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They represented themselves as a crypto exchange where you traded cryptos with other users. In actuality they took all the cryptos away and lost them. So all of

by graeme 4y ago

They represented themselves as a crypto exchange where you traded cryptos with other users. In actuality they took all the cryptos away and lost them. So all of the "trades" happening for at the least many months were not real trades, as there were no actual assets trading hands. That's a bucket shop, a version of financial fraud. This....is not that complicated. So, the question then is: do you trust a bucket shop to have been recklessly dishonest about whether the trades happening were actual trades, but scrupulously honest about sending $36 billion real dollars to Tether? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucket_shop_(stock_market) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucket_shop_(stock_market)

williamcotton 4y ago
Ok, so first off, that first link that you posted was to a website called Protos. Oh, I did this by hand, so I might have miscounted, but I'll write up some software and start documenting the graph of all of these allegations on the plane tomorrow... The article contained 23 links. 13 of those links were to other articles on Protos. Of the remaining 10, the only primary sources I could find were: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/alameda-research https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/alameda-research https://markets.ft.com/data/funds/tearsheet/summary?s=MT7000023800:EUR https://markets.ft.com/data/funds/tearsheet/summary?s=MT7000... https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/55087847 https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/55087847 And then a broken link to something on https://eservices.mas.gov.sg https://eservices.mas.gov.sg I can't seem to piece together the same narrative as you have from these primary sources. Maybe there are more primary sources in those links. As soon as I enlist a computer to do this work for me I'll know. I was not aware that FTX was a bucket shop, ie, never delivered any of the traded assets and was just pure gambling. Do you have a primary source on this? The allegations that FTX were engaging in fraudulent accounting practices seems pretty strong at this point. The allegations that FTX were misusing customer's commodities seems pretty strong at this point. The allegations that involve a complex web of many different characters acting as co-conspirators all seem pretty weak at this point. The better question is: do you trust a complex web of secondary source material?
- graeme 4y ago
  Protos is a news agency. The primary source of their report is the blockchain. You're free to replicate their work or try to falsify it by pulling the same transactions they did and verifying their work. To date, no one has disputed what they published, including Tether and Alamedia/FTX. A bucket shop is a place that says it is executing trades but is not, in fact, executing trades and is instead trading in phony assets. FTX did not have the assets on hand, as it had given them to Alameda. This is the definition of a bucket shop. The source is FTX, they said they had given away their customer funds and didn't have them. What more do you want?
  - williamcotton 4y ago
    Do they have a link to their methods used in their report or a link to all of the transactions or other data used to generate their charts? Am I wrong to expect the same rigor that a court or an academic publication would apply? What FTX has said is basically "we used customer's commodities like a bank would. we lent them out to a trading firm that we also operate and we really hoped that we'd cover these trades". This is fundamentally no different than how banks operate but with a key difference: They didn't seem to make this known to any parties and they seemed to be massively over-leveraged. I have no problem with these activities being illegal. This is not the same thing as a bucket shop. And I still don't know what any of this has to do with $36 billion worth of Tether, Deltec, Chalopin, Bitfinex, Geniome, Moonstone... and that's just the threads mentioned in this brief discourse we've been having! Every time I ask questions the plot thickens! So what more do I want? I want sobriety. I want people to ask themselves why they are interested in this story. I want to people to ask themselves why they are writing articles, tweeting, making YouTube videos and posting comments about this story. I want to see primary source material and I want intellectual rigor. I want to see justice served and that is founded on notions of individuals being innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. I want to see no gossip, no speculation, no mentions of how things are convenient, no things appearing a certain way.
    - graeme 4y ago
      They detailed their methods in greater detail here: https://protos.com/faq-tether-usdt-investigation/ https://protos.com/faq-tether-usdt-investigation/ This isn't a criminal proceeding. But no one has rebutted Protos despite ample opportunity. And Tether specifically cited FTX as a major customer on multiple occasions. It's hardly a radical claim. > ""we used customer's commodities like a bank would. we lent them out to a trading firm that we also operate and we really hoped that we'd cover these trades". FTX wasn't a bank, it was a brokerage. Brokerages do not lend out customer funds in this manner! In a regulated brokerage, the customer owns the securities traded. If the brokerage goes bust, they have the claim to them.

by graeme 4y ago

williamcotton 4y ago

Ok, so first off, that first link that you posted was to a website called Protos. Oh, I did this by hand, so I might have miscounted, but I'll write up some software and start documenting the graph of all of these allegations on the plane tomorrow... The article contained 23 links. 13 of those links were to other articles on Protos. Of the remaining 10, the only primary sources I could find were: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/alameda-research https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/alameda-research https://markets.ft.com/data/funds/tearsheet/summary?s=MT7000023800:EUR https://markets.ft.com/data/funds/tearsheet/summary?s=MT7000... https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/55087847 https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/55087847 And then a broken link to something on https://eservices.mas.gov.sg https://eservices.mas.gov.sg I can't seem to piece together the same narrative as you have from these primary sources. Maybe there are more primary sources in those links. As soon as I enlist a computer to do this work for me I'll know. I was not aware that FTX was a bucket shop, ie, never delivered any of the traded assets and was just pure gambling. Do you have a primary source on this? The allegations that FTX were engaging in fraudulent accounting practices seems pretty strong at this point. The allegations that FTX were misusing customer's commodities seems pretty strong at this point. The allegations that involve a complex web of many different characters acting as co-conspirators all seem pretty weak at this point. The better question is: do you trust a complex web of secondary source material?

graeme 4y ago
Protos is a news agency. The primary source of their report is the blockchain. You're free to replicate their work or try to falsify it by pulling the same transactions they did and verifying their work. To date, no one has disputed what they published, including Tether and Alamedia/FTX. A bucket shop is a place that says it is executing trades but is not, in fact, executing trades and is instead trading in phony assets. FTX did not have the assets on hand, as it had given them to Alameda. This is the definition of a bucket shop. The source is FTX, they said they had given away their customer funds and didn't have them. What more do you want?
- williamcotton 4y ago
  Do they have a link to their methods used in their report or a link to all of the transactions or other data used to generate their charts? Am I wrong to expect the same rigor that a court or an academic publication would apply? What FTX has said is basically "we used customer's commodities like a bank would. we lent them out to a trading firm that we also operate and we really hoped that we'd cover these trades". This is fundamentally no different than how banks operate but with a key difference: They didn't seem to make this known to any parties and they seemed to be massively over-leveraged. I have no problem with these activities being illegal. This is not the same thing as a bucket shop. And I still don't know what any of this has to do with $36 billion worth of Tether, Deltec, Chalopin, Bitfinex, Geniome, Moonstone... and that's just the threads mentioned in this brief discourse we've been having! Every time I ask questions the plot thickens! So what more do I want? I want sobriety. I want people to ask themselves why they are interested in this story. I want to people to ask themselves why they are writing articles, tweeting, making YouTube videos and posting comments about this story. I want to see primary source material and I want intellectual rigor. I want to see justice served and that is founded on notions of individuals being innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. I want to see no gossip, no speculation, no mentions of how things are convenient, no things appearing a certain way.
  - graeme 4y ago
    They detailed their methods in greater detail here: https://protos.com/faq-tether-usdt-investigation/ https://protos.com/faq-tether-usdt-investigation/ This isn't a criminal proceeding. But no one has rebutted Protos despite ample opportunity. And Tether specifically cited FTX as a major customer on multiple occasions. It's hardly a radical claim. > ""we used customer's commodities like a bank would. we lent them out to a trading firm that we also operate and we really hoped that we'd cover these trades". FTX wasn't a bank, it was a brokerage. Brokerages do not lend out customer funds in this manner! In a regulated brokerage, the customer owns the securities traded. If the brokerage goes bust, they have the claim to them.