In five years, this guy founded a hedge fund that made millions of dollars, a crypto exchange that handles billions of dollars in trades, and became a mega-billionaire...and it came crashing down because he was secretly stealing user funds.
I don't want to sympathize with SBF, but I'm wondering if this is a problem of someone that amassed excessive money and power so fast that it screwed with his neurons to the point of him thinking he will get away with an obvious con..
There is an ongoing theory that his planned defense strat is to claim that his inhibition / empathy brain function was impaired as a result of being prescribed Adderall and EMSAM simultaneously.
> In five years, this guy founded a hedge fund that made millions of dollars, a crypto exchange that handles billions of dollars in trades, and became a mega-billionaire...and it came crashing down because he was secretly stealing user funds.
That is not what happened. Alameda was a scam tied to the tether fraud from the very start. The entire thing was a con. Alameda was pump and dumping shitcoins before FTX was even created.
> In five years, this guy founded a hedge fund that made millions of dollars
remains to be seen. May not even be true. Some say his "kimchi trade" story is bullshit.
The leaflet where he "sold" Alameda to investors is more than extremely fishy: it looked like a scam planned from the beginning.
> a crypto exchange that handles billions of dollars in trades
remains to be shown too. A lot was certainly fake volume. For all we know most trades that happened where actually dumping shitcoins they pumped on their users. It's not known where all the supposed users are nor how much was really trader there.
It is very likely the volume was in part fake, to sucker investors in.
> and became a mega-billionaire
he never was that. That was a lie too. If at any time he had billions, that was stolen money and valuation based on lies and tokens he created out of his (now sorry) arse.
> and it came crashing down because he was secretly stealing user funds.
It came crashing down when it shouldn't have because the dude was bribing officials (it's now proven) to try to regulatory capture a big part of the crypto exchange market by having a legislation passed that would have killed Binance.
And CZ from Binance exposed the ponzi SBF was running since day one.
The indictment clearly specify that there was a conspiracy to defraud both investors and customers.
I don't buy for a second that he was running a legit scheme, that he was legally worth billions (it was all fake valuation) and that someone a few trades went wrong.
I don't think they're suggesting it was "a few trades gone wrong" but asking if the amount of money SBF was handling corrupted him, which is compatible with your read of the situation. I think it's an interesting question; it goes to the heart of the "earn to give" strategy sometimes espoused by Effective Altruism advocates, and the pitch of "good guy billionaires" like Musk, Gates, or Branson. It's entirely possible SBF was always a piece of work, but that the money enabled him to be his worst self.
I sense a certain echo of Anatole France's famous observation here, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread." But more specifically I would think that going "to prison for decades for stealing chips" is the perverse outcome of mandatory minimum sentences and three-strikes laws, which tough-on-crime politicians enacted to make their constituents feel like someone was "doing something" (making judges who take the actual facts of a given case mostly powerless). But SBF will of course be able to hire the best lawyers stolen billions can buy, and thus is likely to get off as lightly as a very rich person can. Just a guess, maybe he'll get decades, but I am not holding my breath.
And the fact that he does not even own that $4M house. And the people who live in that house does not even own it completely either, but instead lease (or some other financial arrangement) the house, only as long as they are employed at the owner of that house.
I heard people speculating his parents may not own the house, but I have a hard time believing that would be agreeable to the court (unless perhaps Standford is one of the signatories that remains anonymous, and why would they be?). Has this been confirmed?
The only "news" source I found discussing this was also speculating, and was a right-wing political blog. Not a source I'm comfortable relying on (even if it had been a left-wing or centrist political blog). But I didn't look very hard; open to being corrected if someone has a good source on this.
This has been refuted over and over again by people who aren't entirely clueless.
What's even supposed to be the logic here? Where do you think that "$250M" figure comes? Why are you assigning some special meaning to it? It's pulled out of the ass of the very same judge who granted SBF bail.
Just saying "refuted" or "debunked" without actually refuting of debunking a claim makes it sound like you are trying to gaslight people. Would you care to provide these refutations that you speak of?
Thanks for providing the actual refutation that you speak of. The refutation just reiterates the fact that he did not have to pay a $250M bond. Your refutation also mentions that the house bond isn't actually posted yet. Regular crooks don't get the same treatment of walking out of jail before actually paying posting the bond money. Usually with a 10% fee for the bondsman. Do you think SBF will have to pay 10% to someone based on $4M of the house value or $250M?
> Regular crooks don't get the same treatment of walking out of jail before actually paying posting the bond money. Usually with a 10% fee for the bondsman
Bail bondsmen basically do not exist in federal courts.
But sure, regular crooks generally don't end up in federal courts. I think that's probably where this confusion stems from.
I suspect part of the reason he will plead to a middling sentence is because those in power don't want money laundering and political donations thoroughly exposed in court.
Divide the amount of money his customers lost by the average hourly wage, then double it (as a punitive measure) to get the minimum prison time. 100+ years seems like a reasonable sentence in this case.
Every dollar stolen/defrauded represents minutes of someone's life that they'll never get back.
> A healthy take would be "Hopefully everyone gets a reasonable sentence, SBF included"
How about "SBF getting an unreasonable sentence, hopefully, would be the catalyst of change towards every convicted criminal getting reasonable sentences"?
"Kaplan was assigned to the case on Tuesday, after the original judge recused herself because her husband's law firm had advised FTX before its collapse."
Davis Polk may have represented FTX but it also advised BlockFi in BlockFi's transactions with FTX. Judge Abrams in her 23 December docket entry wrote that her husband's firm represented FTX in 2021 "as well as represented parties adverse to FTX".
23 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 53.2 ms ] threadI don't want to sympathize with SBF, but I'm wondering if this is a problem of someone that amassed excessive money and power so fast that it screwed with his neurons to the point of him thinking he will get away with an obvious con..
https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2008/0215/p505.html
That is not what happened. Alameda was a scam tied to the tether fraud from the very start. The entire thing was a con. Alameda was pump and dumping shitcoins before FTX was even created.
> In five years, this guy founded a hedge fund that made millions of dollars
remains to be seen. May not even be true. Some say his "kimchi trade" story is bullshit.
The leaflet where he "sold" Alameda to investors is more than extremely fishy: it looked like a scam planned from the beginning.
> a crypto exchange that handles billions of dollars in trades
remains to be shown too. A lot was certainly fake volume. For all we know most trades that happened where actually dumping shitcoins they pumped on their users. It's not known where all the supposed users are nor how much was really trader there.
It is very likely the volume was in part fake, to sucker investors in.
> and became a mega-billionaire
he never was that. That was a lie too. If at any time he had billions, that was stolen money and valuation based on lies and tokens he created out of his (now sorry) arse.
> and it came crashing down because he was secretly stealing user funds.
It came crashing down when it shouldn't have because the dude was bribing officials (it's now proven) to try to regulatory capture a big part of the crypto exchange market by having a legislation passed that would have killed Binance.
And CZ from Binance exposed the ponzi SBF was running since day one.
The indictment clearly specify that there was a conspiracy to defraud both investors and customers.
I don't buy for a second that he was running a legit scheme, that he was legally worth billions (it was all fake valuation) and that someone a few trades went wrong.
That's not at all what happened.
Poor people go to prison for decades for stealing chips from gas stations... crime is wrong, but what SBF did to millions deserves a sizable sentence.
The only "news" source I found discussing this was also speculating, and was a right-wing political blog. Not a source I'm comfortable relying on (even if it had been a left-wing or centrist political blog). But I didn't look very hard; open to being corrected if someone has a good source on this.
What's even supposed to be the logic here? Where do you think that "$250M" figure comes? Why are you assigning some special meaning to it? It's pulled out of the ass of the very same judge who granted SBF bail.
Here's a longer explanation by a former federal prosecutor, current criminal defence attorney https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/how-did-sam-bankman-fried-...
Bail bondsmen basically do not exist in federal courts.
But sure, regular crooks generally don't end up in federal courts. I think that's probably where this confusion stems from.
A healthy take would be "Hopefully everyone gets a reasonable sentence, SBF included"
Every dollar stolen/defrauded represents minutes of someone's life that they'll never get back.
How about "SBF getting an unreasonable sentence, hopefully, would be the catalyst of change towards every convicted criminal getting reasonable sentences"?
If SBF gets, say, 10 years (a similar sentence to Holmes), what will you say then?
Davis Polk may have represented FTX but it also advised BlockFi in BlockFi's transactions with FTX. Judge Abrams in her 23 December docket entry wrote that her husband's firm represented FTX in 2021 "as well as represented parties adverse to FTX".