Nobody Cares about Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX

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A few of the dominoes are starting to topple.

The Fall of the Progressive Boy King

Sean McElwee formed a lucrative alliance with SBF. Then his patron went bust and he suffered his own scandal.

nymag.com

 

[Free]

Que?

Real Time Precious Metal Quotes and Charts

Meanwhile, the new management at SBF’s old company told creditors at a procedural bankruptcy hearing on Tuesday that they have now located and identified over $1.2 billion in cash assets. The new management team led by bankruptcy specialist John Ray has been working to retrieve hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from hundreds of different bank accounts.

“We are reaching out to all of those banks and changing the signatories on the accounts so that we can get access to the accounts and move the cash as much as we can to authorized depository institutions,” said Mary Cilia, FTX’s new chief financial officer, at the proceedings.

I would love to stumble across a spare billion in hundreds of bank accounts I just happened to forget about.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Associates of Sam Bankman-Fried plead guilty to fraud charges after FTX collapse

Carolyn Ellison, former CEO of Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, co-founder of FTX, said to be cooperating with investigators

www.theguardian.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Ex-crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried out on $250m bail after extradition from Bahamas

FTX founder must remain under strict supervision at parents’ California home, judge says

www.theguardian.com

 

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Just a huge personal loan account.

 

[Free]

Who knew he was a comedian?

SBF says “dishonesty and unfair dealing” aren’t fraud, seeks to dismiss charges

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried prepares to "clear his name."

arstechnica.com

Late Monday, legally embroiled FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried moved to dismiss the majority of criminal charges lobbed against him by the United States government after his cryptocurrency exchange went bankrupt in 2022.

In documents filed in a Manhattan federal court, lawyers from the law firm Cohen & Gresser LLP shared Bankman-Fried's first official legal defense. Lawyers accused the US of a "troubling" and "classic rush to judgment," claiming that the government didn't even wait to receive "millions of documents" and "other evidence" against Bankman-Fried before "improperly seeking" to turn "civil and regulatory issues into federal crimes."

 

[Rose Karuna]

Who knew he was a comedian?

SBF says “dishonesty and unfair dealing” aren’t fraud, seeks to dismiss charges

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried prepares to "clear his name."

arstechnica.com

Why did I read this (Cohen & Gresser LLP) as Cohen and Greaser? In any case, WTF is fraud then?

Last I looked at the dictionary, fraud was defined as such:

Definition of Fraud

Noun

1. Wrongful deception with the intent to gain personally or financially
2. Intentional deception in order to persuade another person to part with something of value
3. A person who pretends to be something or someone he is not

 

[detrius]

Why did I read this (Cohen & Gresser LLP) as Cohen and Greaser? In any case, WTF is fraud then?

Last I looked at the dictionary, fraud was defined as such:

Ah, but you see... "deceptive" and "dishonest" are different words.


Also, "synonym" is a type of Greek cheese.

 

[Free]

Sam has been a naughty boy.

U.S. judge sends FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried to jail over witness tampering

Sam Bankman-Fried heads to jail after a judge sided with a request by federal prosecutors to revoke the FTX founder's bail over alleged witness tampering.

www.cnbc.com

Sam Bankman-Fried will head to jail on Friday after a judge sided with a request by federal prosecutors to revoke the FTX founder’s bail over alleged witness tampering. Bankman-Fried was remanded to custody directly from a court hearing in New York.

Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Bankman-Fried’s request for delayed detention pending an appeal. Unless the appeal is successful, he is expected to remain in custody until his criminal trial, which is due to begin on Oct. 2.

 

[Free]

How Sam Bankman-Fried’s Elite Parents Enabled His Crypto Empire

Mostly about how his parents were very much enablers and sidekicks and SBF was just another privileged snot, but this part is interesting:

In magazine profiles and TV interviews, Bankman-Fried professed austerity. He wore beat-up sneakers, lived with roommates and drove a Toyota Corolla—with all of the savings going to charitable causes, he said. “You pretty quickly run out of really effective ways to make yourself happier by spending money,” he told a Bloomberg reporter in early 2022. “I don’t want a yacht.”

In reality, Bankman-Fried and his inner circle spent with such abandon that the office could feel, as the person who worked on the Super Bowl ad describes it, like the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz. The company bought hundreds of millions of dollars of luxury real estate, including a $30 million penthouse apartment in the fanciest resort in the Bahamas, where Bankman-Fried and his cohorts lived. They chartered private jets for themselves and, because Amazon.com doesn’t consistently service the island, for their online packages. And—as bankruptcy filings would make clear—they even bought a 52-foot yacht. It was purchased by Alameda for Sam Trabucco, the company’s co-CEO at the time, who named it Soak My Deck.

Surprise, surprise. Not.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

FTX: 'King of Crypto' parents sued over missing millions

Sam Bankman-Fried's parents are being sued as his bankrupt crypto firm FTX seeks to recover money.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Free]

FTX: 'King of Crypto' parents sued over missing millions

Sam Bankman-Fried's parents are being sued as his bankrupt crypto firm FTX seeks to recover money.

www.bbc.co.uk

They received a $10m (£8m) gift in cash from funds that belonged to Alameda, an FTX partner company, while FTX also gave them a $16.4m property in the Bahamas, according to the filing.

A "property?"

SBF’s parents were given $16.4M house paid for entirely by FTX, lawsuit says

FTX sues Bankman and Fried to claw back millions "siphoned" from crypto firm.

arstechnica.com

In February 2022, Bankman and Fried were deeded "a $16.4 million luxury residence in The Bahamas," a 30,000-square-foot property referred to as "Blue Water," the lawsuit said.

"The total cash payment for Blue Water amounted to $18,914,327.82, inclusive of all costs, taxes, and fees. Neither Bankman nor Fried contributed any money of their own towards the purchase of Blue Water," the lawsuit said. The property was allegedly "paid for with funds ultimately provided by FTX Trading," while "Bankman and Fried enjoyed the benefits of more than $90,000 in expenses, paid for by FTX Trading, for their Bahamas residence."

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Sam Bankman-Fried and the effective altruism delusion

Will the idealist philosophy survive the conviction of its crypto king?

www.newstatesman.com

Evernote link

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Inside Sam Bankman-Fried’s Family Bubble

At Stanford Law School, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried specialized in ethics and social fairness. Now that their son stands accused of one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history, they’re scrambling for legal escape routes.

www.newyorker.com

Evernote link

 

[Innula Zenovka]

FTX: How the fall of the 'King of Crypto' cost one British man millions

As Sam Bankman-Fried awaits trial for fraud, his former investors wonder if they will ever recoup their losses.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Free]

The FTX trial is bigger than Sam Bankman-Fried

“Is he going to throw the entire industry under the bus?”

www.theverge.com

The trial of Sam Bankman-Fried is likely to be more consequential than just whether the man himself is found guilty. Depending on what evidence is introduced during the trial, it could be rough for the entire crypto industry.

“How much damage can this trial do to the already beaten-down reputation of the industry at this point?” asks Yesha Yadav, a law professor at Vanderbilt University. “This trial is going to be an excruciating moment for the industry because no one knows what kind of evidence might come out.”

 

[Free]

Sam Bankman-Fried lawyer complains US portrays him as “cartoon villain”

FTX founder's fraud trial kicks off with opening statements.

arstechnica.com

Sam Bankman-Fried has been painted as a “cartoon villain” by prosecutors whose case depends largely on hindsight, the former crypto tycoon’s lawyers told a Manhattan jury on Wednesday as they laid out their defense at the start of the hotly anticipated criminal trial.

In opening arguments earlier on Wednesday, US prosecutors had accused Bankman-Fried of committing “fraud on a massive scale,” lying to investors, lenders and customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchanges.

What a maroon! /me chomps on a carrot...

 

[Free]

Never mix business with pleasure. Especially if you're a crook.

Star witness says FTX head Sam Bankman-Fried told her to commit crimes, mislead lenders

Caroline Ellison, former co-CEO of Alameda Research and ex-girlfriend of Bankman-Fried, is continuing her testimony against him Wednesday.

www.nbcnews.com

Caroline Ellison testified that FTX cofounder Sam Bankman-Fried told her to steal money from FTX's customers and use them to repay firms that had lent money to Alameda Research, the crypto trading firm Ellison was leading.

"Sam directed me to commit these crimes," Ellison said in court on Tuesday, after telling prosecutors that she, Bankman-Fried, and others had committed fraud.

Ellison, who at various times also dated and lived with Bankman-Fried, said that Alameda took about $10 billion from customers who had put their money on the FTX exchange to trade digital currencies. She said Bankman-Fried set up the system that let her move the money.

 

[Free]

Moar from Caroline Ellison.

Caroline Ellison says she felt ‘relief not to have to lie any more’ after FTX collapse

She says Bankman-Fried blamed her for the financial crisis FTX found itself in (yeah, sure...), but here's an interesting bit of dumb-thinking:

[federal prosecutor Danielle] Sassoon also asked Ellison about Bankman-Fried’s philosophy on rules. According to Ellison, “He said that he was a utilitarian and he believed that the ways that people try to justify rules like ‘don’t lie’ ‘don’t steal’, under utilitarianism didn’t work.” He also warned FTX employees and executives about “not putting stuff in writing that could get us in trouble”, she said.

 

[Free]

‘Oh, Yes’: Accounting Prof Says Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX Definitely Mishandled Customers' Money

For starters, customer funds were behind a majority of FTX’s investment into Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital, Peter Easton testifies.

www.coindesk.com

To help make their case that Sam Bankman-Fried committed a historic multibillion-dollar fraud, prosecutors enlisted an accounting professor who assisted the government investigations into Enron and WorldCom two decades ago.

University of Notre Dame accounting professor Peter Easton took the stand in the ongoing trial Wednesday morning. Asked whether FTX ever spent user deposits, Easton, who was hired by the Department of Justice to trace billions of dollars of Alameda and FTX funds, replied definitively: “Oh, yes.”

User deposits were reinvested into businesses and real estate, used to make political contributions and donated to charity, the professor testified.