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"Watchers of the cryptospace" had been critical of FTX since its inception out of seemingly nowhere. SBF is not a crypto guy despite being presented as such in

"Watchers of the cryptospace" had been critical of FTX since its inception out of seemingly nowhere. SBF is not a crypto guy despite being presented as such in the mainstream. He's a trader and even in trading he's only been in cryptocurrencies five years or so, prior to that is was trading more traditional assets like ETFs. I agree with you regarding regular people having no clue and no way to vet donors but keep in mind most folks on HN are part of this. The public knows what they get from news pieces they read, written by journalists who also don't have a clue. SBF was treated as the king of crypto by the mainstream for whatever reason. Talked to a lot of politicians too and spoke out in favor of regulation. Probably tried to sacrifice what he didn't care about anyway (actually decentralized chains) in order to present himself has a crypto person regulators can work with, all while committing fraud. Gary Gensler is supposed to have had private meetings with him several times. Curious how the agency who's supposed to regulate these exchanges never actually does and is even completely oblivious to multi billion dollar theft until the whole thing implodes. Meanwhile parties accept huge donations from Bankman-Fried and the SEC goes after smaller crypto projects that aren't even certain to be their jurisdiction.

comte7092 4y ago
>he's only been in cryptocurrencies five years or so Crypto has only seriously been around for 10-15 years. This is somewhat like saying “he’s only been a react dev for 5 years”
BrainVirus 4y ago
>SBF was treated as the king of crypto by the mainstream for whatever reason. I think the reason is getting more and more obvious with every passing day. His father and mother are professors of Law (and Business) at Stanford. (The mother is also one of two founders of Mind The Gap.) His aunt is a dean of Columbia University's School of Public Health. https://showbizcorner.com/sam-bankman-fried-parents https://showbizcorner.com/sam-bankman-fried-parents His brother was running a lobby group called Guarding Against Pandemics. FTX's head of policy and regulatory strategy was a Commodity Futures Trading Commission commissioner under Obama. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/14/former-ftx-ceo-sam-bankman-fried-loses-lobbyists-to-washington.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/14/former-ftx-ceo-sam-bankman-f... And that's not the end of it all, there are many more interesting connections.
- wyck 4y ago
  The reason was actually marketing and he was the first to admit it. During the invite only Chicago money trade show he explicitly said he spending all his money on brand awareness and marketing, basketball teams, stadiums, TV ads, the sponsorships were relentless and shaped public opinion that he was trustworthy. He' main spokesperson (and investor) was pretty much the most trusted athlete in the last decade. He knows how to build trust through marketing and politics.
  - dmix 4y ago
    The best video I've seen is SBF basically admitting it was a ponzi scheme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=131&v=C6nAxiym9oc&feature=emb_title https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=131&v=C6nAxiym9o... Selling something with no value other than the attention it gets on Twitter and the reputation it gets via reputable investors. What gets 'reputable investors' to invest in the scheme is the most interesting part of this story, if you at all care about stopping it. Something that has existed long before crypto.
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      > The best video I've seen is SBF basically admitting it was a ponzi scheme: [link omitted] > Selling something with no value other than the attention it gets on Twitter and the reputation it gets via reputable investors. But that is clearly not a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme involves an obligation to pay people returns on their fake investment. Here, the pitch was "I don't know why people want these things, but they do. Want one?", and that pitch was honest and accurate. There was no pretense that you'd be getting any special returns. By your standard, all trading in any commodity or stock is a Ponzi scheme, unless you're planning to consume the stuff yourself. Did you buy 300,000 pork bellies? Ponzi scheme. Do you have a bar of gold? Ponzi scheme. Do you have a share of Tesla? Ponzi scheme. Compare Charles Ponzi, whose investment thesis was "guaranteed returns of 50% in 45 days", who specified the exact trade he was making (buying American stamps in Italy, where they were cheap, and selling them in America, where they weren't), and who never actually performed that trade. A Ponzi scheme is defined by paying off people who have invested in you with funds from other people who have invested in you.
FabHK 4y ago
> SBF is not a crypto guy despite being presented as such in the mainstream. He's a trader I'd say to run a successful trading shop you need to be a good trader. Doesn't matter whether you trade potatoes, pork belly futures, or crypto. Do you think Jump Trading cares (or even necessarily knows) anything about the tokens they successfully trade?
- cwkoss 4y ago
  What constitutes a 'good trader' is different for every market. Often (always?) it entails an understanding of that particular market that cannot be translated to other markets.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
brindlejim 4y ago
I love how the crypto community has decided that SBF is "not a crypto guy" now that he's done crimes. And he's somehow "establishment" because he gave to political parties, and Democrat because we're ignoring the GOP contributions. SBF was more of a crypto guy than 99% of crypto. And he was way more crypto than he was establishment. And the problems in crypto that his actions highlighted (centralization, fraud, lack of consumer protections) cannot be waved away with "no true scotsman" arguments. He's your boy. Own it or the industry will not correct its own deep, ongoing mistakes, currently being made by entities like Binance.
- TheNewsIsHere 4y ago
  I think a generalist summation of the situation could be: Fraudsters will find any way to fraud, no matter the economics or tech. Enabling a fraudster to build and control something around a fig leaf will result in the same no matter the controls. Edit: this sounds defeatist on a second reading, but that is not my intent. I’m not saying there’s a futility here. I do think it’s futile to believe we could rid any field of fraudsters and con artists, but I don’t think anyone here has argued we can.
- cscurmudgeon 4y ago
  > And he was way more crypto than he was establishment. Not sure about that. He was meeting with the chairman of the SEC and was a top donor personally to the Democratic Party. That screams "establishment". How many crypto bros can meet with the chairman of the SEC?
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    Historically, at least one cryptobro could. Unless you hold that meeting with the chairman of the SEC disqualifies you from being a cryptobro. In which case it's tautologically zero.
    - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
      > Historically, at least one cryptobro could. And that is out of how many cryptobros in existence?
krisboyz781 4y ago
[flagged]
- codehalo 4y ago
  Now that would be like thinking USD can never fail.

comte7092 4y ago

>he's only been in cryptocurrencies five years or so Crypto has only seriously been around for 10-15 years. This is somewhat like saying “he’s only been a react dev for 5 years”

BrainVirus 4y ago

>SBF was treated as the king of crypto by the mainstream for whatever reason. I think the reason is getting more and more obvious with every passing day. His father and mother are professors of Law (and Business) at Stanford. (The mother is also one of two founders of Mind The Gap.) His aunt is a dean of Columbia University's School of Public Health. https://showbizcorner.com/sam-bankman-fried-parents https://showbizcorner.com/sam-bankman-fried-parents His brother was running a lobby group called Guarding Against Pandemics. FTX's head of policy and regulatory strategy was a Commodity Futures Trading Commission commissioner under Obama. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/14/former-ftx-ceo-sam-bankman-fried-loses-lobbyists-to-washington.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/14/former-ftx-ceo-sam-bankman-f... And that's not the end of it all, there are many more interesting connections.

wyck 4y ago
The reason was actually marketing and he was the first to admit it. During the invite only Chicago money trade show he explicitly said he spending all his money on brand awareness and marketing, basketball teams, stadiums, TV ads, the sponsorships were relentless and shaped public opinion that he was trustworthy. He' main spokesperson (and investor) was pretty much the most trusted athlete in the last decade. He knows how to build trust through marketing and politics.
- dmix 4y ago
  The best video I've seen is SBF basically admitting it was a ponzi scheme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=131&v=C6nAxiym9oc&feature=emb_title https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=131&v=C6nAxiym9o... Selling something with no value other than the attention it gets on Twitter and the reputation it gets via reputable investors. What gets 'reputable investors' to invest in the scheme is the most interesting part of this story, if you at all care about stopping it. Something that has existed long before crypto.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > The best video I've seen is SBF basically admitting it was a ponzi scheme: [link omitted] > Selling something with no value other than the attention it gets on Twitter and the reputation it gets via reputable investors. But that is clearly not a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme involves an obligation to pay people returns on their fake investment. Here, the pitch was "I don't know why people want these things, but they do. Want one?", and that pitch was honest and accurate. There was no pretense that you'd be getting any special returns. By your standard, all trading in any commodity or stock is a Ponzi scheme, unless you're planning to consume the stuff yourself. Did you buy 300,000 pork bellies? Ponzi scheme. Do you have a bar of gold? Ponzi scheme. Do you have a share of Tesla? Ponzi scheme. Compare Charles Ponzi, whose investment thesis was "guaranteed returns of 50% in 45 days", who specified the exact trade he was making (buying American stamps in Italy, where they were cheap, and selling them in America, where they weren't), and who never actually performed that trade. A Ponzi scheme is defined by paying off people who have invested in you with funds from other people who have invested in you.

FabHK 4y ago

> SBF is not a crypto guy despite being presented as such in the mainstream. He's a trader I'd say to run a successful trading shop you need to be a good trader. Doesn't matter whether you trade potatoes, pork belly futures, or crypto. Do you think Jump Trading cares (or even necessarily knows) anything about the tokens they successfully trade?

cwkoss 4y ago
What constitutes a 'good trader' is different for every market. Often (always?) it entails an understanding of that particular market that cannot be translated to other markets.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

brindlejim 4y ago

I love how the crypto community has decided that SBF is "not a crypto guy" now that he's done crimes. And he's somehow "establishment" because he gave to political parties, and Democrat because we're ignoring the GOP contributions. SBF was more of a crypto guy than 99% of crypto. And he was way more crypto than he was establishment. And the problems in crypto that his actions highlighted (centralization, fraud, lack of consumer protections) cannot be waved away with "no true scotsman" arguments. He's your boy. Own it or the industry will not correct its own deep, ongoing mistakes, currently being made by entities like Binance.

TheNewsIsHere 4y ago
I think a generalist summation of the situation could be: Fraudsters will find any way to fraud, no matter the economics or tech. Enabling a fraudster to build and control something around a fig leaf will result in the same no matter the controls. Edit: this sounds defeatist on a second reading, but that is not my intent. I’m not saying there’s a futility here. I do think it’s futile to believe we could rid any field of fraudsters and con artists, but I don’t think anyone here has argued we can.
cscurmudgeon 4y ago
> And he was way more crypto than he was establishment. Not sure about that. He was meeting with the chairman of the SEC and was a top donor personally to the Democratic Party. That screams "establishment". How many crypto bros can meet with the chairman of the SEC?
- HWR_14 4y ago
  Historically, at least one cryptobro could. Unless you hold that meeting with the chairman of the SEC disqualifies you from being a cryptobro. In which case it's tautologically zero.
  - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
    > Historically, at least one cryptobro could. And that is out of how many cryptobros in existence?

krisboyz781 4y ago

[flagged]

codehalo 4y ago
Now that would be like thinking USD can never fail.