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I'm curious if anyone has any idea - how much money is actually unaccounted for? Michael Lewis's book makes it seem like the money existed, but was all over the

I'm curious if anyone has any idea - how much money is actually unaccounted for? Michael Lewis's book makes it seem like the money existed, but was all over the place, and that by the time all was said and done, they were basically in the black. But that was assuming investments didn't ever grow - they still had to have lost money somehow.

smcl 3y ago
Wasn’t the issue that the “money” that was left was actually in the form of largely worthless cryptocurrency investments, some of which were issued by FTX themselves.
- 8note 3y ago
  Which seems kinda silly. People willingly traded their USD for garbage that wasn't worth anything, and put their money into accounts any reasonable person would think is worthless. He was really just serving a market for people trying to put their money into valueless garbage
  - smcl 3y ago
    I dunno, all kinds of fraudsters and scammers are "serving a market" if you think about it like that. I guess it remains to be seen whether what they did was considered legal or not. Very very probably not.
greedo 3y ago
For a multitude of reasons, Lewis is an unreliable narrator...
- infecto 3y ago
  Yes, leave only an accusation without supporting facts or ideas.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    I lost a lot of respect for Lewis over the book. He gave a wildly charitable and apologetic take on SBF's blatant fraud and incompetence. I'd suggest reading it (or watching any related interviews with Lewis) -- but I don't think this is a particularly unpopular take. Comes up in most (all?) reviews, like this one, where the subtitle reads: > The Moneyball author develops a misguided soft spot for fallen crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried It reads like, with full knowledge now of what was really happening, that Lewis ate up all the lies and baloney he was fed the whole time he was interviewing SBF. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/25/going-infinite-by-michael-lewis-review-falling-for-the-antihero https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/25/going-infinite...
  - loeg 3y ago
    Just the first google result but anyone paying any attention is familiar with how stupid the Lewis story around SBF is: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/how-michael-lewis-got-duped-by-sam-bankman-fried.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/how-michael-lewis-go... There are myriad other extremely easy to find criticisms of this particular Lewis book (and of his other books, too).
    - infecto 3y ago
      I am full aware of what some of the commentary was and have read the book myself. I don’t like SBF and I am not the fan of most of the books written by Lewis. I just expect more quality from a comment here, if you dont want to share the “multitude of reasons”, dont make the comment. Easy.
  - greedo 3y ago
    Sorry, I stopped being a "citations needed" responder a while ago. You can google for it pretty easily. TLDR, Lewis has been very friendly with everyone he writes about. Whether it's SBF or Tuohys from The Blind Side, he's shown a lack of objectivity, to put it mildly.
    - infecto 3y ago
      Sorry I stopped being a low effort comment kind of person. You shared an opinion, it’s not up to me to google it because your perspective is different than what might be found in a google search. If you don’t have interest in sharing your opinion don’t post a low quality comment.
misnome 3y ago
My understanding is that the money is "back", but only because the Crypto holdings were frozen at the point of bankruptcy and the crypto prices have more than doubled since then. So, account holders might get something approaching the dollar value of what they held two years ago, not what they "should" have got if they still held it today.
- CodesInChaos 3y ago
  Let's see if it goes like MtGox where it takes more than a decade to pay out the money.
drexlspivey 3y ago
The hole is $8bn (that's counting real assets no shit tokens) which is probably going to be covered completely by their 8% stake in Anthropic that FTX bought for $500m. The lawyer fees for the bankruptcy are $1.5m per day.
tempsy 3y ago
I believe customers will be made whole but in dollars at time of bankruptcy so if you had 1 bitcoin on ftx then you’re only going to get $15k or whatever the price was then not $70k

smcl 3y ago

Wasn’t the issue that the “money” that was left was actually in the form of largely worthless cryptocurrency investments, some of which were issued by FTX themselves.

8note 3y ago
Which seems kinda silly. People willingly traded their USD for garbage that wasn't worth anything, and put their money into accounts any reasonable person would think is worthless. He was really just serving a market for people trying to put their money into valueless garbage
- smcl 3y ago
  I dunno, all kinds of fraudsters and scammers are "serving a market" if you think about it like that. I guess it remains to be seen whether what they did was considered legal or not. Very very probably not.

greedo 3y ago

For a multitude of reasons, Lewis is an unreliable narrator...

infecto 3y ago
Yes, leave only an accusation without supporting facts or ideas.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  I lost a lot of respect for Lewis over the book. He gave a wildly charitable and apologetic take on SBF's blatant fraud and incompetence. I'd suggest reading it (or watching any related interviews with Lewis) -- but I don't think this is a particularly unpopular take. Comes up in most (all?) reviews, like this one, where the subtitle reads: > The Moneyball author develops a misguided soft spot for fallen crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried It reads like, with full knowledge now of what was really happening, that Lewis ate up all the lies and baloney he was fed the whole time he was interviewing SBF. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/25/going-infinite-by-michael-lewis-review-falling-for-the-antihero https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/25/going-infinite...
- loeg 3y ago
  Just the first google result but anyone paying any attention is familiar with how stupid the Lewis story around SBF is: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/how-michael-lewis-got-duped-by-sam-bankman-fried.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/how-michael-lewis-go... There are myriad other extremely easy to find criticisms of this particular Lewis book (and of his other books, too).
  - infecto 3y ago
    I am full aware of what some of the commentary was and have read the book myself. I don’t like SBF and I am not the fan of most of the books written by Lewis. I just expect more quality from a comment here, if you dont want to share the “multitude of reasons”, dont make the comment. Easy.
- greedo 3y ago
  Sorry, I stopped being a "citations needed" responder a while ago. You can google for it pretty easily. TLDR, Lewis has been very friendly with everyone he writes about. Whether it's SBF or Tuohys from The Blind Side, he's shown a lack of objectivity, to put it mildly.
  - infecto 3y ago
    Sorry I stopped being a low effort comment kind of person. You shared an opinion, it’s not up to me to google it because your perspective is different than what might be found in a google search. If you don’t have interest in sharing your opinion don’t post a low quality comment.

misnome 3y ago

My understanding is that the money is "back", but only because the Crypto holdings were frozen at the point of bankruptcy and the crypto prices have more than doubled since then. So, account holders might get something approaching the dollar value of what they held two years ago, not what they "should" have got if they still held it today.

CodesInChaos 3y ago
Let's see if it goes like MtGox where it takes more than a decade to pay out the money.

drexlspivey 3y ago

The hole is $8bn (that's counting real assets no shit tokens) which is probably going to be covered completely by their 8% stake in Anthropic that FTX bought for $500m. The lawyer fees for the bankruptcy are $1.5m per day.

tempsy 3y ago

I believe customers will be made whole but in dollars at time of bankruptcy so if you had 1 bitcoin on ftx then you’re only going to get $15k or whatever the price was then not $70k