4 ms·

Twitter might provide more information than the NYT, but there's a reason NYT doesn't publish it - because the NYT wants to be reliable. They want their claims

Twitter might provide more information than the NYT, but there's a reason NYT doesn't publish it - because the NYT wants to be reliable. They want their claims to actually stand up to scrutiny and be an accurate portrayal of the events we know happened. Whereas big chunks of this article are just pure speculation. The whole section about how Alameda might have had a rogue algo are just made up out of whole cloth. Is it true? Who knows, there's certainly no evidence for it, but let's stick it down as $1Bn of loss anyway. This article is very little more than just a gossip rag version of the NYT article.

listenallyall 4y ago
There was a time, not that long ago, when what you say is true. Unfortunately NYTimes gave up caring about accuracy and reliability a while ago.
ZephyrBlu 4y ago
> This article is very little more than just a gossip rag version of the NYT article This characterization is so far from the contents of the article I have to assume this comment is in bad faith or you're extremely biased towards the NYT. The article is 90% discussing facts/quotes from various sources and 10% speculation on what actually happened by people who are very familiar with crypto markets. The NYT piece on the other hand contains almost no facts (90% narrative) and throws a pity party for SBF. It's a complete joke. NYT piece: https://archive.ph/413e0 https://archive.ph/413e0. E: the author of this piece even states on Twitter that it's mostly a compilation of known information. Nowhere near gossip or speculation. https://twitter.com/0xfbifemboy/status/1592387837126905857 https://twitter.com/0xfbifemboy/status/1592387837126905857
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  I'm not biased towards the NYT, what I'm saying is that what the NYT is doing is a different thing from this article. The NYT is an interview with SBF, interspersed with the story of what happened, and the NYT will stick to what it can actually prove. You're pissed the NYT is biased towards SBF but it's not - it's an literally an interview with SBF, you're not meant to take what SBF is saying in there uncritically. Whereas this article has a tonne of speculation (none of the stuff about market making has fact behind it, it's speculation based on a handful of tweets) and a heavy reliance on sources that are at best questionable. The stuff about the rogue algo is entirely without evidence, and the stuff about drug taking, whilst lurid, could be entirely tangential to why the company actually collapsed. The NYT isn't going to quote random anonymous users on an EA forum claiming to be ex-employees.
  - jasmer 4y ago
    The NYT is not supposed to 'stick with what they can prove'. That's definitely not the bar they have or else they wouldn't be able to publish much. Journalists should be a bit cynical, dig for info. The NYT has more resources than anyone, and should be able to ask around, do some actual blockchain work, interview others. This story looks like one of the biggest frauds in history, likely because it is, it's the job of the NYT to show at least there's a lot of smoke and put puzzle pieces together (obviously with context), they are not a formal judiciary. There are so, so many crazy parts of this story that were not addressed it reeks of something awry. For example the co-CEO. There's almost nothing about this guy, as though he does not exist. That's a huge mystery and it's only one small artifact of the story. This article raises as much suspicion as it clears up.
    - EamonnMR 4y ago
      They might be working on that article, but such an article will take time because they'll want to reach out to the anonymous posters and talk to them directly, find people who can do the chain analysis, verify people's stories, etc.
    - SilverBirch 4y ago
      It's pretty insane to me that you think the NYT would ever deliberately print accusations they couldn't prove. I also think you're massively overstating the role of the NY Times, yes they have resources but they have to cover massive breadth. The NY Times isn't really going to be an expert in every topic, and there are real expert reporters out there who are going to dig in to this for specialist information. In this case there are reporters covering tech and finance - so you're going to see good articles from Levine, and the Odd Lots people, Michael Lewis was literally shadowing SBF for 6 months. Arguably the Odd Lots guys got to this first - basically getting SBF to admit he was running a ponzi in an interview - an admission that made absolutely no difference because everyone kind of knew it was all a scam anyway. If you said to me there's an article about FTX I would be looking for it in Bloomberg or the FT, not the NYT.
      - jasmer 4y ago
- hoffs 4y ago
  >The NYT piece on the other hand contains almost no facts Did you even read it? It has plenty of facts and public statements. It creates a thorough timeline of all things that happened over years.
wikfwikf 4y ago
The NYT article is headlined "How Sam Bankman-Friedʼs Crypto Empire Collapsed". The parts of the article which actually answer this question are, in their totality, as follows: > Alameda had accumulated a large “margin position” on FTX, essentially meaning it had borrowed funds from the exchange, Par 6. Common knowledge, finance-splained and followed by equivocation and hand-waving from SBF. > On Nov. 6, Mr. Zhao announced on Twitter that he was selling the FTT, spooking customers who rushed to withdraw their FTX deposits Common knowledge for more than a week (in par 28). More well-known things about the Zhao deal in the next couple of pars. Obv suggesting the two key questions, why did they need a bailout in the first place, and what was wrong with the business that led Zhao not to invest? Needless to say, neither of them is answered in the article. > Her voice shaking, she apologized, saying she had let the group down. Over recent months, she said, Alameda had taken out loans and used the money to make venture capital investments, among other expenditures. > Around the time the crypto market crashed this spring, Ms. Ellison explained, lenders moved to recall those loans, the person familiar with the meeting said. But the funds that Alameda had spent were no longer easily available, so the company used FTX customer funds to make the payments. Besides her and Mr. Bankman-Fried, she said, two other people knew about the arrangement: Mr. Singh and Mr. Wang. > The meeting was previously reported by The Wall Street Journal. Several day old scuttlebutt taken from another newspaper in par 30+. (And nicely written to suggest that it's an urgent eyewitness dispatch "Her voice shaking") That's it. Literally no actual news reporting was done in this article. The high standards of reliability and standing up to scrutiny are worthless, because they are not actually applied to any useful or new information, but just to the human interest color that 90% of the piece consists of. Yes, the 'facts' that SBF has 15 room-mates and not 12, and that he plays League of Legends not Terraria are rigorously fact-checked, but they might as well not be. The actual question of Where did the money go is completely ignored beyond what is widely known. This isn't news reporting, it's a form of entertainment journalism, which allows people out of the loop to get a sense of the excitement and glamor of what's it like to live in the Bahamas and have your crypto exchange go bankrupt. (And it equally fulfils the desire for other clueless people to tut and sigh over the way the world is going.)
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  I think you're misunderstanding what the NYT article is, it's not a piece of deep investigative journalism, it's an interview with SBF with context attached.
gd1 4y ago
rglullis 4y ago
I too once believed that newspapers were focused on providing quality information.

listenallyall 4y ago

There was a time, not that long ago, when what you say is true. Unfortunately NYTimes gave up caring about accuracy and reliability a while ago.

ZephyrBlu 4y ago

> This article is very little more than just a gossip rag version of the NYT article This characterization is so far from the contents of the article I have to assume this comment is in bad faith or you're extremely biased towards the NYT. The article is 90% discussing facts/quotes from various sources and 10% speculation on what actually happened by people who are very familiar with crypto markets. The NYT piece on the other hand contains almost no facts (90% narrative) and throws a pity party for SBF. It's a complete joke. NYT piece: https://archive.ph/413e0 https://archive.ph/413e0. E: the author of this piece even states on Twitter that it's mostly a compilation of known information. Nowhere near gossip or speculation. https://twitter.com/0xfbifemboy/status/1592387837126905857 https://twitter.com/0xfbifemboy/status/1592387837126905857

SilverBirch 4y ago
I'm not biased towards the NYT, what I'm saying is that what the NYT is doing is a different thing from this article. The NYT is an interview with SBF, interspersed with the story of what happened, and the NYT will stick to what it can actually prove. You're pissed the NYT is biased towards SBF but it's not - it's an literally an interview with SBF, you're not meant to take what SBF is saying in there uncritically. Whereas this article has a tonne of speculation (none of the stuff about market making has fact behind it, it's speculation based on a handful of tweets) and a heavy reliance on sources that are at best questionable. The stuff about the rogue algo is entirely without evidence, and the stuff about drug taking, whilst lurid, could be entirely tangential to why the company actually collapsed. The NYT isn't going to quote random anonymous users on an EA forum claiming to be ex-employees.
- jasmer 4y ago
  The NYT is not supposed to 'stick with what they can prove'. That's definitely not the bar they have or else they wouldn't be able to publish much. Journalists should be a bit cynical, dig for info. The NYT has more resources than anyone, and should be able to ask around, do some actual blockchain work, interview others. This story looks like one of the biggest frauds in history, likely because it is, it's the job of the NYT to show at least there's a lot of smoke and put puzzle pieces together (obviously with context), they are not a formal judiciary. There are so, so many crazy parts of this story that were not addressed it reeks of something awry. For example the co-CEO. There's almost nothing about this guy, as though he does not exist. That's a huge mystery and it's only one small artifact of the story. This article raises as much suspicion as it clears up.
  - EamonnMR 4y ago
    They might be working on that article, but such an article will take time because they'll want to reach out to the anonymous posters and talk to them directly, find people who can do the chain analysis, verify people's stories, etc.
  - SilverBirch 4y ago
    It's pretty insane to me that you think the NYT would ever deliberately print accusations they couldn't prove. I also think you're massively overstating the role of the NY Times, yes they have resources but they have to cover massive breadth. The NY Times isn't really going to be an expert in every topic, and there are real expert reporters out there who are going to dig in to this for specialist information. In this case there are reporters covering tech and finance - so you're going to see good articles from Levine, and the Odd Lots people, Michael Lewis was literally shadowing SBF for 6 months. Arguably the Odd Lots guys got to this first - basically getting SBF to admit he was running a ponzi in an interview - an admission that made absolutely no difference because everyone kind of knew it was all a scam anyway. If you said to me there's an article about FTX I would be looking for it in Bloomberg or the FT, not the NYT.
    - jasmer 4y ago
hoffs 4y ago
>The NYT piece on the other hand contains almost no facts Did you even read it? It has plenty of facts and public statements. It creates a thorough timeline of all things that happened over years.

wikfwikf 4y ago

The NYT article is headlined "How Sam Bankman-Friedʼs Crypto Empire Collapsed". The parts of the article which actually answer this question are, in their totality, as follows: > Alameda had accumulated a large “margin position” on FTX, essentially meaning it had borrowed funds from the exchange, Par 6. Common knowledge, finance-splained and followed by equivocation and hand-waving from SBF. > On Nov. 6, Mr. Zhao announced on Twitter that he was selling the FTT, spooking customers who rushed to withdraw their FTX deposits Common knowledge for more than a week (in par 28). More well-known things about the Zhao deal in the next couple of pars. Obv suggesting the two key questions, why did they need a bailout in the first place, and what was wrong with the business that led Zhao not to invest? Needless to say, neither of them is answered in the article. > Her voice shaking, she apologized, saying she had let the group down. Over recent months, she said, Alameda had taken out loans and used the money to make venture capital investments, among other expenditures. > Around the time the crypto market crashed this spring, Ms. Ellison explained, lenders moved to recall those loans, the person familiar with the meeting said. But the funds that Alameda had spent were no longer easily available, so the company used FTX customer funds to make the payments. Besides her and Mr. Bankman-Fried, she said, two other people knew about the arrangement: Mr. Singh and Mr. Wang. > The meeting was previously reported by The Wall Street Journal. Several day old scuttlebutt taken from another newspaper in par 30+. (And nicely written to suggest that it's an urgent eyewitness dispatch "Her voice shaking") That's it. Literally no actual news reporting was done in this article. The high standards of reliability and standing up to scrutiny are worthless, because they are not actually applied to any useful or new information, but just to the human interest color that 90% of the piece consists of. Yes, the 'facts' that SBF has 15 room-mates and not 12, and that he plays League of Legends not Terraria are rigorously fact-checked, but they might as well not be. The actual question of Where did the money go is completely ignored beyond what is widely known. This isn't news reporting, it's a form of entertainment journalism, which allows people out of the loop to get a sense of the excitement and glamor of what's it like to live in the Bahamas and have your crypto exchange go bankrupt. (And it equally fulfils the desire for other clueless people to tut and sigh over the way the world is going.)

SilverBirch 4y ago
I think you're misunderstanding what the NYT article is, it's not a piece of deep investigative journalism, it's an interview with SBF with context attached.

gd1 4y ago

rglullis 4y ago

I too once believed that newspapers were focused on providing quality information.