31 ms·
FTX’s ownership of a U.S. bank raises questions
- naveen99 4y agoTraditional markets, central governments aren’t immune to the principal agent problem. best is to always align incentives.
- miked85 4y agoI can't imagine any average person trusting that bank at all, based just on its appearance.
- sschueller 4y agoMy question is why the NY times is still running a summit where SBF is currently still scheduled to speak.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoSurely they’ll pull him. The NYT may act like its above the people, the politics, but even this would be an overreach. However, if SBF is committed to showing up, then it could be the paper’s moment to shine. However I don’t think the Times quite has the nation’s confidence that it once enjoyed ..long ago.
- fidesomnes 4y ago
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago> then it could be the paper’s moment to shine The NYT having SBF speak at one of their conferences would be the paper's moment to shine?
- Overtonwindow 4y agoYes. If a tough reporter really nails him down with a tough interview, it could be a shining moment for journalism. If they fawn over him, as some have suggested of recent coverage, then it will be a failure. The NYT should keep him, dare him to show up, and then do their jobs: Hold his feet to the fire.
- MrRiddle 4y ago
- eli 4y agoThe summits are about making money not news.
- m348e912 4y agoEven if it is a money-making endeavor, the NYT could slightly mend its journalistic reputation with some hard-hitting questions to SBF. They have been soft-handed so far in their reporting on SBF and FTX and it reeks of major bias and conflict of interest. In case anyone doesn't know what I am referring to, here is some background. https://www.publish0x.com/making-cents/whats-wrong-with-the-nyt-article-about-sbf-xjrynyr https://www.publish0x.com/making-cents/whats-wrong-with-the-...
- chrchang523 4y agoNote that they aren't pulling him: https://twitter.com/andrewrsorkin/status/1595517635441090565 https://twitter.com/andrewrsorkin/status/1595517635441090565
- siculars 4y agoAs a lure, so they can arrest him in the US? Clicks? Otherwise not sure why.
- KptMarchewa 4y agoI don't think he's that stupid.
- polygamous_bat 4y agoThen again, I've been telling myself the exact same thing since the start of this saga and I have been proven wrong every single time.
- KptMarchewa 4y agoYes, but no - putting aside the whole organizational, accounting etc failure, he just doubled the stakes each time he could.
- loeg 4y agoI believe the US has an extradition treaty with the Bahamas.
- VagueMag 4y agoThey've said they expect him to attend virtually from the Bahamas.
- fisherjeff 4y agoI obviously can’t speak for everyone, but personally, I am much more interested in what he has to say now than I was pre-collapse.
- wslh 4y agoHe can say that they were testing a new AI system that failed while they were sleeping...
- cypherpunks01 4y agoAll he seems to be able to say is that yes, he did YOLO with customer funds, and he is really sorry and wishes he didn't do that.
- HWR_14 4y agoHas he moved on to wishing he didn't do that? I've only heard him say he wished the YOLO worked.
- returnInfinity 4y agoYes, same. Sorkin says he won't hold back.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoThis is a huge red flag. Bankman-Fried is acting like the fix is already in. I won't believe this guy is actually going to prison until they slam the iron bars closed behind him.
- galangalalgol 4y agoI doubt any organized crime was using FTX. And if they were, he seems mart enough to pay them back first. But if there was some smallish organization of contraband dealers using FTX and he didn't know? White collar prison isn't his worst case outcome. As said earlier he has bribed the right big fish. But ignoring angry medium fish can be a problem. Also those might not be bribes. It might be a way to launder money into campaign contributions. Not that you really need that in the US now.
- andy9999 4y agoWhy would other people agree to share a stage with a guy who has possibly/probably(?) committed a massive fraud?
- nathias 4y agootherwise the stages would be empty
- spookthesunset 4y agoFor personal entertainment? I dunno? I mean something is gonna go down, might as well be there for the popcorn.
- dmix 4y agoThere's plenty of journalistic value in interviewing him and the audience will be very interested in hearing it. I'm not sure what being outraged over his interview is going to achieve Signalling you disagree with what he did? To protect people from his hearing his dangerous words? To punish him? IMO hearing his rationale, seeing how he convinced people, the lies he tells himself, etc should all be analyzed and publicly scrutinized. It's not like he's promoting some new venture or something.
- partiallypro 4y agoForget about the journalists, other speakers and interviewees are attending...why would THEY want to be associated with this?
- dmix 4y agoAssociated with what? An interview being done with a public figure? They aren't suddenly friends with the guy because he gave a virtual interview over Zoom at the same event as them. You don't need to be constantly publicly showing your outrage to make it clear "x person bad". We get it. We know he's bad. Even without such brave moral heroics.
- bink 4y ago
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoHe hasn't been convicted let alone charged with a crime (yet). When he is, his actions weren't violent. He's not a radicalizing figure and letting him speak doesn't hurt anyone (as opposed to an Alex Jones type).
- mvdwoord 4y agoNot violent directly perhaps. I agree that letting him speak now won't hurt anyone, physically for sure.. but theft and destruction of wealth is not without consequences, in real life. If, through my actions, you become financially ruined, I may not have kicked, beaten, or raped you, but is the harm comparable? Is it violence?
- latchkey 4y agoI personally view financial theft as a form of violence.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoGood for you? The law and society at large doesn't. Violence - behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.
- maxbond 4y agoI think most understand violence to include things like intimidation, emotional abuse, and imprisonment. The expression "physical violence" is a reflection of this broader understanding - there wouldn't need to be clarification, otherwise. I think of violence as the use of force or implied force to limit the agency of another. I'm not sure I'd call this violence but I can see where they're coming from. Maybe ask for clarification instead of being rude and dismissive, or simply leave your sneering judgement unsaid. You may be find this view uninteresting, but I find your snark exhausting. I could just as easily say, "oh you're snarky, good for you?" Additionally GP added to the conversation, and your snark detracts.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- PragmaticPulp 4y agoThe claim is that they’ll use the opportunity to grill him with hard questions and check his lies on the spot. In reality, I have a hard time believing that after watching Kanye West’s recent media tour where he steamrolled his interviewers and used their platforms to repeat his claims over and over again. Even the podcasts where interviewers supposedly pushed back the most (Lex Fridman is often given as an example) barely resulted in Kanye acknowledging the pushback and didn’t stop him from repeating his points over and over on the platform. The NYTimes event is especially weird because it’s not being held up as a “watch us grill this liar” but rather “come hear talks from this impressive lineup of accomplished people!”
- candiddevmike 4y agoSBF is probably paying for the best personal brand repair money can buy. He knows if you can achieve the cult like following of Elon or Trump you can become untouchable with the right bribes.
- dmix 4y agoSBF's name is the reputational equivalent of Bernie Madoff. You think people are going to help him make a comeback or convince people to give him more money? His only counsel now is going to be criminal lawyers. No PR firm or conference interview could save this dude's reputation.
- marvin 4y agoHis PR team bought the New York Times. It's ludicrous to think that they're giving him this positive treatment without bribes. Well, not bribe-bribes, of course, but rather the kind of bribes that very rich and well-connected people can afford.
- akira2501 4y agoI have a hard time believing that Kanye West, a public entertainer with decades of media experience, is a reasonable bellwether for how SBF is likely to perform under similar circumstances.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- alexpetralia 4y agoI am surprised the NYT didn't de-platform him. Actually, I am not surprised the NYT did not de-platform him.
- brookst 4y agoWho has the NYT deplatformed? What platform do they even comtrol?
- dmix 4y agoGetting people kicked off speaking events is a common 'deplatforming' tactic.
- brookst 4y agoGreat. Who has the NYT deplatformed?
- dmix 4y agoWhat's your point? That NYTimes takes a stand against deplatforming? At their own summits? Or in their newspaper's opinion pieces?
- brookst 4y agoYou said you were surprised the NYT had not deplatformed him. I was asking what they had done in the past that made you think they would. I guess nothing?
- gumby 4y agoHe's being interviewed by Sorkin so even if FTX hadn't crashed, it would have been as interesting* and enlightening as SBF's interview with Levine. It will be even better now, and I will enjoy reading the transcript. * TBH my only interest in the whole things is Schadenfreude, like checking out a car crash in the street. The sector is so tiny that even if FTX brings the whole thing down it'll be a largely invisible ripple on a macro scale.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- readthenotes1 4y agoPerhaps so that he will come to the US so he can be arrested here?
- fredgrott 4y agotongue-in-cheek how else does DOJ get him to a location to arrest him in the easiest way possible?
- heythere22 4y agohttps://archive.ph/jcmWQ https://archive.ph/jcmWQ
- siftrics 4y agoWhich set of supposed regulators approved this purchase? Find them. Investigate them.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> Which set of supposed regulators approved this purchase I would bet none. This looks like an illegal transfer of control. If shown, that gives us the thread with which to finally topple Tether.
- codehalo 4y agoFrom the article: “The fact that an offshore hedge fund that was basically a crypto firm was buying a stake in a tiny bank for multiples of its stated book value should have raised massive red flags for the F.D.I.C., state regulators and the Federal Reserve,” said Camden Fine, a bank industry consultant who used to head the Independent Community Bankers of America. “It’s just astonishing that all of this got approved.” So much for regulators/regulations.
- throw101010 4y agoThis is the kind of regulations that exist supposedly to hold accountable traditional finance and makes it an allegedly legitimate industry. One should wonder at which point we will have to deliberately stop unraveling this thread, before it gets really ugly for everyone... it might not be just crypto-exchanges that are completely rotten.
- meristem 4y agoI'll leave aside "the transaction was fraudulently approved" for the moment. I can see a possible, if naïve, thought process being "It's a tiny bank, hedge and crypto do absurd types of silly transactions, let's let them burn their cash since they think yolo with their own money."
- toddm 4y agoLooks like a Laudromat.
- kyrra 4y agohttps://www.wsj.com/articles/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-team-among-top-political-donors-before-bankruptcy-11668949205 https://www.wsj.com/articles/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-team-amon... FTX and it's executives donated $70 million to politicians as well (in the last 18 months). SBF donated $40MM to Democrats, and a different executive donated $23MM to Republicans. They were trying to buy all kinds of influence.
- conorcleary 4y agoLet's hear what Ken Griffin has to say about the GOP receiving FTX money.
- GameOfFrowns 4y ago>Let's hear what Ken Griffin has to say about the GOP receiving FTX money. Did the GOP directly profit from those donations or did it go to a specific PAC to support the campaign of a specific politician who a had personal connection to FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Salame? There is a report that suggests the latter[0]. [0]https://www.theblock.co/post/160714/crypto-booster-michelle-bond-is-running-for-congress-with-help-from-her-ftx-exec-boyfriend https://www.theblock.co/post/160714/crypto-booster-michelle-...
- samtho 4y agoNot discounting any of the stuff that FTX has done or will come to light, but this practice of supporting “both sides” is a very common, by-the-book strategy for any special interest group or organization looking to buy influence and is flushed with money.
- pr0zac 4y ago> The chairman of FBH is Jean Chalopin, who, along with being a co-creator of cartoon cop Inspector Gadget in the 1980s, is the chairman of Deltec Bank wat
- helsontaveras18 4y agoThere was another amazing exposé of Tether a few months ago all about this. I can’t remember if it was on Bloomberg, but that Inspector Gadget bit stuck out to me too.
- PTcartelsLOL 4y agoSo what? I also know one of the producers of Inspector gadget. He lives close to me. It was 1985. Too far gone.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- from 4y agoInteresting how almost no one commented on the actual article here. I think this ownership probably has to more do with the fact that mainstream banks don't want to get near crypto exchanges than some kind of corrupt conspiracy. The current regulatory system relies on outsourcing AML/KYC to banks but I guess no one ever thought about what happens if someone is rich enough to just buy a bank. Plenty of 5 employee credit unions around just waiting to be acquired!
- _trampeltier 4y agoBuy something if you have the money. It's called free market. So it's not by accident like this, it's not a bug, it's a feature.
- quickthrower2 4y agoWell life imitates art: Axecap buys a bank in Billions!
- abzolv 4y agoFrom the article: “The chairman of FBH is Jean Chalopin, who, along with being a co-creator of cartoon cop Inspector Gadget in the 1980s, is the chairman of Deltec Bank, which, like FTX, is based in the Bahamas. Deltec’s best-known client is Tether, a crypto company with $65 billion in assets offering a stablecoin that is pegged to the dollar.” That tells you everything you need to know.
- partiallypro 4y agoTether is the biggest scam in all of crypto, so this tracks.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- VHRanger 4y ago$65B in alleged assets is what they should have said.
- rkachowski 4y agoThat absolutely does not tell me everything I need to know. How the hell does the creator of inspector gadget end up mixed in this insanity?
- TacticalCoder 4y agoHe's deep into the tether/Bitfinex scam since the start, way before Alameda/FTX existed. Now how he ended up there is quite a mistery but it's been known since years and years.
- zepearl 4y agoAh, come on: a bank with 3 employees + The Inspector Gadget (+ all other weirdness about FTX), who knows what else will come up => I now feel the need to know more, this is just too interesting&weird&funny => I'll wait with trepidation Matt Levine's post about this stuff, maybe with extras. This is almost better than any fiction books/movies.
- JaggerFoo 4y agoThe PR for the investment doesn't imply nefarious intent. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fbh-corp-raises-11-5m-in-private-equity-funding-from-alameda-research-ventures-301497307.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fbh-corp-raises-11-... Why would they post a PR announcement if they knew it was an illegal transaction?
- fnordpiglet 4y agoTouching a bank, even briefly glancing it, is a fast way straight to federal pen if you’re attached to anything nefarious.
- quickthrower2 4y agoA small bank, right?
- fnordpiglet 4y agoAny bank. Bank charters are attached with enormous responsibilities and consequences.
- quickthrower2 4y agoFor big banks: fines yes, prison, usually no. For example https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/us-fed-terminates-enforcement-action-against-hsbc-2022-09-02/ https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/us-fed-terminates-e...
- fnordpiglet 4y agoFor employees involved in money laundering or insider trading or other financial crimes, they go to jail fast regardless of bank size. And the firms spend negative energy protecting them.
- graeme 4y agoI looked into this. They used to do business as Geniome Bank, and their job ads are for "crypto and marijuana". Almost no publicity, though they sponsored a few marijuana events. Chalopin usually shies away from press, so his personal involvement is odd. His son is also the chief digital officer of the company. Another curiosity is the old Farmington team is still there, including the presdient, and they still appear to be making agricultural loans, same as they've done for ~150 years. The Geniome/Moonstone operations appear to be based out of Seattle. Another curiosity not mentioned in this article is that Noah Perlman, COO of Gemini, is on the board of directors along with Chalopin. "Geniome" is the trademark of a UK based company also owned by Deltec/Chalopin: IFSG. So, Chalopin has an unusal degree of personal involvement here. Deltec previously invested in a small bank for money laundering purposes, so that could have been what they were going after here, but the amounts seem small. Could have been part of a larger plan which collapsed with FTX. They're scrubbing employee Linkedin's now.
- xwolfi 4y agoDeltec sent most of USDT ever created to Alameda Research: https://protos.com/tether-papers-crypto-stablecoin-usdt-investigation-analysis/ https://protos.com/tether-papers-crypto-stablecoin-usdt-inve... This is a conspiracy !!
- bombcar 4y agoThere have been a number of cases in fintech of basically “buying” a banking license by buying some small bank.
- graeme 4y agoThat would appear to be the case here, with the difference being that the purchaser in this case is a foreign bank known for its ties to a large criminal enterprise (Tether/Bitfinex)
- VagueMag 4y agoIt's a very "wow the simulation is running wild" sensation to see that someone who helped create a Keystone Kops-style cartoon I loved as a kid is at the center of all this stuff where the regulators and investigators are seemingly totally out to lunch.
- 71a54xd 4y agoFinally, slightly honest less-softball coverage of this outright criminal...
- seydor 4y agoHow come this FTX case is so vast and seems to encompass everything in the US? From afar, it just seems too much. For example, is Coinbase equally multifaceted ?
- robryan 4y agoSimilar case in Australia where they bought a company that already had a financial services license: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/23/ftx-bypassed-regular-process-for-obtaining-australian-financial-services-licence https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/23/ftx-b...
- classified 4y agoThe most efficient way to rob a bank is to own it.
- lowbloodsugar 4y agoFrom the wapo article, talking about real estate in the Bahamas: “Literally, the day it occurred, they called and said, ‘Let me know. I will pay cash,’” Hillier said. “People see opportunity.” Huh. It’s almost like how rich people buy property is: 1. Create a ponzu scheme or other financial shenanigans 2. Get money from peoples. 3. Spend proles’ money on ridiculous assets and property 4. Declare said scheme bankrupt 5. Step in and buy assets for pennies on dollar. Ideally, step 4 happens during a financial crisis so that proles can’t get access to borrowed money, thereby reducing competition for assets.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- popcalc 4y agohttps://web.moonstonebank.com/login https://web.moonstonebank.com/login Interesting WebAuthn demo still up on their site.
- kome 4y ago"The chairman of FBH is Jean Chalopin, who, along with being a co-creator of cartoon cop Inspector Gadget in the 1980s, is the chairman of Deltec Bank, which, like FTX, is based in the Bahamas." ahaha, i loved Inspector Gadget. but also: what the hell.
- openthc 4y agoWow! I know folks at this bank, they are one of the few banks approved by Washington DFI for cannabis -- https://dfi.wa.gov/cannabis/financial-services https://dfi.wa.gov/cannabis/financial-services -- we were looking to move some banking there. But one of our crew found info on Crunchbase about Alameda Research + Moonstone and we nope-d out of that deal. They said "we don’t have any risk or exposure from Alameda Research" -- but, still -- too close for comfort