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

Sadly, no time for hobbies.

My contribution to this thread is to perform the most basic due diligence and challenge what we are actually implying has happened. To get even a basic summary of what the impropriety is (as it relates to the Clintons / Democrats...its obviously clear the guy defrauded his stakeholders). So far, you seem either unable too do so or are intent to avoid answering, for whatever reason.

 

Your question asked what this had to do with Democrats/Clinton's. I understand you want the grand inquisition and a full court case before coming to a conclusion, but this has never stopped any speculation.

SBF was routinely lobbying Democrats and the SEC for favorable crypto regulations that would box out the competition. The issue is Democrats took in tens of millions (and one prominent poster alleged the Republicans took in millions). The issue is less about Democrats taking in millions and more about the lack of due diligence in an unregulated industry. Yes, there is much conjecture at this point. However again, after Enron/Madoff/Theranos/Epstein, these politicians continue to turn a blind eye to massive fraud.

 

JFC finally.....thank you!

Isn't the point or draw of cryptocurrency that it is unregulated?

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/13/sam...-without-raising-alarm-bells-say-sources.html

The quant trading firm Sam Bankman-Fried founded was able to quietly use customer funds from his exchange FTX in a way that flew under the radar of investors, employees and auditors in the process, according to a source.

The way they did it was by using billions from FTX users without their knowledge, says the source.

The crypto exchange drastically underestimated the amount FTX needed to keep on hand if someone wanted to cash out, according to the source. Trading platforms are required by their regulators to hold enough money to match what customers deposit. They need the same cushion, if not more, in the event that a user borrows money to make a trade. According to the source, FTX did not have nearly enough on hand.

Its biggest customer, according to a source, was the hedge fund Alameda. The fund was partially able to cover up this activity because the assets it was trading never touched its own balance sheet. Instead of holding any money, it was borrowing billions from FTX users, then trading it, the source said.

None of this was disclosed to customers, to CNBC’s knowledge. In general, mixing customer funds with counterparties and trading them without explicit consent, according to U.S. securities law, is illegal. It also violates FTX’s terms of service. Sam Bankman-Fried declined to comment on allegations of misappropriating customer funds, but did say its recent bankruptcy filing was a result of issues with a leveraged trading position.​

 

This is up for debate with the common crypto folks. Let me add that the people (all of them) taking this money not only should have been doing their due diligence, they should have also been very concerned with the whole operation. Don't forget allegedly millions of American funded Ukrainian money was lost.

I am less concerned with the politicians. I have a low opinion of most politicians and they do what serves them best. My concern is the SEC and SEC chairmen Gary Gensler. A well respected Bitcoin attorney has convinced me Gensler is a well to do respectable person. My understanding is Gensler (and I agree with him) believes Bitcoin is not a security but everything else is pretty much a security. By this thought, everything but Bitcoin should be a security (therefore regulated). If this is indeed Genslers position, WTF was he doing courting SBF and FTX?

There are some conspiracy theories out there of all sorts. ATW posted above a lot of the smoke, and where there is smoke.... Keep in mind this story dates back several months ago when Three Arrows Capital, Voyager, Celcius, ect all were exposed for the same fraud and the allegation goes FTX facilitated this ponzi collapse, so again, regulators should have smoked our FTX when these other exchanges went under. This further goes down the rabbit hole with CZ/Binance (think China/CPP) pulling the liquidity from FTX last week. Additionally Binance has invested in Musks' Twitter. Musk has had a run in with SBF/FTX recently over Twitter investment opportunity. And Musk certainly has a lot to gain by embarrassing the SEC and Democrats.

There are lots of different threads to this story and its going to be interesting to see how it all plays out, if its not over yet.

 

**** scammer Chamath can smell one of his own kind.

 

If your girlfriend is your biggest customer, then its in fact a partnership.

Mainstream media is trash. Only CNBC would try to paint SBF/FTX as victims.

 

I can certainly accept that this was a scam and that Bankman-Fried intention was to scam people. I'm not a Crypto guy and don't follow it closely. I had though heard of him associated Effective Altruism which is something I'm interested in. I am curious about the philosophic questions that MacAskill's strategy of convincing smart capable people like Bankman-Fried who very well might've started out wanting to do good to go into finance instead of going straight to traditional altruism. The argument that MacAskill makes is that well meaning altruism still needs money so why not convince smart people to make a lot of money and then use that to do good. For Bankman-Fried maybe this is a case of the temptations of money were to great to get corrupted.

I can also believe that Bankman-Fried donated a lot of money to the Democrats. I find it hard to though to say this is then about Democratic corruption. The political parties raise a lot of money from all sorts of sources that doesn't mean they are responsible or tied ot when some of those sources are corrupt. At the moment it seems like a lot of speculation regarding if there was a quid quo pro regarding Democratic politicians.

 

Seeing what's happening with FTX and other crypto trading is again why I've been personally skeptical of crypto currency and why I think it will be very problematic to consider them taking the place of fiat currencies.

 

There's a lot of connections with SBF coming up from Crypto Twitter. A promised billion to the DNC (not anymore lol) is no joke. I hope this heat will cause a true reckoning in crypto. Many victims are clamoring for it, and they'll love it until they hate it. I can see crypto backsliding into Silk Road black market degeneracy and piracy without regs.

Most speculative but he probably ate some poison, was forced to swallow more poison during the Tera luna aftermath (voyager?) and pissed off CZ enough to get caught. That Luna collapse looked dire before SBF secured funding and tried to look like the JPM of crypto. Instead he pulled a TARP and effectively covered his own dead bodies.

Might've got away with it too. Crypto was starting to pop before CZ's tweets.

The stock market is trying to save their year end bonuses by fighting the fed and rallying off a weak dollar. I see more of the same pump and dump with plenty of headfakes until another "black swan" or direct Fed intervention.

SPAC-lord Chamath pouring gasoline crying smoke that isn't coming from his dumpster fire SPACs.

Like the pot calling the kettle burnt?

 

Is this the time where @AroundTheWorld discovers Crypto Twitter?

 

This has Hunter Biden’s name all over it.

Check the laptop.