FTX Collapse, feat Sam Bankman-Fraud

[touchingcloth]

Yeah, Behind the Bastards did an episode on Michael Lewis and that book. He still thinks SBF is innocent.

To be clear, it doesn't claim Michael Lewis is a bastard - the official bastard is Sam Bankman-Fried, it's called something like "The last ever episode feature Sam Bankman-Fried". It's more about who Michael Lewis is and why he fell for SBF. Essentially he's a rich guy used to hanging around with rich guys, and exactly the type SBF was good at convincing.

I've just remembered that Robert was quite clear that Michael Lewis was being profiled as bastard-adjacent rather than a bastard in his own right, but that Sophie interjected at one point to just that he was "full cunt". Not even "a full cunt", just "Michael Lewis: full cunt".

[A Hat Like That]

I've heard that Lewis seemed to think he was writing the profile of a financial tech genius who would be remembered fondly for decades to come, kind of like a cross between the guys from The Big Short with Steve Jobs, and seemed not to twig the fact that he was really documenting a massive grift. Did you get that impression?

Just finished Going Infinite as well. He's blind to a lot of things and the way the crash sort of happens 'off screen' is a symptom of that. 

Even if its (as I suspect is a big part of it) people just doing and saying stupid things at the wrong time, that's still a story. Someone above said it's a damning indictment of the SBF and his team as people - but they're all damned by their own words.

You get to the end and there's a chapter about the team trying to find where the money went. "That money was just resting in an account" ...

[touchingcloth]

Did anyone actually get incredibly rich off Bitcoin who didn't run an exchange?

Cory Doctorow's latest made me think of this - https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

In any scam, any con, any hustle, the big winners are the people who supply the scammers – not the scammers themselves. The kids selling dope on the corner are making less than minimum wage, while the respectable crime-bosses who own the labs clean up. Desperate "retail investors" who buy shitcoins from Superbowl ads get skinned, while the MBA bros who issue the coins make millions (in real dollars, not crypto).

It's ever been thus. The California gold rush was a con, and nearly everyone who went west went broke. Famously, the only reliable way to cash out on the gold rush was to sell "picks and shovels" to the credulous, doomed and desperate.
...
No one's going to buy these products, but the AI picks-and-shovels people will still reap a fortune from the attempt.

It's interesting how the crypto grift has quietly slipped into the AI one, with a lot of the hype language and techniques being pretty identical. I wonder how long before ChatGPT sponsors a Superbowl?

[Deano]

If you want a much more cynical take on the whole crypto thing then Easy Money by Ben McKenzie (yes, the bloke off Gotham and The OC) is a good read. Came out the middle of last year and mostly written before SBF's empire crashed down around him, but has some interesting interactions with him.

(If anything one frustration I had is it's a bit too cynical at points as he is very much focused on crypto being inherent as a scam... which I'd dispute, it's a perfectly good mechanism for making long-distance untraceable payments... but that's a far smaller use-case than the hype represents it as).

[touchingcloth]

it's a perfectly good mechanism for making long-distance untraceable payments

Or looked at another way, for making payments that are completely and publicly traceable by design.

[Famous Mortimer]

(If anything one frustration I had is it's a bit too cynical at points as he is very much focused on crypto being inherent as a scam... which I'd dispute, it's a perfectly good mechanism for making long-distance untraceable payments... but that's a far smaller use-case than the hype represents it as).

It's also a very very good mechanism for scamming people.

[Gurke and Hare]

Or looked at another way, for making payments that are completely and publicly traceable by design.

They're traceable to the wallet, yes, but how would anyone know or find out that the wallet that paid some coins to the drugs man last month is mine?

[touchingcloth]

They're traceable to the wallet, yes, but how would anyone know or find out that the wallet that paid some coins to the drugs man last month is mine?

It tends to be people making small mistakes somewhere along the chain that outs them. My understanding is that people are pretty good at knowing how to chase tokens through tumblers and across exchanges these days so the security through obfuscation element is largely gone. Probably no one is ever going to invest the effort into finding out who the wallet you use belongs to, but a small mistake by The Drugs Man could end up outing them immediately as the beneficiary of a whole load of suspicious transactions. Almost certainly the police are keeping tabs on wallets of interest, just waiting for someone to get lazy or greedy and out themselves as the owner.

[PlanktonSideburns]

So as long as a chain of people don't make a small mistake its fine

[touchingcloth]

Here's a story about some people trying their best to conceal the source and ownership of their crypto, but ultimately failing and getting caught - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66390639

The rap singer who done the crime:

[PlanktonSideburns]

Hated watching that thanks

[elliszeroed]

If you want a much more cynical take on the whole crypto thing then Easy Money by Ben McKenzie (yes, the bloke off Gotham and The OC) is a good read. Came out the middle of last year and mostly written before SBF's empire crashed down around him, but has some interesting interactions with him.

(If anything one frustration I had is it's a bit too cynical at points as he is very much focused on crypto being inherent as a scam... which I'd dispute, it's a perfectly good mechanism for making long-distance untraceable payments... but that's a far smaller use-case than the hype represents it as).

Seconding your recommendation. I thought the book was informative, well written and understood the cynicism.

[touchingcloth]

David Gerard's Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain is a good read on all things crypto as well, and also extremely cynical.

[C_Larence]

This is the most recent crypto related thread I could find, just wanted to let you know Bitcoin has just hit an ATH. Doesn't seem to be much media buzz about it anymore.

[touchingcloth]

Doesn't seem to be much media buzz about it anymore.

It's all AI now, grandad.

[MojoJojo]

So I dabbled a bit at the beginning of 2021, then stopped and sold it all for a few reasons.

But I noticed a couple of months ago that I had about £20 in etherium - looks like someone sent me some in Nov 2022? Now up to £45.

[Blumf]

Still seems speculative, is there any real commerce going on with it? But good for them. Volume looks a little low recently, mind.

[touchingcloth]

Still seems speculative, is there any real commerce going on with it? But good for them. Volume looks a little low recently, mind.

It depends what you mean by "real commerce" really. People really use it to buy real things that they would struggle to with fiat currency, like real drugs or real removal of the ransomware on their corporate servers.

As a liberal I'd say that it's wrong that people are forced to use shady payments to buy drugs, and that the "legitimate" use of crypto seems to be what to me is the illegitimate practice of financial speculation.

[MojoJojo]

Do people still use crypto to buy drugs? I know the silk road was a thing, but I thought that had died out. Gone back to in person trades, although organised through social media now a days. Using cash, which is much harder to trace than crypto.

[Deskbound Cunt]

Do people still use crypto to buy drugs? I know the silk road was a thing, but I thought that had died out. Gone back to in person trades, although organised through social media now a days. Using cash, which is much harder to trace than crypto.

Of course I people do. But using Monero as it's not traceable like Bitcoin.

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

So how many years will SBF get this week?

[Zero Gravitas]

0.0191

[touchingcloth]

0.0192

[Zero Gravitas]

So last year.

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

What is the Bitcoin to years exchange rate?

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

With a bit of luck his parents' careers are over too.

[WhoMe]

25 years in the bin. I'm betting after about 12 he will acknowledge he is, in fact, in prison.

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

25 years in the bin. I'm betting after about 12 he will acknowledge he is, in fact, in prison.

Wonder what he'll look like if he doesnt cut his hair for his entire sentence.

[touchingcloth]

I wonder if the judge told him that the duration of a sentence can fluctuate and that his time in prison can go up as well as down and is not guaranteed?

[idunnosomename]

Sam Bankman-Jailed