Sam Bankman-Fried

Samson said:
Of course I do. I have traded countless derivatives and markets. I have several times found the money gone.
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Was the money stolen? There's a difference between making a bad trade and having your money stolen. You get that right? The former is on you the latter isn't.
 
Samson said:
That is a fair perspective. My take tends to be a fool and his money are soon parted, but I admit to knowing several of the younger generation who are handicapped in life by housing costs, and see crypto as a fast track.
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Just because someone is a fool, you don't have a right to steal from them. They didn't lose money because of risk; the victims lost money because someone took it. SBF acted with malicious intent to take money that did not belong to him. That is not an investment risk.
 
Samson said:
Yes. But there is strict liability inherent. This is not theft by an established institutional banker, but a pre mature frontal cortex entrepreneur in his first offence. He is no Bernie Madoff.
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You're right Madoff got 150 years, SBF only got 25.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...man-fried-ftx-collapse-crypto-victims/672868/

The people who lost money weren't all large figure investors. Many were investing in crypto because SBF and others sold them on the idea that it was an alternative to conventional investments. He tricked them into thinking it was a better investment and then stole their money. If keeping that rat **** in prison for 25 years to keeps him from stealing from anyone else, then he's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Maybe if he took some time away from playing World of Warcraft or whatever game he was into and looked at the sentencing guidelines, he might not be in prison for 25 years. It's not like it's a huge secret how long you could spend inside.
 
Craig4 said:
Just because someone is a fool, you don't have a right to steal from them. They didn't lose money because of risk; the victims lost money because someone took it. SBF acted with malicious intent to take money that did not belong to him. That is not an investment risk.
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It's immoral to let a sucker keep his money.
 
Chanakya said:
Two completely different issues, the iffiness of crypto and the risk inherent in such volatile risky "investments", and the outright theft and fraud by our wunderkind. I don't see how it's possible to keep on conflating these two different issues.
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You'd be surprised what someone grossly ignorant of both issues can conflate.
 
Chanakya said:
I've no idea what that means, in this context. Who's the pied piper, and why on earth must he be paid, in this context?

I've no sympathy for the greedy losing their shirt, their homes, whatever, by gambling with crypto. But their being stolen from, is a whole separate matter. This is so straightforward that I can't imagine what scope there might be for confusion on this point.



I was commenting specifically on the conflation I mentioned above. As for this guy's sentence, I personally think it was well deserved, maybe too light given the sheer scale of fraud. But as a matter of principle I'm always open to accepting a much lighter sentence than I might personally consider appropriate, because, well let's just leave that at because. So if my sayso would reduce his sentence, I'd be willing to provide it. But not on grounds that crypto's risky, because that has zero relevance to this fraud.
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Crypto is a weird construct.
It is true that it empowers citizens from 3rd world countries.
SBF and his idiot investors were not motivated by that.
 
Samson said:
Crypto is a weird construct.
It is true that it empowers citizens from 3rd world countries.
SBF and his idiot investors were not motivated by that.
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That crypto is a weird construct has very little to do with SBF's crimes. This was simple theft by fraud. The construct of crypto might have made SBF's crimes easier as regulations lag far behind the trading and technology. That it was easy to steal from his victims doesn't make it okay. The money wasn't his. He took it anyway, from thousands of people. Yes, if you steal from thousands of people in amounts in the billions of dollars, you will spend a long time in prison.
 
Roboramma said:
Was the money stolen? There's a difference between making a bad trade and having your money stolen. You get that right? The former is on you the latter isn't.
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This is what Samson doesn't seem to understand. SBF stole money.

Even if you posit that he intended to give it back eventually, he took it without permission. He "borrowed" it despite assurances that he wouldn't using his own made-up tokens as collateral. It was all a subterfuge.
 
Puppycow said:
This is what Samson doesn't seem to understand. SBF stole money.

Even if you posit that he intended to give it back eventually, he took it without permission. He "borrowed" it despite assurances that he wouldn't using his own made-up tokens as collateral. It was all a subterfuge.
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Samson understands it perfectly.
As I have said, a similar crime here would get 8 years, out in about 4.
SBF did the investing useful idiots a favour if they were young and imagining trees grow to the sky.
 
Samson said:
Samson understands it perfectly.
As I have said, a similar crime here would get 8 years, out in about 4.
SBF did the investing useful idiots a favour if they were young and imagining trees grow to the sky.
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More of your ignorant rubbish.
 
catsmate said:
More of your ignorant rubbish.
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I note you never offer a critique.
I hold the view that this guy was prefrontal when he embarked on this escapade. He is not irredeemably wicked.
It seems the crypto bear market showed who was naked, Buffet style. A young guy has plenty to learn
Had the market decline been 60% rather than 75% he would still be a folk hero. The thefts would have been returned.
 
Not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but game theory requires SBF and his ilk to make wary the citizenry with flawless moral compass.
 
Samson said:
I note you never offer a critique.
I hold the view that this guy was prefrontal when he embarked on this escapade. He is not irredeemably wicked.
It seems the crypto bear market showed who was naked, Buffet style. A young guy has plenty to learn
Had the market decline been 60% rather than 75% he would still be a folk hero. The thefts would have been returned.
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:rolleyes:
Given you have utterly failed, or refused, to support your assertions and opinions with evidence, there is no onus on me to refute anything you oost.
 
dirtywick said:
i think he's correct in the sense that it empowers people in 3rd would countries to also scam people out of money
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Empowerment of people from third world countries is the most potent and ethical use of crypto currencies.
Is that on topic?
 
dirtywick said:
i think he's correct in the sense that it empowers people in 3rd would countries to also scam people out of money
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Well the '419' scams didn'ty need crypto....

Samson said:
Empowerment of people from third world countries is the most potent and ethical use of crypto currencies.
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:rolleyes: And what are these gibberings supposed to mean?

dirtywick said:
Is that on topic?
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Given that Bankman-Fried had no significant connections to the "third world", no. Unless you're including the Bahamas, where he operated from to avoid scrutiny and oversight.
But then you're just spouting drivel again. :rolleyes:
 
FTX says it has billions more than owed to victims
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/top...illions-more-than-owed-to-victims/ar-BB1m03Ya

And that's after paying the bankruptcy guys and a lot of fire sales early on.

Hmm. So if Sam hadn't foolishly taunted CZ which caused him to publicly say he was selling all his FTT which started the customer exit (bank run), the fact FTX was dipping into customer funds for liquidity and creating false P&Ls* probably would never have been discovered.
 
Interesting. My only question is will the victims be made whole in the same currency that was stolen? I.e., if you had 10 bitcoins in an account at FTX do you get 10 bitcoins back, or do they calculate it based on the value of bitcoin at the time when FTX went into bankruptcy? Apparently bitcoin is up 122% since a year ago.
 
Answers to "investors" prayers here:

Failed crypto exchange FTX will repay billions to customers

FTX has estimated that it will have between $14.7 billion and $16.5 billion US available to repay creditors, enough to pay customers at least 118 per cent of the value in their accounts as of November 2022, the date that the company filed for bankruptcy.
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However, some are not happy:

Customers have had a mixed response to the plan, with many expressing disappointment that FTX's demise caused them to miss out on a strong rebound in crypto prices since the market bottomed out in 2022. Some customers had objected to the plan, demanding higher repayments reflecting recent rises in cryptocurrency values.
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This is the first scam I have ever heard of where the payout is not a few pennies on the dollar. :cool:
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Answers to "investors" prayers here:

Failed crypto exchange FTX will repay billions to customers



However, some are not happy:



This is the first scam I have ever heard of where the payout is not a few pennies on the dollar. :cool:
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It's pretty neat isn't it? In essence the investor assets were stolen, not their money, and the value of the assets went up while they were locked up in this court case. They can get the value of their initial investment back, but the assets increased in value by far more.
 
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