FTX Post-Mortem: Bankman-Fried Admitted The "Ponzi Business" Of Crypto Yield Farming

[Behappyalways]

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ftx-po...months-ago

[specuvestor]

As a long time crypto skeptic, I have to say the analogy to ponzi is headline grabbing but not exactly correct

It’s more akin to share dividend which will also dilute the value of the entity. That’s why I’ve said that Bitcoin designed to be limited in quantity for scarcity premium is of a genius. Able to avoid greed is not common

But the real issue is what is the value of the vehicle. When a stock gives stock dividend what is the value per share of that entity. When central banks print money what is the value of that sovereign IOU. And VBs know what I think of the crypto as currencies.

[brattzz]

Temasek invested in FTX as well, share-holders, what does that says about crypto-exchanges? still viable!

https://cointelegraph.com/news/singapore...ity-crisis

Temasek invested in a series of FTX's round findings that led to the exchange's $32 billion valuation in January. Ten months later, the Singaporean firm is taking part in rescuing the exchange. Temasek participated in FTX's Series B, Series B extension, and Series C funding rounds, when the exchange raised US$1 billion, US$420 million and US$400, respectively.

FTX was backed by other big players in the venture capital scene, including Sequoia Capital, BlackRock, SoftBank, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Paradigm, Circle, Ribbit Capital, Alan Howard, Tiger Global, and Multicoin Capital.

Temasek has about USD$1.7 billions stake (based on FTX's info)

[Behappyalways]

6-12C FOR CUSTODIED ASSETS. LET THAT SINK IN!
https://mobile.twitter.com/UrbanKaoboy/s...7836401664

[Behappyalways]

Bankman-Fried 'Lent' Billions In Customer Funds To His Trading Firm, Setting The Stage For Implosion
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/sbf-le...it-illegal

[BlueKelah]

I would like to add something useful, but you guys already know my favourite signature quote.

Looks like the guy at Temasek in charge of crypto/tech related investments/venture funding will have a lot to answer for. I wonder who that is.. 

Been really fun to watch "mr wonderful" kevin oleary admit he was wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxEFYqbOchc

Bring out the Pop corn, especially if Bitcoin falls below 10k prices, companies like Microstrategy will be byebye...

I wanna see what peter schiff has to say about all this.

[Big Toe]

The crypto guy at Temasek will be fine. Temasek bought US Banks at a high and sold them off during the peak of the meltdown. As long as the overall porfolio is sound over the long term, life goes on. Besides it's not their own money that is at stake, it is just a job.

Much like the CEO and high level executives at Twitter who got fired. They struck gold when Elon Musk paid them >$100M USD for them to leave. Parag Agrawal will receive $57.4 million, former chief financial officer Ned Segal gets $44.5 million, and former head of legal policy, trust and safety Vijaya Gadde will receive $20 million. Collectively, these people have a very high chance of running twitter to the ground if Elon dont buy over. Huge reward for failure.

[Behappyalways]

Sometimes hype will overwrite common sense...


In today's Straits Times

In an interview with The New York Times in April, Ramnik Arora, one of FTX’s top executives, described a video meeting last year between Mr. Bankman-Fried and partners at a top venture firm. In the meeting, Mr. Bankman-Fried delivered a well-received presentation while simultaneously playing a video game.

Investors Who Put $2 Billion Into FTX Face Scrutiny, Too
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes...l.amp.html

[LionFlyer]

To me, I read this is a failure of a very traditional thing (corporate governance) as opposed to the asset (crypto).

If what I read is true, the non-existent board, the senior executives dating each other, close relationship between Alameda and FTX, these should have triggered alarm bells in any other corporate. And hiring a COO who was only an analyst at CS just a year ago would have been nuts. https://www.efinancialcareers.sg/news/20...dit-suisse

It is also amazing to me that due diligence process of the likes of Temasek and Sequoia did not pick up any of these. SBF appeared like Pipe Pipper and charmed the whole lot of them.

[specuvestor]

Pied Piper is correct. The amazing part is how many Pied Pipers there are and how many followers swear by them and sneer at those with a more objective view. Problem is sometimes markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

The utopian view of free market with no control or oversight is... utopian. It doesn't work like the ideals of communism no matter how noble, as long greed and fear exists.

With regards to video game, I once attended a conference where the IR was chewing gum and without presentation, ask a group of 20+ investors "any questions". Easy to guess where that stock would go. Hubris is an easy indicator though not that easy to define cause it comes in all shapes and sizes