#ftx founder

[fitmintwear]

FTX Fiasco: Rise and Fall of Bankman-Fried

The cryptocurrency market has experienced a whirlwind of activity over the last week, which will be remembered for a great many years. Unquestionably, 2022 will be remembered as one of the key and pivotal years in the development of the cryptocurrency market. This is due to the fact that the cryptocurrency industry was finally taken seriously and discussed on a global scale for the first time since the creation of Bitcoin back in 2008–2009. Terms like cryptography and Web 3.0 were becoming more widely used by non-technical people as well.

The Axie Infinity Ronin bridge attack, the Terra LUNA crash, and the collapse of the FTX exchange, one of the second-largest cryptocurrency exchanges by volume in the world, were among the worst crashes of 2022. In this article, we will be taking a closer look at the timeline of events and understand what led to the collapse of the FTX exchange and the fall of the man who was once hailed as the savior of the crypto world- SBF.

Who is SBF- Sam Bankman-Fried?

SBF, also known as Bankman-Fried, was, until recently, the up-and-coming star of the cryptocurrency world with a net worth of $26 billion as he quickly joined the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Bankman-Fried was raised in California by his parents who were Stanford Law professors. He completed his undergraduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in math and physics before working on Wall Street. He started FTX two years after founding Alameda Research in 2017.

What is FTX?

FTX (short for “Futures Exchange”) was a platform where users can purchase and sell digital assets like bitcoin, ether, and Dogecoin. Platforms like FTX rose in popularity in recent times as more and more people sought to invest in cryptocurrencies without having to deal with the technical aspects of it.

The rise of FTX

The exchange paid for flashy television commercials with A-list celebrities to promote itself as a secure and simple way to invest in cryptocurrencies. In addition to this, Bankman-Fried also purchased the advertising space in uniforms and sporting venues for Major League Baseball officials. The 2019-founded business gained international notoriety very quickly thanks to a number of aggressive marketing tactics, high-profile acquisitions, and low trading fees.

With the promise that they could invest their money in accounts and earn significantly higher yields than at conventional banks, even those who were unfamiliar with the technology were seduced by FTX. Major venture capital firms joined in and invested nearly $2 billion in the business. The 30-year-old founder of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, rose to prominence as the face of the business and, to some, of cryptocurrency in general. FTX was difficult to miss due to celebrity endorsements and significant sports sponsorships.

The Fall of FTX

It was only a matter of moments how the cryptocurrency market boomed after SBF launched FTX. Bitcoin’s price, which had previously fluctuated around $10,000, skyrocketed in 2021 and reached a high of more than $64,000. Venture capital funds poured into everything blockchain-related and digital currency-related, and crypto platforms shifted to draw users beyond the technologists and blockchain enthusiasts who had previously propelled its rise.

From its late 2021 highs, when it was generally considered to be a leading indicator of the larger cryptocurrency market, the price of bitcoin has fallen sharply. It currently trades for about $16,000. While it strongly affected the value of other cryptocurrencies and tokens, many significant platforms had already closed due to the general decline in the crypto industry. However, FTX appeared to be immune, even going so far as to acquire some of its faltering rivals.

But when CoinDesk, a cryptocurrency-focused digital media website, published the balance sheet of Alameda Research, a crypto investing company that also belonged to Bankman-Fried, things started to change. It revealed that Alameda had a sizable amount of FTT, a virtual currency developed by FTX. Even though the FTT had a certain market value, Alameda would be in danger of going bankrupt if the price dropped.

CZ (Changpeng Zhao), CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, a competitor of FTX, declared on November 6 that his business would offload all of its FTT tokens as a result of the leak of Alameda’s balance sheet. FTT’s cost dropped significantly. Many FTX users moved to remove their funds from the platform as the price fell.

The crypto community was already on edge despite the fact that the full extent of the connections between Alameda and FTX was not yet known. In the end, several billion dollars were poured out of FTX by people who rushed to withdraw their money before it ran out of funds. On November 8, FTX barred users from withdrawing funds from the system, which marked the fall of FTX. Not only did it shake the volatile crypto market, declining its overall market capitalization below $1 trillion, but also left some deep scars on the whole international crypto community that will have repercussions for years to come.

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[wauln]

[ FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Found Guilty ]

[cryptonewsupdate]

Decoding Crypto Market Turbulence: Vitalik Buterin's Analysis in the Aftermath of FTX's Collapse

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has recently offered profound insights into the rapidly changing landscape of the cryptocurrency market, particularly in the aftermath of the collapse of FTX. In a reflective post on X, Buterin recounted his experiences with the next generation of innovators, moving away from his earlier perception as a "fancy young wunderkind" to embrace a new era of transformative leadership in the dynamic crypto industry.

Buterin's journey also extends beyond blockchain technology, as he shared his advocacy for life extension and offered a nuanced perspective on the meaning of life. He emphasized the inevitability of change, highlighting his shift from a mathematical-centric worldview to an appreciation of the complexity of social systems and the limitations of attempting to create foolproof governance mechanisms.

The Ethereum co-founder discussed the transformations he underwent, moving from deep immersion in mathematics, coding, and cryptographic protocols to a more balanced approach that uses mathematics to offer initial insights into social mechanisms. He reflected on global events, specifically the Ukrainian crisis in 2022, and observed the public downfall of influential figures like Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX. This prompted Buterin to reevaluate figures he once admired in the crypto space, recognizing that the community was undergoing a transformation with many influential figures facing challenges.

In response to these realizations, Buterin emphasized the importance of intentional action, departing from his past inclination to follow others' plans. Whether confronting geopolitical issues or shaping the future of the crypto space, he stressed the need for a high-agency approach, recognizing the imperative to actively contribute to positive developments. Overall, Buterin's reflections provide valuable insights into the evolving nature of the cryptocurrency industry and the role of transformative leadership in navigating its complexities.

[chukachrisnwosu]

FTX founder; Sam Bankman agrees to extradition, expected to fly to US

FTX founder; Sam Bankman agrees to extradition, expected to fly to US

FTX founder; Bankman-Fried agrees to extradition, expected to fly to US NEW YORK (LG) — Sam Bankman-Fried told a Bahamian court Wednesday that he has agreed to be extradited to the U.S. to face criminal charges related to the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The former FTX CEO appeared at a Magistrate’s Court and is expected to head to Odyssey Aviation to return to the United States,…

[bronva]

US accuses FTX founder Bankman-Fried of fraud, Bahamas judge denies him bail

US accuses FTX founder Bankman-Fried of fraud, Bahamas judge denies him bail

US prosecutors on Tuesday accused Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of crypto currency exchange FTX, of fraud and violating campaign finance laws and a judge in the Bahamas denied him bail, sending him to a local correctional facility instead.

[sarkos]

The disgraced cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, who founded the FTX exchange, had planned to purchase the small Pacific island nation of Nauru in case the world came to an end, according to a new lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed on Thursday by FTX against its 31-year-old founder and three other former executives, and seeking $1bn, included a memo created by Bankman-Fried’s younger brother Gabriel and an FTX Foundation executive. The memo detailed plans to buy Nauru. The plan was to “purchase the sovereign nation of Nauru in order to construct a ‘bunker/shelter’ that would be used for ‘some event where 50-99.99% of people die [to] ensure that most EAs survive’” the memo said, referring to “effective altruism”, a philosophical and social movement championed by Bankman-Fried that tries to maximize the impact of charitable giving. The memo also noted plans to develop “sensible regulation around human genetic enhancement, and build a lab there”. It also said “probably there are other things it’s useful to do with a sovereign country, too”.

Bankman-Fried planned to buy Nauru and build apocalypse bunker – lawsuit | Sam Bankman-Fried | The Guardian

“The Boys from Nauru” just doesn’t have the same ring

[papasmoke]

This is the blog of the girlfriend and co conspirator of the founder of that exceedingly fraudulent bitcoin company FTX that just went bottoms up and stole all its user bases crypto money on the way out lol

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Crypto clown.

[collapsedsquid]

If only FTX had stayed active a little longer, Trump could have conned him out of $5 billion

[chukachrisnwosu]

Crypto Scam; FTX founder charged in scheme to defraud crypto investors

Crypto Scam; FTX founder charged in scheme to defraud crypto investors

Crypto Scam; FTX founder charged in scheme to defraud crypto investors NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. government charged Samuel Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, with a host of financial crimes on Tuesday, alleging he intentionally deceived customers and investors to enrich himself and others, while playing a central role in the company’s multibillion-dollar…

[association-of-freed-people]

This is a fucking fascinating connection for anyone who’s familiar with the deeply flawed TOGETHER study. It was most often cited by cathedral operatives to shit on ivermectin and ran counter to the overwhelming majority of published studies that proved efficacy to one degree or another.

[karagin22]

Wonder how sooner before he is telling names or we hear about....

[posttexasstressdisorder]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Citizens United and the FTX meltdown

The collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and its affiliated businesses has left a million creditors holding the bag for a chaotically managed, corrupt enterprise that created vast personal fortunes for the conspirators who ran it, even as it stole the life’s savings of retail investors who bought into its lies.

Could the unsuspecting public have been shielded from the FTX Ponzi scheme? Hindsight is 20/20, but there’s good reason to believe that FTX could have been brought down in a controlled glide, rather than a nose-first crash landing and ensuing fireball.

Earlier this year, the SEC sent a letter to FTX seeking answers about its business practices — a letter that sought to determine whether FTX was as scammy as it appeared. The SEC never got the answers it sought, thanks to the intervention of eight Members of Congress — the “Blockchain Eight,” four Dems and four Republicans — who wrote to Chairman Gary Gensler demanding that he back off:

https://emmer.house.gov/_cache/files/0/c/0c7fc863-7916-4b19-bc44-52bef772287e/9B0B9D1CA9B3C215DDC762DF5B0F6864.3.16.22.emmer.sec.letter.pdf

Five of Blockchain Eight received substantial cash contributions from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) or his employees or affiliated businesses and PACs. Bankman-Fried is widely characterized as a Democratic super-donor, but his political spending is basically 50–50:

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/recipients?id=D000073694&cycle=2022

SBF held himself out as a philosopher king, a devotee to esoteric ethical precepts and a concerned billionaire who was committed to saving the world from ugly political currents; after the collapse, he confessed that this was all marketing nonsense (“this dumb game we woke westerners play”):

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23462333/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-cryptocurrency-effective-altruism-crypto-bahamas-philanthropy

SBF and his co-conspirators gave money to politicians to further their own ends, not to save the world. They understood that if they gave money to politicians, that politicians would intercede to keep regulators from keeping them honest.

The questions in the original SEC letter went to the heart of the FTX fraud, seeking to establish that FTX was marketing unregulated securities disguised as a “rewards” program, and that FTX was stealing from depositors and handing their money to its hedge-fund affiliate Alameda to gamble with.

Hedge-fund managers are notoriously bad at their jobs, generally underperforming a low-load S&P 500 index fund, but even by those low standards, Alameda was a very bad hedge-fund, losing $3.7b in a “raging crypto bull market.”

https://twitter.com/GRDecter/status/1595065298771656704

SBF’s reputation as a boy-wonder genius investor wasn’t the result of the returns to Alameda, but rather, the seemingly limitless funds that Alameda could tap into for more failed investments. Those funds, we now know, were stolen from FTX’s retail customers. This is exactly the kind of thing that an SEC investigation could have revealed.

The vast sums of (real) money the crypto industry pumped into electoral politics is closely related to its bull run — campaign contributions muzzled finance watchdogs, which let the industry defraud the public, which gave it more money for campaign contributions.

This is a completely foreseeable outcome of unlimited campaign finance, especially the “dark money” finance that the 2010 Citizens United decision unleashed. CU removed the final barrier to massive influence campaigns by the ultra-rich, who poured money into the political system:

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/reports/a-decade-under-prsns-united

The irony here is that the same wealthy people who argued that “money was speech” and campaign finance was merely a way for people to exercise their First Amendment rights are also the foremost proponents of a political ideology whose central tenet is “incentives matter.”

These are the same people who say that every visit to the doctor should cost money, lest we create a “moral hazard” that invites people who aren’t really sick to go bother the doctor for shits and giggles (it goes without saying that these co-payments are titrated to keep poor people from visiting the doctor, while the rich never feel the sting) (that’s because rich people don’t suffer moral hazard).

This belief in incentives as the final arbiter of all behavior is the fundamental tenet of economism, and it underpins all our cruelest policies. For an economismist, anyone espousing a sense of duty or mission is merely “virtue signalling”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

This slavish belief in incentives is why would-be aristocrats like Sam Walton prohibited his executives from taking so much as a glass of water from vendors’ salesmen, lest they become tempted into favoring the salesman’s commissions over Walmart’s profits.

But these exact same people profess a belief in unlimited political spending as a means to better governance. Somehow, a glass of water will corrupt a corporate buyer, but a $100m super-PAC donation will have no impact on the judgment of an elected official.

Covering the Blockchain Eight bribery scandal for The American Prospect, David Dayen hearkens back to the Keating Five scandal of 1987, when five senators wrote to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to insist that they lay off Lincoln Savings and Loan:

https://prospect.org/power/congressmembers-tried-to-stop-secs-inquiry-into-ftx/

Lincoln’s chairman, Charles Keating Jr, had donated $1.3m to the Keating Five between 1982–7, and their letter convinced the FHLBB to close its investigation, whereupon Lincoln promptly collapsed, sticking the American public with a $3.4b bailout bill.

Like the Keating Five, the Blockchain Eight set out to stop regulators from investigating a company that was engaged in a titanic fraud. Like the Keating Five, the Blockchain Eight benefited from sizable campaign contributions from the industry they caped for.

Unlike the Keating Five — who faced a Senate ethics inquiry and sanctions — the Blockchain Eight are completely unrepentant. The Eight’s ringleader, Rep Tom Emmer (R-MN) has even accused SEC Chairman Gensler of secretly being in the tank for FTX:

https://twitter.com/RepTomEmmer/status/1590717374801809409

Just last week, Emmer told the Blockchain Association, “You are here to stay…[nobody should] rush in and put a huge wet blanket of regulation atop this industry just because something didn’t go right.”

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/11/16/newly-elected-us-house-whip-emmer-downplays-ftx-meltdown-cheers-crypto/

Emmer is on the House Financial Services Committee, along with five other members of the Blockchain Eight: Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Warren Davidson (R-OH), and Ted Budd (R-NC). This is the committee charged with investigating the FTX fraud.

The great irony of the right’s incentives exceptionalism and its belief in unlimited political bribes is that it leads to the creation of a larger state. Allowing companies to bribe politicians and capture regulators fuels both corporate growth and corporate corruption.

https://doctorow.medium.com/regulatory-capture-59b2013e2526

If the state is to counter that corruption, it must be as powerful as the companies it oversees. The bigger those companies are, the bigger the state has to be. If you truly want a less intrusive, less muscular state, the first step is reining in corporate power.

Image: Cointelegraph (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sam_Bankman-Fried.png

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A vintage trustbuster cartoon depicting John D Rockefeller holding the Treasury building in the palm of his hand, peering at it through a watchmaker's loupe. Rockefeller's head has been replaced with Sam Bankman-Fried's. His collar bears the Alameda Research wordmark.]

[azspot]

The defense is requesting a 12-hour extended release 20mg dosage of Adderall, for Bankman-Fried. If the requested dose is not provided, or fails to have the desired effect, the defense is asking that the trial be adjourned on Tuesday, October 17, to address this issue.