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lawpoke87

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Dec 17, 2002
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One of the most bizarre business failures I’ve ever seen.

This is the comment from the court appointed receiver. The same guy who oversaw the Enron cleanup.

 
I don’t know what’s more bizarre. Him trying to cover up his crimes through Twitter or the fact people gave a kid in his 20’s several billion dollars knowing he lived in a house in another country to avoid taxes and regulators with like 8 other people all of whom co-mingled in a poly amorous relationship. Just the stable level headed financial advisor I’m looking for, I can’t believe he had clearance to enter the White House much less tour the country on the same bill as Cabinet secretaries.

And that’s before we talk about Tom Brady and Giselle heavily leveraged with him and May end up being one of the deep pockets that gets hit by the victims.


https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/...ffective-altruism-crypto-bahamas-philanthropy
 
Crypto!

Backed by the full faith and credit of...

Nothing?

A bunch of computers all over the place?

Just plain dumb. Glad I am nowhere close to El Salvador.
 
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I don’t even blame Bitcoin or other crypto currencies here. This appears to be straight up fraud. Customers would send in their money and buy orders to FTX. FTX would never make those purchases. Instead it would transfer those funds (billions) into several of its shell companies where those funds would then be used for personal items. Everybody involved lived in the same office where they ate, slept, etc…. There are also deep political connections which make the story even juicier. In a twist it appears funds were further withdrawn after the bankruptcy filing and the Bahama’s government is involved in said withdrawals. This will make one hell of a movie someday.

On a somewhat related note, bored apes have crashed over the past month :)
 

Crypto? No…..money that’s been used 1000s of year for me. Crypto hasn’t bee around 5 minutes.
 
I don’t even blame Bitcoin or other crypto currencies here. This appears to be straight up fraud. Customers would send in their money and buy orders to FTX. FTX would never make those purchases. Instead it would transfer those funds (billions) into several of its shell companies where those funds would then be used for personal items. Everybody involved lived in the same office where they ate, slept, etc…. There are also deep political connections which make the story even juicier. In a twist it appears funds were further withdrawn after the bankruptcy filing and the Bahama’s government is involved in said withdrawals. This will make one hell of a movie someday.

On a somewhat related note, bored apes have crashed over the past month :)
Don’t forget his business partner’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party …

Not to mention his girlfriend’s father being a friend and colleague of the head of the Biden SEC.
 
Here’s a write up on his ugly 12 yo looking girlfriend

 
As a good friend of mine wrote...

"Yes it was the fraud perpetrated in the context of selling nothing that help expose the fact that it’s nothing. "
 
We were in the Bahamas on vacation at the Baha Mar when he had a big conference at the Grand Hyatt... Lots of heavy hitters, politicians, athletes, and celebs were there... it was fun smoking cigars with some wall street commodities traders that were going to keep their money in oil, gold, and pork bellies..

The security looked like a mob meeting and the valet lot was wall to wall black limos with armed private security that all looked like former FSB/Spetsnatz..

Apparently we missed seeing Billy C by 5 minutes but we did see Brady and Gisele and others i didnt recognize..
 
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Recruiting celebrities to hawk a new investment is nothing new. Elizabeth Holmes used the same scheme for Theranos. She was just sentenced to 11 years for fraud.

"Theranos' board heft was anchored to a 2011 meeting Holmes had with former secretary of State George Shultz, who recruited his fellow former secretary, Henry Kissinger. Other notables around the table were former U.S. senators Sam Nunn and Bill Frist, former secretary of Defense William Perry and current Defense Secretary James Mattis."
 
People seem to fall for Ponzi or pyramid schemes, even under the guise of ‘crypto’.
 
What is a bit unusual is being the second largest donor to a political party while involved in a multi billion dollar Ponzi scheme. Do you simply support that party or are you looking for preferential treatment when your house of cards come tumbling down? Maybe both?
 
What is a bit unusual is being the second largest donor to a political party while involved in a multi billion dollar Ponzi scheme. Do you simply support that party or are you looking for preferential treatment when your house of cards come tumbling down? Maybe both?
I cant wait for the new triangle trade to be exposed...

Dem admimistration sends money to Ukraine..
Ukraine sends money to FTX..
FTX sends money to DNC...
 
Crazy story. Potential losses of $50B. Enron was $23B. Looks like the SEC might be involved. Professionals trusted a small group of “kids” living and working out of a house in the Bahamas. FTX creates its own token and manipulated the value. Then takes that token and uses it as an asset to borrow “real” money. Money is then funneled into a series of related companies.

For irony watch FTX super bowl commercial.
 
Trivia question: what major college football program, not once but twice, has accepted multimillions in scammed Silicon Valley cash in exchange for naming rights to its stadium but when said companies are exposed as criminal enterprises has refused to return that money to the receivers to aid victims despite more than $30 billion in total assets with an average rate of return of 22% over the last ten years?

Answer: Cal. You need to hate that program. In terms of being morally bankrupt, they are up there with Baylor and MSU.
 
I cant wait for the new triangle trade to be exposed...

Dem admimistration sends money to Ukraine..
Ukraine sends money to FTX..
FTX sends money to DNC...
We’ve all seen this move before: Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Ed Buck, and Bernie Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes, Norman Hsu, Hillary Clinton’s finance Chair Hassan Nemazee, James Riady, two Buddhist nuns, Lawrence Penna, Charlie Trie, Johnny Chung, Howard Glicken, over the past thirty years literally dozens of more persons have admitted or been convicted of funding election tampering or campaign finance fraud or tax evasion in connection with receiving funds from criminal organizations or foreign intelligence sources and contributing them to the Clinton family political campaigns in one form or another. Billions of dollars, And that’s just the campaign and soft money. We are not talking about the charitable and business money they take in.
 
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This is some insane fraud. Step back and ignore the crypto aspect of it. Sam was funneling billions of dollars of customer money out of FTX and into another firm, also owned by the same people who control FTX, and using the money to invest it. Then lost a ton of that money.

Here's how corrupt it is... FTX's main competitor bought enough of its coins to own it outright. Within 4-6 hours he reviewed their financial statements and said "nope, not taking this over."

This will end up being a bigger deal than Bernie Madoff's ponzi schemes, IMO.
 
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What is a bit unusual is being the second largest donor to a political party while involved in a multi billion dollar Ponzi scheme. Do you simply support that party or are you looking for preferential treatment when your house of cards come tumbling down? Maybe both?
I don’t think even if he (and he might be ) deep in the pocket of the Dems that they could protect him from something of this massive scale. This isn’t bribable “Look the other way, please” kind of fraud.

And even if it were, he actually gave only a very very small fraction of the funds to the Dems that he promised, so I could see them letting him twist in the wind anyways given this collapse.
 
I don’t think even if he (and he might be ) deep in the pocket of the Dems that they could protect him from something of this massive scale. This isn’t bribable “Look the other way, please” kind of fraud.

And even if it were, he actually gave only a very very small fraction of the funds to the Dems that he promised, so I could see them letting him twist in the wind anyways given this collapse.
I also assume it’s simply too large of a fraud for the $40M he gave to give him much cover. I’m as curious to see what role the Bahama government played.
 
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Look at when crypto grew unchecked and unregulated. It was during the 2015 - 2021 timeframe.
 
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Look at when crypto grew unchecked and unregulated. It was during the 2015 - 2021 timeframe.
Did I miss the significant regulations which have been put in place during the last two years?

Ironic that one of the major attractions of crypto is the lack of government control, oversight, regulations, tracking, etc. Hard for me to feel much sympathy for those who suffered losses. They knew what they were getting into here (or should have). Paying off politicians , celebrities, (even the US Treasury Sec) to appear on the same stage obviously gave the impression of credibility. At the end of the day it was still a bunch of kids operating a company out of a beach house in the Bahamas with a self created and valued crypto coin.
 
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Crypto’s biggest success was its use by organized crime due to its alleged lack of traceability. However recent prosecutions have proven otherwise.
 
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He gave at least $36 million in the 2022 elections, I believe only George Soros gave more.

From what I understand, at least what has been stated publicly, his donations were an effort for him to get politicians to introduce more regulation in crypto. This created enemies for him in crypto as most other CEOs do not want it regulated by governments.

As more comes out, some are wondering if he was trying to buy politicians to keep up the fraud going on.

As for the politicians who received donations from him, the latest news is they're now regifting the money and cutting all ties to him.

I think it'll be a few years before we have an idea of the real details that led to this point.

Is it just me, or is this getting much less coverage than Enron did? Despite it being a larger amount of money stolen from customers.
 
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He gave at least $36 million in the 2022 elections, I believe only George Soros gave more.

From what I understand, at least what has been stated publicly, his donations were an effort for him to get politicians to introduce more regulation in crypto. This created enemies for him in crypto as most other CEOs do not want it regulated by governments.

As more comes out, some are wondering if he was trying to buy politicians to keep up the fraud going on.

As for the politicians who received donations from him, the latest news is they're now regifting the money and cutting all ties to him.

I think it'll be a few years before we have an idea of the real details that led to this point.

Is it just me, or is this getting much less coverage than Enron did? Despite it being a larger amount of money stolen from customers.
My understanding is SBF was seeking certain regulations which would adversely affect crypto platform rival Binance and benefit FTX. Ironically it was Binance which alerted the world to the FTX house of cards.

When high certain powered government officials are involved in scandal the press has a habit of suppressing the story imo. I’ll be interested to see how the news coverage plays out as the story unfolds.
 
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Crypto’s biggest success was its use by organized crime due to its alleged lack of traceability. However recent prosecutions have proven otherwise.
There’s is a difference here which I believe needs to be pointed out. The currency was stolen from a crypto currency exchange and it was the exchange who assisted law enforcement in the tracing. It also has nothing to do with regulations. Still a positive sign the exchange was willing to assist law enforcement even if the assistance was due to the exchange being hacked and robbed. Will exchanges in the future assist governments in sourcing ordinary crypto transactions on their exchanges ? I have my doubts.
 
My understanding is SBF was seeking certain regulations which would adversely affect crypto platform rival Binance and benefit FTX. Ironically it was Binance which alerted the world to the FTX house of cards.

When high certain powered government officials are involved in scandal the press has a habit of suppressing the story imo. I’ll be interested to see how the news coverage plays out as the story unfolds.

Yep regulatory capture. Same reason Facebook has been running non-stop TV ads for the last two years asking for more internet regulation
 
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I think it'll be a few years before we have an idea of the real details that led to this point.

Is it just me, or is this getting much less coverage than Enron did? Despite it being a larger amount of money stolen from customers.
Michael Lewis (Author of The Big Short and Moneyball) is researching a book on FTX. Can't wait to read it.
 
Does anyone else listen to the All-In podcast? It is about investing, business operations, and how successful the 4 of them are. I love it.

Anyway, their two most recent episodes have mostly covered FTX. Their perspectives are incredibly fascinating.
 
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Not going to lie….part of me admires his “I don’t give a F” attitude.


 
You admire his disrespect for congress, that it's ok not to show up in person?
Not the Congress part but the doing every talk show he can all the while knowing he has conducted one of the largest frauds in US history.
 
Not the Congress part but the doing every talk show he can all the while knowing he has conducted one of the largest frauds in US history.
The investors took major risk. Either they were unaware of that risk, or took it anyway. Neither one of those makes me cry, or elicits any great sympathy from me. But he broke several laws, and still doesn't give a f... That eliminates any admiration from me. He has no respect for congress, or the law, or any other institutions or principles.
 
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