.
Sam...? Sam? Where you're going bro?
reply
I've always found the expression 'millions evaporated' kinda funny. It makes it sound like those dollars vanished when really they just moved into someone else's bank account.
reply
Right! Particularly in this case.
But when market crashes and headlines say "The market lost 10 billions in one day" it actually didn't lose anything, it's just valuation that disappears.
reply
The users will always be the one to lose more
reply
I really feel sorry for the users, these legal proceedings are just a way to get lawyers paid and eat into what little was recovered after the accused raided the piggy bank, the only ones who win are those hired to represent each party and the rest just get to say their say in an expensive therapy session that is made public
reply
9 of this staff flipped - sounds pretty hard to be 'not guilty'
reply
The worst outcome might be either the trial will take so long that it will be meaningless in the end, or he paid enough money to key people that he might just be let off. Now let's hope that there will be some justice in this, but it seems with the increasing clown world justice might not be so easy to reach?
reply
It's all about the blame game as both counsel will go at each other
reply