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SoFi bought Golden Pacific Bank, a tiny, nothing bank, and runs their entire infrastructure off of its charter now. FTX was trying to expand into legitimate fin
by FormerBandmate 4y ago
SoFi bought Golden Pacific Bank, a tiny, nothing bank, and runs their entire infrastructure off of its charter now. FTX was trying to expand into legitimate financial services, buying this bank up would have been a great way to do that if they were an actual financial company
That being said, SoFi bought the entirety of Golden Pacific Bank for $23 million, and they were 20x the size of this bank (as well as having actual mortgage infrastructure and a wide variety of products). Buying 10% of a bank with only $10 million in assets for $12 million is very weird, at the very least it’s a horrible deal
- jbverschoor 4y agoWhy? He won't "officially" control it, but has a lot of influence (see all the other briberies, I mean donations, he did). SBF is one sneaky bastard that knows very well what he's doing.
- 22289d 4y agoI think it's a mistake to assume anything connected to FTX or that SBF did is by default shady or criminal in nature. Like, if you found out they purchased their company toilet paper from Amazon - would that indicate some nefarious motivations? Yes, they're criminals who belong in jail but only for the way they managed their balance sheet. They were also great builders who had awesome products and wanted to do all the great things they said they wanted to do. Buying a bank is something probably every crypto exchange has considered doing, so they can have access to the financial system and not have to pay massive amounts of money and have huge headaches processing payments for their customers. I'm surprised Coinbase doesn't own one by now - or perhaps they do.
- leethaxor 4y agoIf they paid 5x the normal price of toilet paper and they were picking it up in the middle of a desert then yes I'd assume there's something shady going on.
- e1g 4y agoIf they purchased toilet paper by paying 10-100x to a no-name supplier based in the middle of nowhere, and the same company is known for countless shady/fraudulent deals and non-existent financial checks and balances, then yeah that toilet paper has bullshit smeared all over it.
- jbverschoor 4y agoOh I'm all on the other side... I think it's a mistake to think anything SBF does is not shady. It's his history, everything that revolves about him, ftx, alameda, or his past is shady. I think SBF was VERY informed, especially looking at his background. It's simple greed for power (not even the money).
- 22289d 4y agoWhat is shady about the fact that he likes to cook vegetables with oil and a lot of salt?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- zzleeper 4y agoInteresting. My weekend memory is not too notch, but I kinda recall that if something/someone owns more than 10% of a bank then it becomes it's high holder (top holder?) for ffiec/Frb purposes and then starts popping up in a lot of reports (y9c etc)
- jbverschoor 4y agoHere in NL, >= 5% has tax implications, but > 25% will make you a UBO. Not sure about the rest or any details
- FormerBandmate 4y agoYeah, that’s what I meant by it being very weird. Assuming no illicit purpose, it’s a terrible deal, but this is FTX so it was probably a scam somehow, or money laundering. The bank appears partially owned by Deltec which is connected to Tether, there could be something there
- cloutchaser 4y agoDoesn’t really matter if it’s a bad deal if you’ve got $16bn of customer deposits to spend.