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SBF may have made mistakes or even committed fraud, but it is concerning that bankruptcy attorney does not seem to focus on recovering the value of the assets.

by miga 4y ago

SBF may have made mistakes or even committed fraud, but it is concerning that bankruptcy attorney does not seem to focus on recovering the value of the assets. If FTX US was liquid, this action has brought down another company...

function_seven 4y ago
I assume they’re being honest about the value of the company. They’re not “lowering” it. The company is worth whatever a potential buyer is willing to pay for it. And whatever that number is, I can’t imagine it’s meaningfully different from “$0”. I’m talking about the brand and the technology, not the assets that need to be distributed to creditors. The alternative here is if the lawyers found the back door, and decided to keep it secret. That’s not ethical IMO.
stdbrouw 4y ago
I thought Matt Levine's take in Wednesday's Money Stuff was insightful: > If you go around talking up the value of the FTX’s business and its tokens, you might be able to talk someone into paying a lot of money for them; maybe not now but perhaps in November. If you go around talking down the value of FTX — if you make statements about how poorly it was run and how much fraud it did — then that value will tend to zero, and you won’t be able to sell it. > At some level Bankman-Fried is surely right that if he had remained CEO of FTX, instead of stepping down and being replaced by Ray, he would have had a better chance — though still quite slim — of selling FTX’s business and tokens for more money, and thus raising more money for FTX’s customers. If you want to sell that business, you have to say that it’s good. > It’s just that, you know, if FTX was a fraud, he would have been getting that money for customers by doing more fraud? Like if Ray is right that FTX was a fraudulent mess, then he shouldn’t be trying to sell it to investors for a lot of money, since that would itself be fraud.

by miga 4y ago

function_seven 4y ago

I assume they’re being honest about the value of the company. They’re not “lowering” it. The company is worth whatever a potential buyer is willing to pay for it. And whatever that number is, I can’t imagine it’s meaningfully different from “$0”. I’m talking about the brand and the technology, not the assets that need to be distributed to creditors. The alternative here is if the lawyers found the back door, and decided to keep it secret. That’s not ethical IMO.

stdbrouw 4y ago

I thought Matt Levine's take in Wednesday's Money Stuff was insightful: > If you go around talking up the value of the FTX’s business and its tokens, you might be able to talk someone into paying a lot of money for them; maybe not now but perhaps in November. If you go around talking down the value of FTX — if you make statements about how poorly it was run and how much fraud it did — then that value will tend to zero, and you won’t be able to sell it. > At some level Bankman-Fried is surely right that if he had remained CEO of FTX, instead of stepping down and being replaced by Ray, he would have had a better chance — though still quite slim — of selling FTX’s business and tokens for more money, and thus raising more money for FTX’s customers. If you want to sell that business, you have to say that it’s good. > It’s just that, you know, if FTX was a fraud, he would have been getting that money for customers by doing more fraud? Like if Ray is right that FTX was a fraudulent mess, then he shouldn’t be trying to sell it to investors for a lot of money, since that would itself be fraud.