The FTX scam, Sam Bankman-Fried, the Clintons and the Democrats

^It's the same ol story. Smart finance bros discover they can get good returns. It happens persistently to the point where they compete with each other as a form of dick measuring and getting the most customers. Said dick measuring also means more bonuses and money to play with. 3-7% returns from something like wholesale Savings and Loans get replaced by 6-15% derivatives that didn't exist 20 years ago.

Eventually all the former talk and practices about oversight or security gets thrown out the window for not "keeping pace." Something happens (it could just be the end to a biz cycle), and the risky bets sour. Geniuses turn into emotional messes with an acute overdependence for months long amphetamine/cocaine usage.

I don't see how algos or contracts as code will solve this. You replace the algos with better performing algos. Tweak quant formulas and hope the fat tails are hidden better.

The difference here is that the crypto industry has long shirked regulation and fought it tooth and nail. I'm now seeing influencers plead and cry for Gensler types to "step in n do sumthin." Wutafugginjoke.

No moral hazard 4 u. Bankers laugh.

 

Some interesting thoughts there. As a middle-aged man with disposable income I do invest and [humble brag]even though works been slow the last month I could still afford to go the World Series and New Zealand next month. [/humble brag] That still makes me skeptical of things like crypto and reading a lot of the stuff of the proponents of it it both sounds like a lot of inside jargon and also a lot of ideology pushing it.

I was talking to a friend last night about the Robinhood Gamestop bubble and that for largely ideological reasons a lot of Millenials and Gen Z were throwing their money into those as a way to Fight the Power! of hedgefunds. Yes hedgefunds and those who run them are frequently unethical but this really seemed like a bad idea to massively inflate a stock that had no fundamentals behind it just to stick it to them. Worse than that those who put in what meager savings they had or even went on margin to do this.

I fully believe in politcal action including putting your money to it that said trying to use finance tools for popular ideological movement just seems like a bad idea especailly when there are no real market fundamentals behind those. The opaqueness of some of these tools make them very susceptible to exploitation but the very nature of them as being chaotic and beyond the control of central banks means that wild swings in value should be expected. The lack of stability is a feature of them.

That's not really a good recipe for doing things like building up longterm wealth.

 

My Alma Mater is one more victim of FTX particularly bad news with our rivalry game coming up.
https://sfist.com/2022/11/11/crypto...cals-17-5-million-stadium-naming-rights-deal/
Crypto Giant FTX’s Massive Implosion Likely Means Curtains for Cal’s $17.5 million Stadium Naming Rights Deal

Cryptocurrency brand FTX went from $32 billion to bankrupt in just nine days, and the Cal football stadium’s $17.5 million naming rights deal is likely to go down the drain with it.

You may have not been following the spectacular flame-out of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which just filed for bankruptcy Friday morning. But if you’re a Cal Bears football fan, or if you have any interest in the financial health of UC Berkeley, you will have some interest in this stunning-to-some, completely predictable to the rest of us crypto downfall. Just 14 months ago, this very crypto company called FTX bought the naming rights to Cal Memorial Stadium for $17.5 million. So… what the heck happens to Cal's stadium now?

For starters: FTX is the very company that ran the Larry David Super Bowl ad seen above, the one that mocked cryptocurrency skeptics, and oh is that irony delicious on so many levels right about now. They were one of the most trusted brands in an industry that rightfully drew mainstream skepticism. But a November 2 article in Coindesk exposed that the whole thing was essentially a check-kiting scheme that appears to have been rife with fraud and manipulation. There was a hastily arranged fire-sale acquisition by their top competitor Binance in place earlier this week, but Binance took a look at FTX’s financials and backed the **** out of that instantly. So FTX is now toast, leaving a trail of burned VC investors, sports stars, and Cal’s case, a naming rights deal.

The Chronicle covers this in an article headlined “FTX bankruptcy hits Bay Area venture capital firms — and the Warriors, Steph Curry and UC Berkeley.” Most of us could care less about the Bay Area venture capital firms, it was a spectacularly stupid investment by the billionaires, c'est la vie. Yes, the Warriors named FTX their “Official Cryptocurrency Platform and NFT Marketplace," but those words don’t even mean anything, it’s like being “the official grape jam of the Winter Olympics.” And yes, Steph Curry did some commercials for them, but whatever. Steph got paid I’m sure.

UC Berkeley is another matter. That’s an actual school. What happens to UC Berkeley and the Cal football stadium now that the naming rights deal has surely collapsed?

We can look at the NBA’s Miami Heat, who also sold their arena’s naming rights to FTX. They dissolved that deal just about 40 minutes before we published this article. Expect the same from Cal soon.

"If there's no company, the branding goes away," Columbia University professor of sports management Joe Favorito tells Business Insider. "The bigger concern is if you sold rights and you're anticipating revenue coming in that has not come in, then you run into a problem."

Cal is likely still owed money on the 10-year deal, and this probably means their sales staff must hit the pavement and look hard for another sponsor. While it was widely reported at the time of the deal that the $17.5 million “will be paid for entirely in cryptocurrency,” that was never entirely true. As the Bay Area News Group explained, “The agreement was brokered by Learfield, Cal’s multimedia rights partner,” and that “FTX will use cryptocurrency to pay Learfield, which will then make annual payments to Cal in cash.”

So UC Berkeley is unlikely to take the bath here. But they are losing out on millions in money they’d been counting on, and we’ll hope they do a little more due diligence before signing another 10-year naming rights deal.

 

Doesn’t seem all that surprising that FTX would donate to the political party currently in charge of the federal agencies and bureaucracy.

I’ve noticed this story making its rounds with conservative media because they are presumably butt hurt they didn’t do well in the midterms.

 

Was it surprising that they donated more to the folks in charge of federal agencies and bureaucracies? That doesn't mean that the Dems turned a blind eye to this.

All this fraud and abuse just seems more like a feature of Crypto and the industry...

 

Iirc it was the ftx.us CEO (subsidiary of FTX that wasn't part of the direct fraud), Alameda&Caroline (Sam's girlfriend-ish) donated ~6.5mil to Democrats.

 

I'm absolutely here for all the HODL doofuses who spent the last 2 years photoshopping laser eyes onto things, screaming incessantly about Fiats & Lambos, boring the entire universe to death talking about the chain and moving to Miami trying to recast Crypto as a Hilary Clinton liberal rug pull.

PLEASE.
CONTINUE.

 

Pot meet kettle.

You really have no shame, its hilarious that a troll as yourself calling somebody else out about posting anything of value or noteworthy.

You do that all day everyday across multiple threads.

 

This reeks heavy of regulatory capture given the positioning and inroads sbf made within Washington. Of course no one cared when it happened during Clinton where Larry Fink types opened a deregulation wave that led to the 08 collapse.

Not saying Republicans are angels but Democrats have their own breed of corruption and both parties have a hand in washing the other that everyday people have come to ignore and resigned to live with.

 

It's the least surprising thing in the world that, given our ridiculous campaign finance laws, crypto money has influenced Democrats and Republicans in ways that are not beneficial to the public. I'm also quite certain that the ATWs and Space Ghosts of the world will learn the absolutely wrong lessons from this.

 

Major is probably the most trustworthy poster on here, the fact that a poster with your track record is calling him out is hilarious.

Can't remember a time he was wrong and that's because he does not comment a lot, but he always brings the facts, unlike you.

I mean, it's almost like you think people don't actually read or remember things, or you just don't realize how easily your lies are recognized.

The fact that you have an issue with Major probably one of the most middle of the road posters who does get into it with anybody really says a lot about you.

 

Im not sure “no one cared”.

However, the OP started a very bias thread title with very little information to support the title…. Even going so far as essentially saying “Yule C”.

Is this really regulatory capture or just a feature of the Cyptro industry? Seems more like the latter from my position but I view Cyptro as being rife with fraud.

 

Makes about as much sense as anything in this silly ass thread. Repug scum OP.

 

100%

 

For those who have followed crypto, regulation has always been a grey area and even the fundamental question of whether it's a security or not is still hotly debated.

People within the industry had been grousing that SBF was carving a regulatory niche by partnering up with lawmakers that would have clear winners and losers not unlike what Big Tech had paved out a few decades ago.

SBF was more a frontman to even more money ranging from VC firms, investment banks and possibly overseas interests.

Opening up the scope of crypto has been the dream of BTC bulls such as a domestic ETF because institutional money dwarfs the scope of retail by an order of magnitude of at least 5-10x.

It shouldn't be a surprise when Sam promised throwing a billion for Dems in the next presidential election, but common folk shouldn't also think that's biz as usual either.

Just because we let tech giants carve up Washington and even the 4th estate shouldn't mean we bend over deeper while wondering, "what else can we do?"

 

Freeskate?

I don’t think the Elon-stans look too good either…. Elon playing 4D chess buying Twitter at the market peak…

 

Okay? People contribute to politicians that they agree with politically.

Further, businesses contribute to politicians and PAC's that they think are beneficial to the interests of their businesses.

Because someone is a conman and supports Democrats, we are to conclude that the Democrats or those that took contributions did something wrong?

I must be missing something here....... this isn't a direct linkage.