https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/ftx.html
FTX: Greed, Grift and Grandiosity

The history of corporate scandals is littered with quasi-messianic figures, and Sam-Bankman Fried (often denoted by the initialism SBF) is simply the latest in the long line of financiers so drunk on their egos and self-perceived intelligence to be blind to the portents of their inevitable downfall. Sam is unique in that his grandiosity stems not purely from unrestrained greed and narcissism—although there is plenty of that—but his philosophical north star of Effective Altruism, an extreme form of Benthamite utilitarianism which espouses the belief that we should extend our ethical locus of concern to all possible sentient beings that may exist in the future. The philosophy attempts to derive, from first principles, an ethical calculus by which we should optimize our actions according to some suppositional fitness function that maximizes the scope and happiness of all future minds. Its adherents believe themselves as ordained prophets sent by the future to guide the progress of humanity according to their oracular pronouncements.

https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/11/11/how-sam-bankman-frieds-effective-altruism-blew-up-ftx/
How Sam Bankman-Fried’s ‘Effective’ Altruism Blew Up FTX

But effective altruism more specifically could have excused or encouraged behaviors that led to FTX’s downfall. Perhaps not least, Bankman-Fried more or less acknowledged in an infamous “Odd Lots” interview that many of the tokens trading on his platform were probably frauds.
That implies he and FTX were always facilitating harm to its users, but the neoliberal and utilitarian underpinnings of effective altruism allowed him to justify that as a matter of consumer freedom.
A less charitable summary of effective altruism, then, would be that it is little more than a fancy way of saying “the ends justify the means.” Effective altruism also encompasses an emphasis on “long-termism,” which can read like another excuse for mercenary corner-cutting today, so long as you commit your loot to improving tomorrow.

 

FTX headquarters when the investigators arrive.

 

https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/ftx.html
FTX: Greed, Grift and Grandiosity


https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/11/11/how-sam-bankman-frieds-effective-altruism-blew-up-ftx/
How Sam Bankman-Fried’s ‘Effective’ Altruism Blew Up FTX

In other words, Ayn Rand was right, again.

 

Now we know where he really is.

 

Now we know where he really is.

The main character won and went back for season two. It's all about the winning. Ask Tom Brady. The joy of the win easily cancels the pain of getting sacked multiple times per game.

 

Caroline Ellison | CEO of Alameda Research |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Ellison

According to anonymous sources cited by the Wall Street Journal, on November 12, 2022 on a video meeting with employees, she said that FTX used customer money to help Alameda meet its liabilities and that she, Bankman-Fried, and two other FTX executives were aware of this

 

Caroline Ellison | CEO of Alameda Research |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Ellison

That's prison time.

 

 

Larry was right about FTX.

 

Larry was right about FTX.

Every once in a while, even a blind clock finds a stopped squirrel.

 

Every once in a while, even a blind clock finds a stopped squirrel.

The FTX company song.

 

Selling the house? Getting ready for a move?
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ftx-founder-sam-bankman-fried-lists-bahamas-penthouse-40-million
FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Lists Bahamas Penthouse For $40 Million

https://www.seasidebahamas.com/view/NassauNew+Providence/Orchid+Bldg.+-+PH+6/20046/buy/

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ftx-fo...ise-fresh-cash-despite-bankruptcy-11668520573

FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Attempts to Raise Fresh Cash Despite Bankruptcy
Alongside a few remaining employees, Mr. Bankman-Fried spent the weekend calling around in search of new commitments from investors

In Mr. Bankman-Fried’s case, the funds aren’t meant to sustain a bare-bones staff, but to repay individual traders and institutional clients who have been unable to get funds out, the people said.

Money for nothing ... a new Ponzi Scheme, to raise more money to pay off the existing participants of the last Ponzi Scheme?

Here's my contribution:

 

 

I would not like to be this young woman. I wonder who will be the fall 'person'?
https://www.efinancialcareers.com/n...llison-alameda-research-ftx-sam-bankman-fried

View attachment 280407

Here we go with her as the 'fall' person.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidj...mbroiled-in-the-ftx-collapse/?sh=5c9e0c5b791f
‘Queen Caroline’

It was Alameda’s speculative investments that were allegedly made by using FTX customer deposits, taking billions without users’ knowledge. And it was Alameda that reportedly covered up the scheme because the hedge fund ensured the assets it was trading on FTX steered clear of its own balance sheet. In a bankruptcy filing, FTX estimates it will have more than one million creditors seeking damages — FTX’s rank and file, who reportedly were convinced to pour their life savings into the platform, among them. The filings also show that Alameda Research handed out three personal loans to FTX executives, with Bankman-Fried borrowing $1 billion. And while FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried owned 90% of the trading firm, it was Caroline Ellison at Alameda’s helm when both companies collapsed.
...

In recent days, Ellison has faced a barrage of particularly nasty criticism from crypto boosters who blame her for overseeing the downfall of Alameda. But amid the vitriol she has found some defenders in an unlikely group of people who have celebrated the musings about race science and imperialism on a blog she allegedly wrote in college. Some of her defenders, who call her “Queen Caroline,” are followers of Curtis Yarvin, a neoreactionary political theorist and far right darling. Many of the people who have flocked to Ellison’s defense gather on Urbit, a peer-to-peer platform created by Yarvin, one of her online supporters told Forbes. They think Ellison was set up to be the fall person, and claim that former co-CEO Sam Trabucco, who they derisively call “Sam Tabasco," is behind Alameda’s implosion. Trabucco didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

“I definitely think she’s innocent,” one said. “I think Caroline can be saved.”

 

https://www.theonion.com/man-who-lost-everything-in-crypto-just-wishes-several-t-1848764551
Man Who Lost Everything In Crypto Just Wishes Several Thousand More People Had Warned Him

Saying he had been absolutely blindsided by the sudden change in his fortunes, local 33-year-old Tyler Branton, a man who lost everything in cryptocurrencies, told reporters Thursday that he just wished several thousand more people had warned him.

Things to say to that guy.

“Well, when you think about it, real money is fake too.”

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/22/ftx...kruptcy-hearing-this-is-different-animal.html
FTX lawyer calls this case ‘a different sort of animal’ in first bankruptcy hearing

“What we are dealing with is a different sort of animal,” said FTX counsel James Bromley. “Unfortunately, the FTX debtors were not particularly well run, and that is an understatement.”

Regarding FTX’s founder, this was an organization that was “effectively run as a personal fiefdom of Sam Bankman-Fried,” an FTX attorney told the court.

FTX lawyers confirmed earlier reports that the Southern District of New York’s Cyber Crimes unit has begun an investigation into the matter. FTX lawyers have also made reference to cyberattacks, suggesting there were multiple attacks beyond the $477 million hack that occurred shortly after the company entered bankruptcy on Nov. 11. In that attack, hackers extracted ether out of FTX wallets.

 

https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2022/11/19/AWS-Blockchain

The questions · We really only had two questions, both for the big-finance players and for the startups. “What is it you want to do?” and “How does blockchain help?” ¶

The answers, to our disappointment, failed to shatter any preconceptions. The things they wanted to do were perfectly reasonable. Some of them were damn exciting. They all needed databases. They could all make use of ledger-like data structures, also cryptographic hashing and signing. But, um, why did they need blockchain? Severe lack of clarity on that.

The key moment was when we got in a room with the CTO of this one startup, in Tribeca I think. When I heard their VC funding number I thought it was the valuation, not the investment dollars. The customer list was blue f*** ribbon and don’t you forget it. These guys were razor-sharp.

They presented some of the systems they’d built and yep, we were impressed. Then, with the startup CTO in the room, one of my fellow engineers asked the key question: “All these systems, are there any that wouldn’t work without blockchain?” The guy didn’t even hesitate: “No, not really.”

And that was about that.

 

Poor baby.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...n-to-dollar100000-in-bank-account/ar-AA14JInS

"Am I allowed to say a negative number?" he told the outlet, when asked about his personal finances. "I mean, I have no idea. I don't know. I had $100,000 in my bank account last I checked," he said.

Bankman-Fried said "basically everything" he had was tied up in the now-failed company, making his financial situation "complicated."

 

European Central Bank says bitcoin is on the ‘road to irrelevance’
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/30/eur...ys-bitcoin-is-on-the-road-to-irrelevance.html

The same prediction they keep repeating every few years.