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This shouldn’t be surprising at all after seeing their balance sheet with round numbers like $5,000,000,000 in assets and $12,000,000,000 in liabilities. It loo
by bluedevil2k 4y ago
This shouldn’t be surprising at all after seeing their balance sheet with round numbers like $5,000,000,000 in assets and $12,000,000,000 in liabilities. It looked like SBF made it in Excel while his LoL game was loading.
- bombcar 4y agoI want that XLSX file. I want to print out that spreadsheet for my bedsheet. It's a work of art; it should be hung in every office in the country as a reminder.
- emehex 4y agoHere it is! https://d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net/production/7ab64a3b-6ce0-47cc-96ac-5e2d2a8c5d6c.png https://d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net/production/7ab64a3b-6c...
- bombcar 4y agoThank you! That's the highest resolution PNG of it I've seen so far, but someday I hope to get the actual XLSX.
- HWR_14 4y agoYou can retype it. I don't there are any supporting sheets. It should take like 2 minutes
- weezin 4y agoExhibit A of the incompetence defense.
- notahacker 4y agoThink it'd be Exhibit A for the prosecution tbh. They were a financial services company run by ex-traders, not a mum and pop shop that might genuinely be running a legitimate business on napkin math
- belter 4y agoWill somebody please do a Benford's law on this one? I am too busy counting my virtual coins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law
- bombcar 4y agoI don't think you even need Benford's law - "Hidden, poorly internally labled 'fiat@' account" has to trigger some more fundamental law.
- kwertyoowiyop 4y agoThis phrase will become legendary in business and accounting.
- agentdrek 4y agoWhat is TRUMPLOSE lol
- bombcar 4y agoAn "illiquid bet on Trump losing the 2024 election" - well known investment-type.
- umeshunni 4y agohttps://www.coinbase.com/price/trump-loses-token https://www.coinbase.com/price/trump-loses-token
- gruez 4y agohttps://ftx.com/trump-tokens https://ftx.com/trump-tokens
- v64 4y agoFTX had various betting markets where you could wager on the outcome of the 2024 election. Some larger speculators wanted to buy bets bigger than what the orderbook for the market could handle, so FTX directly acted as the counterparty to their bets. Source is Twitter, so grain of salt, caveat emptor, etc.
- iso1631 4y ago"A chance of Typos" That's exactly the kind of financial detail I like to see from a multi-billion dollar company.
- rightbyte 4y ago"Poorly labeled account"? Like, he claims he forgot some liabilities existed? With about the same size as their customers' founds?
- shawabawa3 4y agoFrom the latest bankruptcy filing it seems like they had an Alameda bank account that they used for FTX deposits to save time as there was no FTX bank account at the time It seems all $8B of deposits to this account were double credited to both FTX and Alameda
- espadrine 4y agoNot only that, but these liabilities are likely only a chunk of the customer’s funds (hence “fiat”). A lot more data is missing. Indeed, from John J. Ray III’s declaration[0]: > The Dotcom Silo Debtors may have significant liabilities to customers through the FTX.com platform. However, such liabilities are not reflected in the financial statements prepared by these companies while they were under the control of Mr. Bankman-Fried And from SBF[1]: > it looks like people wired $8b to Alameda and oh god we basically forgot about the stub accounts that corresponded to that and so it was never delivered to FTX [0]: https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/33/188450/042020648197.pdf https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/33/188450/042020648... [1]: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23462333/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-cryptocurrency-effective-altruism-crypto-bahamas-philanthropy https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23462333/sam-bankman-frie...
- bwi4 4y agoThanks. That Vox piece is super cringey - I'm sure his lawyers are thrilled. So, this case may be the first high-profile exercise in cryptocurrency-forensic-accounting. Let the paperclips fly.
- AlanYx 4y agoI'm also intrigued by the column labelled "Accute fear" [sic].
- _yb2s 4y agoTo me the biggest red flag is the comment about a "run on the bank." He was never running a bank, but an exchange, and seems unaware of this! He had no right to do anything but store the exact amount of each transaction, in the exact quantity and form it was made in. Banks are insured against runs, that's kind of the definition and point of a bank in modern times. Also, this supposed "theft" by an "ex employee" is obvious bullshit also. No way they made it possible for even the most compromised ex employee to keep the crypto keys, and if they had, they would have taken the money before FTX crashed. He's not dumb enough to believe that story, so the only possible explanation is that the thief is SBF himself.
- lelandfe 4y ago> could be slightly off; there is also obviously a chance of typos etc
- whymauri 4y agoThrowback to when HN was praising FTX for running so 'lean' and 'efficiently,' only hiring the bare minimum to be successful.
- ValentineC 4y agoI couldn't find any such comments, but this one from August 2021 aged really poorly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28798944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28798944
- gruez 4y agoAged poorly in what sense? 1. "FTX is very well capitalized" - given that August 2021 was in the middle of the crypto bull market, that statement was probably true at the time. Sure, it became poorly capitalized later, but that wouldn't make the comment age poorly, any more than a statement like "the fed has inflation under control" in 2019 would age poorly. 2. "Can you show me even napkin math that shows FTX going under if USDT blows up in a realistic scenario" - FTX blew up for an entirely different reason
- bluedevil2k 4y agoIt was never well capitalized. They used their own made up token as an asset and assigned a fake inflated valuation to it.
- anotheracctfo 4y agoIt's wild to me that they can basically print counterfeit USD and put it on their SEC filings, and the Treasury is just okay with it.
- shawabawa3 4y agoSEC filings? They never made any SEC filings The vast majority of their business was based in the Bahamas and Antigua to avoid US regulators
- hotpotamus 4y agoI was under the impression that was a hastily prepared document for essentially marketing purposes when they were shopping around for a buyer/savior, and the fact that Binance looked at it and quickly nixed any thought of a deal speaks for how well it worked for that purpose. But I assume there are more detailed docs internally, though I'm sure those will be problematic too.
- xdavidliu 4y agoI don't think someone who splurged on Miami Heat stadiums and Tom Brady ads would lower himself to buying a gaming pc that has loading times
- ncpa-cpl 4y agoThat Balance Sheet is so unbelievably wrong. I would have gotten an F if I had done that in my first Accounting 101 quiz. Just to see it describing the financial situation of a company holding millions is just unbelievable.