Surely You're Joking, Mr Bankman-Fried
Shockingly, an entire part of the media establishment is defending Sam Bankman-Fried in the aftermath of the FTX collapse
The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.
Garry Kasparov
This newsletter is a follow up of the one on FTX from two weeks ago. If you haven’t read it yet, read it here before reading this one.
FTX and his founder, Sam Bankman Fried (SBF), are accused of defrauding their investors and depositors to the tune of $10 billion. Yet, no one has been arrested yet. SBF is still (allegedly) in the Bahamas, he is tweeting, and apparently getting some good sleep.
Shortly after FTX filed for bankruptcy, along with 134 affiliated companies, something odd started happening: Positive articles about SBF started popping up in mainstream media. The most shocking of all was an article published by the New York Times. In this puff piece, the “journalist” showed zero critical thinking, didn’t even mention the fraud or the fact that $10 billion of deposits were missing.
The CEO of Coinbase, an exchange that is regulated and that plays by the rules, is not happy about the coverage SBF is receiving.
Why is SBF still free and not on his way to the US in handcuffs? Just follow the money.
It’s easy to be a generous donor when it’s not your money that you are donating…
It looks like SBF had bought enough political protection, until the market caught up with him and FTX went down in flames.
The puff pieces have been everywhere over the past two weeks, trying to control the narrative and to portray SBF as a good guy whose company, unfortunately, went bankrupt. He likely never had any money of his own, he was donating the money of his unsuspecting depositors.
Even the Wall Street Journal was in on the con. IT WAS NEVER HIS BILLIONS THAT HE WAS PLANNING TO DONATE!
SBF never cared about any of these causes, as he confessed to Vox during an interview. He only embraced the woke causes because it’s what the media wanted to hear, and it was a way to raise money.
If Madoff was still alive, he would be witnessing what he should have done to get the royal treatment from the press.
SBF was scheduled to speak at a New York Times summit on November 30, and not only is he still on the list of speakers, but he has also been confirmed by Andrew Sorkin, who will interview him.
Can you imagine if after his fraud was revealed, Madoff was invited to talk to a summit instead of being thrown in jail? It’s the treatment SBF is getting.
It also looks like SBF brought his parents in his Ponzi operation. They received from FTX a property in the Bahamas worth $16 million.
And it looks like they are still very much all enjoying the properties bought with FTX’s depositors’ money.
On the legal front, it gets weirder and weirder every day. Nobody knows why, but last year FTX bought a bank with only three employees.
The story is wild.
Neither FTX nor Alameda ever made any money. They incinerated money from the very beginning, billions of dollars of it.
Remember how FTX was supposedly being hacked on the same day it was filing for bankruptcy? It turns out it was the Bahamian regulator asking FTX to send all their digital assets to a wallet controlled by the regulator.
The liquidator of FTX has experience with financial fraud. He was in charge of the liquidation of Enron 20 years ago. But FTX operated at a whole other level.
What is Next for Crypto
Bitcoin was born out of the ashes of the 2008 financial crisis on January 3, 2009. It was built to remove the need for trust in the system. But the crypto ecosystem that developed in its wake made all the mistakes of all the financial crisis of the past decades in just 13 years.
Many investors got attracted by what they thought was a get-rich-quick scheme. It wasn’t. Crypto exchanges are not like banks or brokerage firms. You are never supposed to leave any crypto on them. It’s the whole point of crypto! You can take full custody of your crypto and not face any counterparty risk.
Watch crypto OG Erik Voohrees eloquently explain why crypto changed everything.
NBC also published a good article explaining why FTX had nothing to do with the vision of Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s anonymous creator.
For all those who thought they had missed out on the Bitcoin opportunity last year, I’m just going to leave this here:
World Cup Video of the Week
Something lighter to end of this newsletter: A video of the French coach of Saudi Arabia giving his team a strong pep talk at the half time of the match against Argentina. Saudi Arabia went on to make history by beating Argentina 2 - 1.
Best Podcast Episodes of the Week
I listen to many podcasts every week. You will find below the links to a selection of the episodes I found most interesting this week.
Lex Fridman Podcast | Chamath Palihapitiya: Money, Success, Startups, Energy, Poker & Happiness
On the Margin Jim Bianco & Mark Yusko: The Inside Story Behind FTX’s Fall | Weekly Round Up
Hidden Forces The Downfall of FTX and Crypto’s Path Forward | Vance Spencer & Michael Anderson
We Study Billionaires - | Proof of Stake (PoS) Versus Proof of Work (PoW) w/ Jason Lowery