FTX

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dyqik
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Re: FTX

Post by dyqik » Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:24 pm

It genuinely can let someone who just went along with illegal activity get a much reduced sentence, in exchange for coming clean.

You can think of that as extortion, but it's also a way out.

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Re: FTX

Post by IvanV » Fri Dec 23, 2022 5:59 pm

dyqik wrote:
Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:24 pm
It genuinely can let someone who just went along with illegal activity get a much reduced sentence, in exchange for coming clean.

You can think of that as extortion, but it's also a way out.
The extortion is when it is better for the innocent to plead guilty than try and clear their name.

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Re: FTX

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Dec 23, 2022 6:35 pm

IvanV wrote:
Fri Dec 23, 2022 5:59 pm
dyqik wrote:
Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:24 pm
It genuinely can let someone who just went along with illegal activity get a much reduced sentence, in exchange for coming clean.

You can think of that as extortion, but it's also a way out.
The extortion is when it is better for the innocent to plead guilty than try and clear their name.
It's certainly a problem when the accused don't have access to decent representation, which is quite often. But I doubt it's an issue in this case, where the accused are pretty wealthy (I assume they didn't have to find a lawyer who'd take crypto).
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Re: FTX

Post by Herainestold » Fri Dec 23, 2022 9:53 pm

IvanV wrote:
Fri Dec 23, 2022 5:59 pm
dyqik wrote:
Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:24 pm
It genuinely can let someone who just went along with illegal activity get a much reduced sentence, in exchange for coming clean.

You can think of that as extortion, but it's also a way out.
The extortion is when it is better for the innocent to plead guilty than try and clear their name.
That is the default. American justice is irredeemably corrupt. Justice in name only.
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Re: FTX

Post by dyqik » Mon Jan 02, 2023 5:20 pm

One of core developers of Bitcoin has been hacked, and all his bitcoins stolen.

https://mastodon.online/@FranckLeroy/109618689354775532

As a good libertarian decentralizer, his first act is to complain to the FBI that they aren't protecting him.

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Re: FTX

Post by bjn » Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:47 pm

f.ck those guys.

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Re: FTX

Post by bjn » Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:54 pm

dyqik wrote:
Mon Jan 02, 2023 5:20 pm
One of core developers of Bitcoin has been hacked, and all his bitcoins stolen.

https://mastodon.online/@FranckLeroy/109618689354775532

As a good libertarian decentralizer, his first act is to complain to the FBI that they aren't protecting him.
He has some “interesting” beliefs…

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comme ... on_quotes/

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Re: FTX

Post by IvanV » Wed Jan 04, 2023 12:03 pm

The steady stream of scandal, frauds and bankruptcies reported at this selective crypto news link someone kindly pointed us to above, has carried on unabated over the Christmas period. Carries on being entertaining reading.

But despite all that bad news for crypto fans, the price of bitcoin has remained remarkably stable since the early November crash. Clearly that ongoing bad news was already anticipated in the post-crash price. It's quite unusual for large crashes of that size to land so quickly in about the "right" place like this. For mainstream stocks, bonds, currencies, etc, usually there is some much longer period of adjustment after a crash as people digest bad the news and get a better feeling for the future after it. But maybe there isn't any clearer information or digestion to do with crypto after the crash, which is why there has been no subsequent price adjustment.

There was an article in the Economist recently suggesting that underlying demand for it would keep it from a much larger crash for now.

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Re: FTX

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Jan 04, 2023 12:53 pm

IvanV wrote:
Wed Jan 04, 2023 12:03 pm
The steady stream of scandal, frauds and bankruptcies reported at this selective crypto news link someone kindly pointed us to above, has carried on unabated over the Christmas period. Carries on being entertaining reading.

But despite all that bad news for crypto fans, the price of bitcoin has remained remarkably stable since the early November crash. Clearly that ongoing bad news was already anticipated in the post-crash price. It's quite unusual for large crashes of that size to land so quickly in about the "right" place like this. For mainstream stocks, bonds, currencies, etc, usually there is some much longer period of adjustment after a crash as people digest bad the news and get a better feeling for the future after it. But maybe there isn't any clearer information or digestion to do with crypto after the crash, which is why there has been no subsequent price adjustment.

There was an article in the Economist recently suggesting that underlying demand for it would keep it from a much larger crash for now.
I haven't read the article in the Economist but the point seems plausible. There may well be two forms of demand for bitcoin, first as a get rich scheme responsible for rapid booms and busts, and secondly as a unit of exchange and store of wealth when central bank backed money isn't preferred and bitcoin has advantages over alternatives like gold or works or art. The current value for bitcoin may represent the second form of demand.

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Re: FTX

Post by bjn » Wed Jan 04, 2023 1:04 pm

Or it could be back room deals of the larger scammers trading with each other to stop the price collapsing totally?

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Re: FTX

Post by dyqik » Wed Jan 04, 2023 1:30 pm

bjn wrote:
Wed Jan 04, 2023 1:04 pm
Or it could be back room deals of the larger scammers trading with each other to stop the price collapsing totally?
I think there's enough true believers out there that the reason it hasn't collapsed is that they just don't want to know about the problems.

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Re: FTX

Post by IvanV » Fri Jan 06, 2023 3:55 pm

I alleged above that the UK prosecution system fails to do very much about fraud due to a not-fit-for-purpose system. The US system is much more effective, though possibly goes too far. I recently learned that leading KC Clare Montgomery gave an extended interview panning the UK approach to fraud, and saying she wouldn't be applying for the job of running the SFO for that reason - she was a much fancied candidate. That was 6 months ago. But I didn't know about it until Joshua Rozenberg's blog A Lawyer Writes did a write up of that interview a few days ago.

I'm not the only one. What is quite funny about this is that it got little attention all round until JR wrote it up. And then similar pieces appeared quickly across the mainstream press. JR then wrote a piece shortly after on how it seems a lot of the legal correspondents in the mainstream press just read what he writes and regurgitate it, often with added errors.

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Re: FTX

Post by dyqik » Mon Feb 13, 2023 2:03 pm

Reupping this thread to say that after last year's superbowl which seemed to have a crypto commercial in most ad breaks, this year there were none.

It seems to have been replaced by electric pickup truck commercials (best commercial in my book was the Ram "Premature Electrification" ad).

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Re: FTX

Post by IvanV » Mon Feb 13, 2023 2:55 pm

A number of celeb influencers promoting crypto got taken to court. So people will now be a bit more careful about promoting it.

In early Feb, bitcoin recovered to the price it was before the crash associated with the FTX problem. Though still far below the price it was from Dec 2020 to Mar 2022. Seems it is still useful, but people are a bit more aware about the issues.

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Re: FTX

Post by IvanV » Fri Nov 03, 2023 4:16 pm

Bankman-Fried found guilty on numerous counts. Sentencing to follow. A long custodial sentence seems likely.

In Britain, they wouldn't even have made a prosecution decision yet, that takes years in complex frauds. And then it would be years till trial. And the trial itself would go on for much longer. And rarely is there a guilty verdict in major fraud trials. And indeed most of the small-time fraudsters are not even investigated.

As the previous post notes, the US justice system often seems to operate like a system of extortion. Once they've decided to prosecute, it is unusual to be cleared. Whereas in Britain, in complex fraud cases, it is unusual to be found guilty. Widespread fraud is neither prevented nor prosecuted.

Is there a better balance available? Any other countries to act as better exhibits of how to manage this?

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Re: FTX

Post by dyqik » Fri Nov 03, 2023 5:22 pm

In the US, with elected prosecutors at the state level, usually they won't prosecute unless they are pretty sure to win. There's also a lot of options for trials to be avoided due to pre-trial motions by defendants with competent counsel.

At the Fed level, again prosecutions are rarely brought where there are significant questions about what the result will be. For grand jury indictments, the prosecutor has already convinced a jury that there is something to the charges. Taking that further to being beyond reasonable doubt isn't usually that big a step.

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Re: FTX

Post by Woodchopper » Sat Nov 04, 2023 12:43 pm

IvanV wrote:
Fri Nov 03, 2023 4:16 pm
Bankman-Fried found guilty on numerous counts. Sentencing to follow. A long custodial sentence seems likely.

In Britain, they wouldn't even have made a prosecution decision yet, that takes years in complex frauds. And then it would be years till trial. And the trial itself would go on for much longer. And rarely is there a guilty verdict in major fraud trials. And indeed most of the small-time fraudsters are not even investigated.

As the previous post notes, the US justice system often seems to operate like a system of extortion. Once they've decided to prosecute, it is unusual to be cleared. Whereas in Britain, in complex fraud cases, it is unusual to be found guilty. Widespread fraud is neither prevented nor prosecuted.

Is there a better balance available? Any other countries to act as better exhibits of how to manage this?
In this case at least plea bargains seem to have made a big difference. Four of Bankman Fried’s key personnel - Nishad Singh, Adam Yedidia, Gary Wang and Caroline Ellison - all stated that they were guilty of fraud and that Bankman Fried was the main instigator. The four were all presumably offered reduced sentences in return for a guilty plea and testimony. With that testimony the prosecution didn’t need to spend a lot of time on the accounting technicalities.

Plea bargaining isn’t allowed Britain so the defendants in a complex UK financial fraud case would have much less incentive to plead guilty.

Obviously there are costs and benefits. In this case at least the trial is over much more quickly. Overall though plea bargaining does have the risk that innocent people could get stitched up.

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Re: FTX

Post by sTeamTraen » Sat Nov 04, 2023 8:09 pm

IvanV wrote:
Fri Nov 03, 2023 4:16 pm
As the previous post notes, the US justice system often seems to operate like a system of extortion. Once they've decided to prosecute, it is unusual to be cleared. Whereas in Britain, in complex fraud cases, it is unusual to be found guilty. Widespread fraud is neither prevented nor prosecuted.

Is there a better balance available? Any other countries to act as better exhibits of how to manage this?
Private Eye's City columnist, Slicker (who I assume is multiple people, at least over time) has commented for many years now that the US is much better at getting fraud convictions, or meaningful plea bargains, than the UK.

I think that for fraud it doesn't have to be a problem that there is a high conviction rate. Police investigating fraud (as opposed to some police investigating, say, complex high-profile murder cases) are hardly going to pull random people in off the street and get them to confess. They know who the people involved were; the only question is whether they knew, or should have known, that what they were doing was fraudulent. I haven't followed the minutiae of the SBF case, but it doesn't feel like there has a been a Birmingham Six type of judicial error here.
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Re: FTX

Post by IvanV » Thu Dec 14, 2023 2:49 pm

Bitcoin started shooting up a couple of months ago, from around $28,000 to above $40,000 now. That it is a level it has only equalled or exceeded for a few months in 2021 and a brief moment in April 2022. Just a year ago, it was hovering around $17,000 in the wake of several crashes, culminating in the FTX scandal. Meanwhile crypto exchange collapses, closures and prosecutions continue unabated, and other theft and scams, news of another major trousering turns up practically weekly. The bottom has fallen out of the NFT market, prices being about 1% of their peak.

The only explanation anyone is giving for this sudden increase, that I can find, is that US interest rates are expected to start falling again before very long, which makes risky assets more attractive. But no one is expecting interest rates to fall very much, certainly not back to the levels they were back when it was up around and above $40,000 before. So I'm not convinced by this explanation.

It's almost as though FTX didn't happen, didn't teach us anything.

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Re: FTX

Post by dyqik » Thu Dec 14, 2023 5:05 pm

Trump is selling pieces of the suit that he was arrested in for Bitcoin.

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Re: FTX

Post by lpm » Thu Dec 14, 2023 5:14 pm

Only 2% of people own bitcoin.

Compared to 20% for another long term scam - followers of the Catholic racket.

Or the 20% who believe in UFOs, yetis or the Conservative Party.

There's still a large untapped moron reserve to keep crypto propped up.
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Re: FTX

Post by dyqik » Thu Dec 14, 2023 5:20 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Dec 14, 2023 5:14 pm
Only 2% of people own bitcoin.
Which is why you should always look at volume when considering price changes on the market.

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Re: FTX

Post by IvanV » Fri Dec 15, 2023 1:06 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Dec 14, 2023 5:14 pm
Only 2% of people own bitcoin.

Compared to 20% for another long term scam - followers of the Catholic racket.

Or the 20% who believe in UFOs, yetis or the Conservative Party.

There's still a large untapped moron reserve to keep crypto propped up.
I'm astonished it's that many, but I find you are correct. And more broadly over 400m for wider forms of crypto which is like 5%.

But it's more like 20% in the US, so actually comparable to your other moron factor points, and consistent with our knowledge prejudice concerning the US.

Well they'll be very happy with the current bitcoin price, and believe that they were right all along. Until what, I wonder.

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Re: FTX

Post by Martin Y » Fri Dec 15, 2023 1:32 pm

dyqik wrote:
Thu Dec 14, 2023 5:05 pm
Trump is selling pieces of the suit that he was arrested in for Bitcoin.
Has it been laundered since?

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Re: FTX

Post by Holylol » Fri Dec 15, 2023 3:51 pm

IvanV wrote:
Thu Dec 14, 2023 2:49 pm
Bitcoin started shooting up a couple of months ago, from around $28,000 to above $40,000 now. That it is a level it has only equalled or exceeded for a few months in 2021 and a brief moment in April 2022. Just a year ago, it was hovering around $17,000 in the wake of several crashes, culminating in the FTX scandal. Meanwhile crypto exchange collapses, closures and prosecutions continue unabated, and other theft and scams, news of another major trousering turns up practically weekly. The bottom has fallen out of the NFT market, prices being about 1% of their peak.

The only explanation anyone is giving for this sudden increase, that I can find, is that US interest rates are expected to start falling again before very long, which makes risky assets more attractive. But no one is expecting interest rates to fall very much, certainly not back to the levels they were back when it was up around and above $40,000 before. So I'm not convinced by this explanation.

It's almost as though FTX didn't happen, didn't teach us anything.
Another possible explanation, that simply involves... more fraud:
https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/20 ... to-bubble/

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