I am just a regular nobody who has no business asking such questions, but I thought the genius and beauty and (other superlative) of block chain is that *it can always be traced. All transactions are transparent.* So why wasn’t this traceable and transparent?
I hope someone can figure this out before we start voting backed by block chain.
(Also can we ban the word “bespoke”. It’s unnecessarily pretentious. As I learned in freshman comp, “never utilize ‘utilize’ when you can use ‘use’.”)
"Bespoke" became a cool kids word on Wall Street about 10 years ago. Having been in the biz for 25 years at the time, I had to look it up. And then I found, as was often the case, there was a perfectly acceptable word - "customized" - that had been around since forever, but apparently wasn't cool enough.
Yeah. It's also "Britspeak". My wife's English magazines use it for anything custom-made. Look at the prices of the 'bespoke' goods and another word comes to mind....'outrageously expensive'.
I'd think a whole heck of a lot of morons thought that his very important intelligent exceptionally-credentialled parents gave him the very best of pedigreed bona fides.
"Ha! Fooled ya!"
It is not rare for really smart parents to produce idiot children. You guys can use all the finance-world clues you want to prove how this guy smelled.
For me it was a 30-yr. old guy who lisps like a toddler. Screaming sirens from the first video clip I saw.
His gain of a few billion via some smart arbitrage trading made him a financial genius to many. He built a fine house of cards as he was blessed by the right teams.
OTOH, imagine all those who bought Bitcoin at $65k/coin as it sits at $16k. Greater fools eventually learn the hard way. But they do well until they don't.
So he made a pseudo crypto? Did he try to sell it as real crypto? I understand the basics of his Ponzi set up and his money laundering, those are as old as time, but I’m not getting what people thought they were investing in when they handed him cash?
He made a 'shitcoin' to facilitate trades on his exchange (similar to the BNB token on Binance). Then he paid people in said shitcoin.
Many people were legit crypto traders that simply had balances on FTX during the collapse. (Remember FTX was given legitimacy by regulators) This is why we say (over and over) NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR COINS! Other people were in on the scam and were the ones who actually got the money before the curtain was pulled back. Don't let the badly written articles fool you. The wealth did not 'evaporate', it was stolen.
Oh so he never gave investors the keys to the coins, just some sort of self-generated receipt (read iou)? He held the keys to the actual coins backing up the IOU? Which, didn’t exist, of course. That’s so Bernie and his 1,000 year old PCs from the 80’s in some back room that only he was allowed to see. And of course SBF got regulatory legitimacy. With pedigree like his, who would deny him? Thanks for taking the time to explain. I sincerely appreciate it. Love your work.
well you know, so many people went to jail for 2008, how could you expect any less?
If you realized in 2008 like many did that the entire system is a scam, every industry in this damn country, then 2020 wasn't much of a surprise to you.
There are efforts to trace the chain underway. It actually can be traced just takes time and effort. OTOH, the real money used to buy inflated tokens (now worth nothing) has gone into the money pit. Much of it used to produce political ads.
I am just a regular nobody who has no business asking such questions, but I thought the genius and beauty and (other superlative) of block chain is that *it can always be traced. All transactions are transparent.* So why wasn’t this traceable and transparent?
I hope someone can figure this out before we start voting backed by block chain.
(Also can we ban the word “bespoke”. It’s unnecessarily pretentious. As I learned in freshman comp, “never utilize ‘utilize’ when you can use ‘use’.”)
"Bespoke" became a cool kids word on Wall Street about 10 years ago. Having been in the biz for 25 years at the time, I had to look it up. And then I found, as was often the case, there was a perfectly acceptable word - "customized" - that had been around since forever, but apparently wasn't cool enough.
Yeah. It's also "Britspeak". My wife's English magazines use it for anything custom-made. Look at the prices of the 'bespoke' goods and another word comes to mind....'outrageously expensive'.
Yuppers
What did I tell you about Yeppers.
Oh I love the office.
Bespoke is the British way of customized. Bit gobsmacked to see it used by Yanks. Tut, tut, you see, my fine fellow.
LOL same as "cured" for those ballots getting "fixed"....
Don't forget "interrogated" to mean examined, or even just "read."
I just finished interrogating the last Stephen King novel.
It was pretty good. Although it did cry a lot at the end.
Considering Stephen King's addiction to the slow excruciating death of women characters, I'd enjoy interrogating him in the traditional way, really.
Aww snap! 😍
The newest one out?
Not every transaction is on the chain. And for the most part he didn't even use 'real' crypto. He conjured up his own company scrip and passed it out.
Monopoly money, it never goes out of fashion.
I'm amazed he got so many people to look past the obvious fraud. I guess that's what getting a piece of the action will do.
I'd think a whole heck of a lot of morons thought that his very important intelligent exceptionally-credentialled parents gave him the very best of pedigreed bona fides.
"Ha! Fooled ya!"
It is not rare for really smart parents to produce idiot children. You guys can use all the finance-world clues you want to prove how this guy smelled.
For me it was a 30-yr. old guy who lisps like a toddler. Screaming sirens from the first video clip I saw.
His gain of a few billion via some smart arbitrage trading made him a financial genius to many. He built a fine house of cards as he was blessed by the right teams.
OTOH, imagine all those who bought Bitcoin at $65k/coin as it sits at $16k. Greater fools eventually learn the hard way. But they do well until they don't.
So he made a pseudo crypto? Did he try to sell it as real crypto? I understand the basics of his Ponzi set up and his money laundering, those are as old as time, but I’m not getting what people thought they were investing in when they handed him cash?
He made a 'shitcoin' to facilitate trades on his exchange (similar to the BNB token on Binance). Then he paid people in said shitcoin.
Many people were legit crypto traders that simply had balances on FTX during the collapse. (Remember FTX was given legitimacy by regulators) This is why we say (over and over) NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR COINS! Other people were in on the scam and were the ones who actually got the money before the curtain was pulled back. Don't let the badly written articles fool you. The wealth did not 'evaporate', it was stolen.
Oh so he never gave investors the keys to the coins, just some sort of self-generated receipt (read iou)? He held the keys to the actual coins backing up the IOU? Which, didn’t exist, of course. That’s so Bernie and his 1,000 year old PCs from the 80’s in some back room that only he was allowed to see. And of course SBF got regulatory legitimacy. With pedigree like his, who would deny him? Thanks for taking the time to explain. I sincerely appreciate it. Love your work.
With bonus backdoors that allowed him to move money without alerting auditors.
From what I've read, on the last day of 'solvency', FTX had $900M in 'liquid' assets backstopping $9B.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ftx-held-just-900-million-105931146.html
But yes, the big story of the day is that the 'regulators' were in bed with the scam -- tale as old as time!
well you know, so many people went to jail for 2008, how could you expect any less?
If you realized in 2008 like many did that the entire system is a scam, every industry in this damn country, then 2020 wasn't much of a surprise to you.
'Bespoke' makes me think of wedding do- thingies.
"Custom crap that we charge you 19x for, that you could have made in a couple hours...because Daddy wants you to have the Best wedding!"
There are efforts to trace the chain underway. It actually can be traced just takes time and effort. OTOH, the real money used to buy inflated tokens (now worth nothing) has gone into the money pit. Much of it used to produce political ads.