4 ms·

If I get it right, SBF had already become a billionaire through trading his own money, and only then he founded FTX and started gambling with customers money to

by c7b 4y ago

If I get it right, SBF had already become a billionaire through trading his own money, and only then he founded FTX and started gambling with customers money too? He'd already won, he could have had meth orgies and not work another day for the rest of his life, yet he decided to only then start defrauding customers? If that's what's happened, the word greed doesn't do justice to how insane that is, that must be some sort of sociopathic/gambling disorder, rationalized through effective altruism and an unusual take on utility theory (linear utility). But it's probably too early to tell what really happened.

SilverBirch 4y ago
I think it's easy to over-state how successful SBF was at Alameda. The biggest story of his trading at Alameda was doing an absolutely basic arb between Japan & the US. Sell BTC in the US, withdraw the funds, FX the currency into Yen, deposit in Japan, Buy BTC. Repeat. This is the sort of trade that only a totally nascent market has, and it's going to totally disappear very quickly the second anyone of any scale comes along. So yes, he probably made some money at Alameda, but highly unlikely he was a billionaire, and if the way you've made your money is a bunch of super dumb arb trades you can't be feeling very good about the future as real quants start to come in and push the market around. Also - the lovely thing about crypto hedge funds - you can just lie about how much money you've made, no one can really tell. It was only really the exchange where he started to get real VC money in and that's when he became a paper billionaire. And when did he start defrauding investors? He did it to cover the losses of the hedge fund, which had got caught up in a load of over-leveraged bets. The point he started the fraud was basically when Alameda collapsed earlier this year, and let's face it, news of Alameda going bankrupt probably meant a run on FTX anyway. So whilst what he did was clearly stupid and unethical, I don't think there really was a point where he could walk away with a massive win (maybe apart from just timing the crypto market and getting out before the crash)
- c7b 4y ago
  True, the 'genius trader' was probably part of the VC pitch.

by c7b 4y ago

SilverBirch 4y ago

I think it's easy to over-state how successful SBF was at Alameda. The biggest story of his trading at Alameda was doing an absolutely basic arb between Japan & the US. Sell BTC in the US, withdraw the funds, FX the currency into Yen, deposit in Japan, Buy BTC. Repeat. This is the sort of trade that only a totally nascent market has, and it's going to totally disappear very quickly the second anyone of any scale comes along. So yes, he probably made some money at Alameda, but highly unlikely he was a billionaire, and if the way you've made your money is a bunch of super dumb arb trades you can't be feeling very good about the future as real quants start to come in and push the market around. Also - the lovely thing about crypto hedge funds - you can just lie about how much money you've made, no one can really tell. It was only really the exchange where he started to get real VC money in and that's when he became a paper billionaire. And when did he start defrauding investors? He did it to cover the losses of the hedge fund, which had got caught up in a load of over-leveraged bets. The point he started the fraud was basically when Alameda collapsed earlier this year, and let's face it, news of Alameda going bankrupt probably meant a run on FTX anyway. So whilst what he did was clearly stupid and unethical, I don't think there really was a point where he could walk away with a massive win (maybe apart from just timing the crypto market and getting out before the crash)

c7b 4y ago
True, the 'genius trader' was probably part of the VC pitch.