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Yeah. I'm surprised we haven't seen any more looks at the Japanese arbitrage story. I admit (as a non-crypto person) I had just assumed it was real until last w

Yeah. I'm surprised we haven't seen any more looks at the Japanese arbitrage story. I admit (as a non-crypto person) I had just assumed it was real until last week. My totally unfounded hypothesis is that Sam made several million betting directionally on crypto and maybe even made a million on this Japanese temporary arbitrage. While most crypto betters are pretty isolated Sam knew with his connections he would be able to get in front of investors and he knew in order to get money he needed to say something that sounded more sophisticated.

siftrics 4y ago
It is well documented that he directly stole depositor's funds.
- fasthands9 4y ago
  I'm well aware of that. I'm talking about how he initially made money in crypto. The article above links to the piece below but its unclear to me now how much of this is true and how much of this was exaggerated by SBF's own story telling to raise money. This all took place before FTX. https://vegaxholdings.medium.com/kimchi-premium-crypto-arbitrage-techniques-b780a45b6e76 https://vegaxholdings.medium.com/kimchi-premium-crypto-arbit...
- elkos 4y ago
  While this seem to be the case. How he created his initial assets to create Allameda and FTX? Did he and his colleagues stole funds at the get go?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
paganel 4y ago
Maybe it's just a coincidence, but at first I had heard about SBF making $50 million out of that Japanese arbitrage thing, and then, a few days later, of him receiving the same sum of $50 million as an investment from a guy named Tallinn (actually a loan, according to this Times article [1]). So most probably he didn't make $50 million from the arbitrage alone. He did make some money out of it, but not that exact sum. Which also reminds me that he didn't make the money in his name, he had used a EA person based in Japan who actually opened up an account with a small Japanese agricultural bank or something like that. So the money was in that person's name. There's no way for that Japanese person to have transferred $50 million to SBF without automatically triggering countless money laundering alarms. And "transfer" is the wrong word, that person had to donate those $50 million to SBF (or to FTX?) in order to make them be SBF's (FTX's?) money. [1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sam-bankman-fried-the-nerd-king-who-lost-16bn-in-one-click-wgm2rd82j https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sam-bankman-fried-the-ner...

siftrics 4y ago

It is well documented that he directly stole depositor's funds.

fasthands9 4y ago
I'm well aware of that. I'm talking about how he initially made money in crypto. The article above links to the piece below but its unclear to me now how much of this is true and how much of this was exaggerated by SBF's own story telling to raise money. This all took place before FTX. https://vegaxholdings.medium.com/kimchi-premium-crypto-arbitrage-techniques-b780a45b6e76 https://vegaxholdings.medium.com/kimchi-premium-crypto-arbit...
elkos 4y ago
While this seem to be the case. How he created his initial assets to create Allameda and FTX? Did he and his colleagues stole funds at the get go?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

paganel 4y ago

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but at first I had heard about SBF making $50 million out of that Japanese arbitrage thing, and then, a few days later, of him receiving the same sum of $50 million as an investment from a guy named Tallinn (actually a loan, according to this Times article [1]). So most probably he didn't make $50 million from the arbitrage alone. He did make some money out of it, but not that exact sum. Which also reminds me that he didn't make the money in his name, he had used a EA person based in Japan who actually opened up an account with a small Japanese agricultural bank or something like that. So the money was in that person's name. There's no way for that Japanese person to have transferred $50 million to SBF without automatically triggering countless money laundering alarms. And "transfer" is the wrong word, that person had to donate those $50 million to SBF (or to FTX?) in order to make them be SBF's (FTX's?) money. [1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sam-bankman-fried-the-nerd-king-who-lost-16bn-in-one-click-wgm2rd82j https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sam-bankman-fried-the-ner...