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The entire finance industry will repeat this quote for a thousand years
- ElfinTrousers 3y agoSomeone violated Bell's Principle (take no notes when conducting an alleged criminal goddamn conspiracy).
- anyoneamous 3y agoI imagine I'm not the only person who tried to figure out how a Bell inequality was relevant here for a hot second.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoThere are non-local hidden variables invisible to outsiders. Until everything collapses.
- computerfriend 3y agoI'm still trying to figure it out.
- maxfurman 3y agoIt's a reference to Stringer Bell, from The Wire.
- lordnacho 3y agoFor context. Warning, N-word is used. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly82nabRRYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly82nabRRYc
- morkalork 3y agoOh Lordy, I may have to lay down a bit after hearing such foul language.
- NoImmatureAdHom 3y agoI passed out, but luckily I was already lying on the couch
- bckr 3y agoEh that’s one of the few words I do want to be warned about
- ElfinTrousers 3y agoIt's pretty cool though how other people went out of their way to say how bothered by it they weren't, congratulations guys, you're all real champs.
- claytongulick 3y agoMy poor pearls are surely groaning from the strain of my clutching.
- anotherpaulg 3y agoThe quote: As Binance's CCO bluntly admitted to another Binance compliance officer in December 2018, "we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro."
- lloydatkinson 3y ago[flagged]
- the__alchemist 3y agoI disagree emphatically with this statement. I encourage you to insert colloquial expressions used by various cultures as a replacement for "bro" in your comment, and assess the validity and other characteristics that may be ascribed to these statements.
- zenmaster10665 3y agoyeah, bro.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agobruh
- lloydatkinson 3y agoSorry, what "culture" do crypto bros belong to exactly? The culture of crime?
- EscapeFromNY 3y agoThe word "bro" predates cryptocurrency.
- latency-guy2 3y agoIs there any context around the quote? As far as I can tell, it's just been the SEC filing here against Binance and the earlier charges against Lim.
- NoImmatureAdHom 3y agoYeah...without more context the quote says nothing. The rest of it could have been, "They're talking as if we are operating as a fcking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro" P.S.: I sit here wondering, is it the court system that doesn't want to write "fucking" or is it a quote where the author himself bowdlerized?
- LatteLazy 3y agoThere are 2 contexts: On HN, that the majority irrationally hate crypto (the minority irrationally love it), and this re-enforces their views. In real life, that people have been trying to work out how to run a crypto exchange legally for about a decade. That the SEC is (suddenly and in a change of position) making that impossible. And that playing ball with regulators and trying to do the right thing will now be punished harshly (Coinbase). And people do don't really care will just ignore regulators (Binance). I honestly don't get why people don't see this. Japan has had decent regs for spot exchanges for a while. They work, FTX Japan creditors are basically fine because of this. <shrugs> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-17/bankrupt-ftx-s-japan-unit-is-set-to-return-client-funds-soon https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-17/bankrupt-... Now people will downvote this or reply with comments that assume all lawsuits are won or that the SEC decides what is legal or that all crypto is bad etc.
- vkou 3y agoIt's very easy to run a crypto exchange legally. Do KYC like anyone else who handles money does, and trade Bitcoin for dollars and back. Unfortunately, there's no money in that, all the money is in running an illegal exchange trading in unregistered securities (shitcoin and staking protocols and other crap). And no matter how many times you ask the SEC, they aren't going to give you guidance on how to do <illegal thing>. This upsets crypto people, who then go on Twitter and complain about how they are 'trying to work' but are getting stonewalled.
- hirundo 3y agoI was pissed a few years ago when I tried to open a Binance account, but was utterly unable to convince the site that I was me. I moved on and never did get around to making a crypto investment. In retrospect it might have been my best UX interaction ever.
- asah 3y agosigh - the "lesson" finance industry folks are learning, is to communicate by encrypted personal apps.
- bushbaba 3y agoLesson is to not put incriminating statements over logged (electronic) mediums. That’s the type of comment you state f2f.
- pjc50 3y agoThe relationship between encrypted personal apps and legal discovery is .. interesting. The UK government seems to have taken to using Whatsapp for this purpose, along with conveniently "losing" or factory resetting phones that might have evidence that would be relevant to a public inquiry.
- weinzierl 3y ago"losing" or factory resetting phones that might have evidence Only beat by the latest: "I still have the phone but I've been told to never switch it on again ever to not compromise national security".
- blitzar 3y agoAs per the legislation of the UK, if you did in a Bank what the UK government does in Government (with whatsapp), you would be in jail.
- hef19898 3y agoRegulated finance is already in hot water for the simple fact of using encrypted personal appsnfor communication, even if that communication isn't hinting at crimes. Traditional finance already knows what not to put in writing at all. Some crypto bro amateurs just gave their compliance training people a ton of funny quotes to work with.
- bee_rider 3y agoThis would be an awesome lesson for them to learn, if they get confident in their encrypted comms, they might start writing what they really say behind closed doors. Then, when the prosecution flips one, we’ll get some real juicy stuff.
- lesuorac 3y ago"The entire finance industry will repeat this quote for a thousand years as an example of Things To Not Put In Writing during employee training." Am I the only one noticing that the quote complains about them putting it in writing and not actually doing it? Like the industry is more focused on avoiding logging your crimes and not actually committing crimes?
- potatototoo99 3y agoSome guy on twitter is not "the industry".
- draw_down 3y ago[dead]
- regularjack 3y agopatio11 is not "some guy".
- loeg 3y agoSure, but he isn't the entire industry, either.
- cja 3y agoWe are all some guy
- MikeDelta 3y agoHe has cred, but I also felt that this was from someone outside the finance industry because we have seen this all before. After the FX scandals with the 'Cartel' chatroom, the libor scandals, we've seen compliance digging through all your Bloomberg chats and mails to find just about anything that sounds dodgy. Crypto is new to this game, the other players have seen it before.
- CoastalCoder 3y agoI'm guessing the issue is that ot shows intent. Not sure if that matters for civil liability, but IIUC it can matter in criminal law.
- ElfinTrousers 3y agoI see huge meme potential in the statement "we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro". What do you say, should we make this a Thing?
- welfare 3y agoIs Reddit offline today?
- tommit 3y agoJust wait another 3 weeks ...
- lost_tourist 3y agoYou make memes on 4chan and then let them float up through 4chan->reddit->tiktok->youtube->facebook->email pipeline
- nologic01 3y agoA thousand years is a lot of time for an industry that has practically forgotten its death-and-resurrection experience of just fifteen years ago. One thing is for sure: Technology will ensure that the fine art of relieving "suckers" from their monetary assets will reach ever higher levels of sophistication.
- llampx 3y agoAnd where Technology can't reach, regulation and lobbyists are there for!
- phone8675309 3y agoCalling the 2008 financial crisis a "death-and-resurrection experience" is a bit hyperbolic. Nobody important went to jail, the banks got bailed out after a couple of them merged, and the bankers still got their bonuses. The only people that got fucked were the customers. The financiers got their just fine.
- landoftheice 3y ago[dead]
- nologic01 3y ago> is a bit hyperbolic Well, I had to articulate something that will ring true (or at least be quoted) for at least a thousand years. You can't do that with measured expressions. But on the main point, outward manifestation of deep crisis makes indeed for pop-corn consumption but I don't think I really exaggerate if I say that the crisis was a death moment for an entire industry. The resurrection worked. But it brought back a zombie. The foundational myth of the financial sector, its calling card to society has been shredded. While in a world of TINA's the gainful milking of broken financial / banking systems continues unabated, this is not enough for a sector "to own the future" and NPV an infinite stream of cash. It is now lost in fading memories but there was a time when the masters of the information universe were not "big tech" but "big finance". Just like now there is a pseudo-ideology around "organizing the world's information" or "connecting all people", bankers used to have a pseudo-ideology about optimizing all the economy by transactionizing, financializing, securitising and marketising everything. In fact, as the crypto boom conveniently reminded us, that ersatz ideology is still lurking around, available to any tribe that wants to try its hand at "reinventing finance" using tech.
- quesera 3y agoI love that he held back on the word "fucking", but leaned fully in to the explicit confession of criminal activity. That's some short-term thinking there!
- mech987987 3y agoHe might be able to use the defense of "they did the unlicensed securities operations against every piece of advice I gave them". If he tried to stop it but was unable that could be a legitimate defense.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rapnie 3y agoThis is the case where I first checked the submission before the comments to see if it was Gordon Gecko's "Greed is Good" quote. Damn. I was wrong.
- TradingPlaces 3y agoViolations of the Stringer Bell Rule will always get my attention. https://youtu.be/Ly82nabRRYc?t=75 https://youtu.be/Ly82nabRRYc?t=75
- DonsDiscountGas 3y agoClassic middle-management. Tell employees to follow Roberts Rules and then get mad when they do.
- nine_zeros 3y agoFundamental problem of middle management. Want output but never concerned with how, until the how bites them. Sadly, it bites them too late.
- 8organicbits 3y agoThe market seems to think this is no big deal? Coinbase is down ~15% on the news of the lawsuit. I expected something larger.
- fbn79 3y agoI think is because the Coinbase lawsuit is centered around staking-as-a-service that is a new service launched this year, so not very critical for company business, and Coinbase does not looks bad https://www.coinbase.com/blog/coinbases-staking-services-are-not-securities-and-heres-why https://www.coinbase.com/blog/coinbases-staking-services-are...
- adql 3y ago[x] doubt
- blitzar 3y agoBro.
- aaronbrethorst 3y agoOne of the first (and best) pieces of advice I ever received upon joining the industry was to never send an email that I wouldn't be willing to see published on the front page of The NY Times.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- highstep 3y agoand yet you're willing to admit to your shady style on hn and describe that style as "best". its no wonder your industry is looked upon with disgust.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- paddw 3y agoTo be fair, I don't think anyone anticipated the scale (and thus scrutiny) Binance would achieve circa 2018. Still Incredibly Stupid.
- WinstonSmith84 3y agoSo that's very curious, not really the private exchange between 2 high level executive, but rather how that exchange ended up at the SEC... The SEC doesn't tell how they acquired this quote, nor even whether it's a legitimate quote at all. We all believe the SEC is not gonna lie, right? Well, then that let us with 2 options: the executive cooperated with the SEC (huh, how and why? was he threatened or was he offered a better paycheck?), or they have some spying tools (also weird..). Any other option?
- mnd999 3y agoSubpoenaed all their emails and chat logs most likely. They’re the SEC, they have these kinds of powers.
- loeg 3y agoBinance operates out of the US and I'm not confident they would comply with a subpoena. Maybe they're using some chat service with a US presence which is subpoenable -- Slack or whatever.
- mnd999 3y agoMaybe, but given the powers the SEC have to prevent them operating in the US financial system at all, and sanctioning anyone who wants to operate in the US if they deal with them, it’s usually less risky to hand over the data and hope they don’t find anything.
- soared 3y agoThe quote was almost certainly in a slack log that was obtained via search warrant by the sec.
- WinstonSmith84 3y agomaybe? That could be a plausible explanation, that would also open a lot more questions if that were the case
- ornornor 3y agohttps://nitter.net/patio11/status/1665759607153893381 https://nitter.net/patio11/status/1665759607153893381