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Clearly illegal, but honestly very impressive. I really don’t think most people are ever capable of running a fraud so large. This guy is like the Einstein of s

Clearly illegal, but honestly very impressive. I really don’t think most people are ever capable of running a fraud so large. This guy is like the Einstein of stealing money

postsantum 4y ago
The word you are looking for is chutzpah
ratg13 4y ago
That's kind of an insult to Einstein. Einstein created new ideas that nobody had ever thought of before. All this guy did is do the same thing that has been done countless times in the past, but this time under the guise of "digital money"
SilverBirch 4y ago
I'm not sure it's really that impressive. Once you understand that there was fundamentally never a legitimate business underneath all of the things that would have been impressive look a lot less impressive. How did he build such a successful exchange? Well, he never had to run it as a profitable business so it was very easy to attract customers. How did he raise so much venture capital money, well it turns out he didn't have any financials or accounts at all, so it turns out he was simply lying to all of his investors. How did he get valued at $XBn, well he told them FTX was worth $XBn and when they asked why, he just lied to them. Well how did he come up with all this money to keep the scam going! Well, he literally just took every penny anyone had ever given him - Alameda investors, VC investors, FTX exchange users, and spent the money on whatever he felt like at the time. All this would be very impressive if it were an actual business, but if you take the view that it was never actually a business, it was just a Logo in front of SBF lying, it's quite a bit less impressive. That crazy crypto hedge fund Alameda raking in dollars? Go and find me a trade they've done. The reality is they probably just spent the last 2 years handing Jump 0.3cents a trade on every trade they ever executed, and Jump never figured out that the money couldn't be cashed out.
- blitzar 4y ago
  > That crazy crypto hedge fund Alameda raking in dollars? Absolutely, they likely made 10's of billions. They were long assets, with huge leverage, that went up massive amounts. They were still long assets, with huge leverage, when they went down lots. They were the biggest bulls in a bull market, and then the biggest bulls in a bear market. That is how we got to where they are.

Clearly illegal, but honestly very impressive. I really don’t think most people are ever capable of running a fraud so large. This guy is like the Einstein of stealing money

postsantum 4y ago

The word you are looking for is chutzpah

ratg13 4y ago

That's kind of an insult to Einstein. Einstein created new ideas that nobody had ever thought of before. All this guy did is do the same thing that has been done countless times in the past, but this time under the guise of "digital money"

SilverBirch 4y ago

I'm not sure it's really that impressive. Once you understand that there was fundamentally never a legitimate business underneath all of the things that would have been impressive look a lot less impressive. How did he build such a successful exchange? Well, he never had to run it as a profitable business so it was very easy to attract customers. How did he raise so much venture capital money, well it turns out he didn't have any financials or accounts at all, so it turns out he was simply lying to all of his investors. How did he get valued at $XBn, well he told them FTX was worth $XBn and when they asked why, he just lied to them. Well how did he come up with all this money to keep the scam going! Well, he literally just took every penny anyone had ever given him - Alameda investors, VC investors, FTX exchange users, and spent the money on whatever he felt like at the time. All this would be very impressive if it were an actual business, but if you take the view that it was never actually a business, it was just a Logo in front of SBF lying, it's quite a bit less impressive. That crazy crypto hedge fund Alameda raking in dollars? Go and find me a trade they've done. The reality is they probably just spent the last 2 years handing Jump 0.3cents a trade on every trade they ever executed, and Jump never figured out that the money couldn't be cashed out.

blitzar 4y ago
> That crazy crypto hedge fund Alameda raking in dollars? Absolutely, they likely made 10's of billions. They were long assets, with huge leverage, that went up massive amounts. They were still long assets, with huge leverage, when they went down lots. They were the biggest bulls in a bull market, and then the biggest bulls in a bear market. That is how we got to where they are.