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This may be a "culture gap" (or language gap) between crypto and traditional finance. The FT text directly addresses the question that we're told "No one [is] a

This may be a "culture gap" (or language gap) between crypto and traditional finance. The FT text directly addresses the question that we're told "No one [is] asking." They asked where's the money, and they're exposing the fact that no coherent response has been forthcoming. That's reporting. The likely interpretation of that piece of reporting is crystal clear to the intended readership. (I.e., the money is probably gone.) [For people who really want to nerd out: If you read all available public filings, the stories in the financial press are much easier to understand accurately. However this one is not subtle.]

mikejulietbravo 4y ago
Correct - the "everyone" is mainly NYT and some politicians. There are some questions there as it's a bit sketchy why they're treating him with such kid gloves.
- Dork1234 4y ago
  He is just a kid, he is merely 30, and grew up in a home with business lawyers. It has been such a hard life. If it wasn't for the shady Crypto market, he could be having a good life as a Doctor like we always wanted him to be. He got mixed up with this Caroline girl (How can you blame her, he is so muscular and good looking) and gave him all these ideas of having a crypto exchange. Clearly the problem is crypto, and it should be banned. It is ruining all these highly connected well to do young kids life's. /s
  - Dork1234 4y ago
    Well then, I think I need to commission from the Boston Globe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/12/06/business/caroline-ellison-math-whiz-newton-native-was-bound-success-then-she-got-into-crypto/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/12/06/business/caroline-ell...
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Seems to me people have completely unrealistic expectations of how financial crimes play out. This will take years to unwind. Pretty obvious the "why isn't he in jail yet" screaming is coming from the same place as "why aren't I rich yet," on which this entire empire was built. This stuff takes time. He's very obviously going to prison. For context: Enron, whose operations and collapse caused way more negative impact on the public, fell over in 2001. It wasn't until 2004 that Skilling (CEO/COO/general bad actor) went into FBI custody. It wasn't until 2006 that he was convicted. Yeah, SBF is going out on a media tour and admitting to all his crimes, so hey maybe they should arrest him now - but why? He's clearly too dumb/narcissistic to run. Take him to court based on media appearances and he may claim he was hopped up on a boatload of amphetamines to the point of actual delusion. Then oops, guess we didn't gather all the hard evidence needed to convict so we lose our shot! Jeez, people.
  - tom-thistime 4y ago
    It sounds like you probably know what you're talking about. That's going to cost you karma points.
    - hungryforcodes 4y ago
      Hmmm
  - pram 4y ago
    I think he'd be better off in jail, it would at least make him STFU
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      Which is another good reason for prosecutors not to be pressing him right now! Why not just let him keep running his mouth?
      - coldtea 4y ago
        Doesn't sound like a consideration law enforcement has or should have... They either have something to get him for or not. And he might have connections or not. They wont have people that did crime running around just in case they reveal something more...
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  I thought it was long admitted, even by the NYT (citation below) in a recent reorg, that they were controlled by the Democrats to an extent that even they found losing them readership and thus money. That said, I can't find an exact citation, but one article back then noted replacing editors in attempt to be more neutral. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/17/new-york-times-editor-admits-paper-is-very-very-ve/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/17/new-york-ti...
  - tom-thistime 4y ago
    At some point the NYT just got rabies where Trump was concerned. The news pages became gross and distracting even to folks like me who are normally core NYT readers. Now this is nuanced, ok? Trump has publicly called for elimination of the Constitution. That's not the media, that's him. But anyway, re the NYT, the really important point (for me) is that they allowed the front page to become unreasonable and unreadable. Maybe it has recovered now. I don't know. I'm afraid to look.
    - jjtheblunt 4y ago
      i subscribe; it's more balanced, perhaps because of the results mentioned in the article i linked above.
- tootie 4y ago
  I don't understand these media criticisms in the form of "Why doesn't every MSM outlet cover everything at once and ask every question of everyone and also make every inference we all want to hear?" The NY Times elicited more details out of SBF than anyone else. He more or less confessed to some of the major elements of his crime while pleading ignorance/incompetence at the girth of his wrongdoing. Asking in a friendly, non-challenging tone is a pretty standard interview technique to disarm your subject and encourage cooperation. "How much did you steal and why aren't you in jail?" isn't going to get a useful answer.
- tmaly 4y ago
  What is your opinion on why he is getting the kid glove treatment?
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
The main thing people claim Tether does is: 1. pretend to have customers 2. pretend those customers have deposits 3. issue Tether to front those deposits 4. pump up their favorite coins with their newly minted Tethers My first suspicion would be that FTX was more fraudulent to its investors than people claim. It pretended to have a lot more customers & deposits than it actually did to pump up FTT, to get real money from investors looking for a real business rather than crypto BS. Mainstream institutional money is gigantic, and it's mainly refusing to invest in coins. However, it's not afraid to invest in companies selling shovels to the gold rush. You can get a lot more money by defrauding institutional money than you can by defrauding retail. Is there hard evidence this isn't what happened? All I see is that the records were so bad they have no idea who's owed what. That seems like a really convenient way to cover up you didn't actually have customers in the first place and everything was a fraud.
- miguelazo 4y ago
  It's actually much, much worse than that. Tether, by misrepresenting its reserves, essentially "prints" money by faking the peg. This was already done in the overnight lending markets by huge financial institutions abusing the fractional reserve system, but at least there's a tiny facade of regulation on that side.* *https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo22438821.html https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo224388...
- hungryforcodes 4y ago
  What? How does Tether come into this? How is it related to FTX?
  - xwdv 4y ago
    Tether is related to FTX in the sense it is also a fraud and will eventually collapse.
    - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
      FTX was one of their biggest customers. I think they both used the same bank too
jrmg 4y ago
Your interpretation here is very kind. I really don’t understand how anyone can read this and think it somehow indicates we’re “supposed to believe SBF’s claims”. Bankman-Fried deflected the FT’s questions about the excessive borrowing and soured investments that ultimately sank Alameda, blowing a hole in FTX’s finances, and would not be drawn on the legal consequences he may face. He said he deliberately avoided getting involved in Alameda’s trading and risk management to avoid conflicts with his position as chief executive of FTX, and neglected to monitor the risk they posed to the exchange.
- tom-thistime 4y ago
  Thanks. I spent a lot of time making the language in my comment as neutral as I could.

mikejulietbravo 4y ago

Correct - the "everyone" is mainly NYT and some politicians. There are some questions there as it's a bit sketchy why they're treating him with such kid gloves.

Dork1234 4y ago
He is just a kid, he is merely 30, and grew up in a home with business lawyers. It has been such a hard life. If it wasn't for the shady Crypto market, he could be having a good life as a Doctor like we always wanted him to be. He got mixed up with this Caroline girl (How can you blame her, he is so muscular and good looking) and gave him all these ideas of having a crypto exchange. Clearly the problem is crypto, and it should be banned. It is ruining all these highly connected well to do young kids life's. /s
- Dork1234 4y ago
  Well then, I think I need to commission from the Boston Globe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/12/06/business/caroline-ellison-math-whiz-newton-native-was-bound-success-then-she-got-into-crypto/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/12/06/business/caroline-ell...
ethanbond 4y ago
Seems to me people have completely unrealistic expectations of how financial crimes play out. This will take years to unwind. Pretty obvious the "why isn't he in jail yet" screaming is coming from the same place as "why aren't I rich yet," on which this entire empire was built. This stuff takes time. He's very obviously going to prison. For context: Enron, whose operations and collapse caused way more negative impact on the public, fell over in 2001. It wasn't until 2004 that Skilling (CEO/COO/general bad actor) went into FBI custody. It wasn't until 2006 that he was convicted. Yeah, SBF is going out on a media tour and admitting to all his crimes, so hey maybe they should arrest him now - but why? He's clearly too dumb/narcissistic to run. Take him to court based on media appearances and he may claim he was hopped up on a boatload of amphetamines to the point of actual delusion. Then oops, guess we didn't gather all the hard evidence needed to convict so we lose our shot! Jeez, people.
- tom-thistime 4y ago
  It sounds like you probably know what you're talking about. That's going to cost you karma points.
  - hungryforcodes 4y ago
    Hmmm
- pram 4y ago
  I think he'd be better off in jail, it would at least make him STFU
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Which is another good reason for prosecutors not to be pressing him right now! Why not just let him keep running his mouth?
    - coldtea 4y ago
      Doesn't sound like a consideration law enforcement has or should have... They either have something to get him for or not. And he might have connections or not. They wont have people that did crime running around just in case they reveal something more...
jjtheblunt 4y ago
I thought it was long admitted, even by the NYT (citation below) in a recent reorg, that they were controlled by the Democrats to an extent that even they found losing them readership and thus money. That said, I can't find an exact citation, but one article back then noted replacing editors in attempt to be more neutral. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/17/new-york-times-editor-admits-paper-is-very-very-ve/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/17/new-york-ti...
- tom-thistime 4y ago
  At some point the NYT just got rabies where Trump was concerned. The news pages became gross and distracting even to folks like me who are normally core NYT readers. Now this is nuanced, ok? Trump has publicly called for elimination of the Constitution. That's not the media, that's him. But anyway, re the NYT, the really important point (for me) is that they allowed the front page to become unreasonable and unreadable. Maybe it has recovered now. I don't know. I'm afraid to look.
  - jjtheblunt 4y ago
    i subscribe; it's more balanced, perhaps because of the results mentioned in the article i linked above.
tootie 4y ago
I don't understand these media criticisms in the form of "Why doesn't every MSM outlet cover everything at once and ask every question of everyone and also make every inference we all want to hear?" The NY Times elicited more details out of SBF than anyone else. He more or less confessed to some of the major elements of his crime while pleading ignorance/incompetence at the girth of his wrongdoing. Asking in a friendly, non-challenging tone is a pretty standard interview technique to disarm your subject and encourage cooperation. "How much did you steal and why aren't you in jail?" isn't going to get a useful answer.
tmaly 4y ago
What is your opinion on why he is getting the kid glove treatment?

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago

The main thing people claim Tether does is: 1. pretend to have customers 2. pretend those customers have deposits 3. issue Tether to front those deposits 4. pump up their favorite coins with their newly minted Tethers My first suspicion would be that FTX was more fraudulent to its investors than people claim. It pretended to have a lot more customers & deposits than it actually did to pump up FTT, to get real money from investors looking for a real business rather than crypto BS. Mainstream institutional money is gigantic, and it's mainly refusing to invest in coins. However, it's not afraid to invest in companies selling shovels to the gold rush. You can get a lot more money by defrauding institutional money than you can by defrauding retail. Is there hard evidence this isn't what happened? All I see is that the records were so bad they have no idea who's owed what. That seems like a really convenient way to cover up you didn't actually have customers in the first place and everything was a fraud.

miguelazo 4y ago
It's actually much, much worse than that. Tether, by misrepresenting its reserves, essentially "prints" money by faking the peg. This was already done in the overnight lending markets by huge financial institutions abusing the fractional reserve system, but at least there's a tiny facade of regulation on that side.* *https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo22438821.html https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo224388...
hungryforcodes 4y ago
What? How does Tether come into this? How is it related to FTX?
- xwdv 4y ago
  Tether is related to FTX in the sense it is also a fraud and will eventually collapse.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
    FTX was one of their biggest customers. I think they both used the same bank too

jrmg 4y ago

Your interpretation here is very kind. I really don’t understand how anyone can read this and think it somehow indicates we’re “supposed to believe SBF’s claims”. Bankman-Fried deflected the FT’s questions about the excessive borrowing and soured investments that ultimately sank Alameda, blowing a hole in FTX’s finances, and would not be drawn on the legal consequences he may face. He said he deliberately avoided getting involved in Alameda’s trading and risk management to avoid conflicts with his position as chief executive of FTX, and neglected to monitor the risk they posed to the exchange.

tom-thistime 4y ago
Thanks. I spent a lot of time making the language in my comment as neutral as I could.