Sam Bankman-Fried was supposed to be a billionaire genius who ran one of the world’s largest Crypto exchanges: FTX. In only a few weeks, his $32B empire crumbled, and he was later arrested. This is how it happened.
That’s a wild story. Maybe I’m wrong, but money doesn’t just disappear. It just changes hands.
No?
There is a good chance that most of this money will go to the big creditors, leaving the customers with pennies on the dollar.
FTX Trading Ltd. unveiled its latest proposal for returning billions of dollars to customers and creditors, kicking off a final round of potential squabbles about how best to end the bankruptcy case of the fraud-tainted crypto firm.
The reorganization plan left some of the most important questions unanswered, including whether FTX will restart its defunct crypto exchange, how the company will estimate the value of some digital tokens and how much creditors can expect to get back.
Next year, the plan will be sent to creditors for a vote — likely with key details added — before it goes to US Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey for final approval. The major creditor and customer groups that have been involved in the Chapter 11 case have agreed to the broad outlines of the plan.
The payout plan calls for billions of dollars to be distributed as cash after much of the firm’s cryptocurrencies have been liquidated.
Last month, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of orchestrating a massive fraud that led to the collapse of his FTX exchange.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/ftx-files-plan-end-bankruptcy-021449836.html
NEW YORK (AP) — Crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for a massive fraud that unraveled with the collapse of FTX, once one of the world’s most popular platforms for exchanging digital currency.
Bankman-Fried, 32, was convicted in November of fraud and conspiracy — a dramatic fall from a crest of success that included a Super Bowl advertisement and celebrity endorsements from stars like quarterback Tom Brady, basketball star Stephen Curry and comedian Larry David.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan imposed the sentence in the same Manhattan courtroom where, four months ago, Bankman-Fried testified that his intention had been to revolutionize the emerging cryptocurrency market with his innovative and altruistic ideas, not to steal.
Kaplan said the sentence reflected “that there is a risk that this man will be in position to do something very bad in the future. And it’s not a trivial risk at all.” He added that it was “for the purpose of disabling him to the extent that can appropriately be done for a significant period of time.”
Kaplan further ordered Bankman-Fried to forfeit over $11 billion. He also he would advise the Federal Bureau of Prisons to send him to a medium-security prison or less near the San Francisco area because he’s unlikely to be a physical threat to other inmates or prison staff, and his autism and social awkwardness would make him vulnerable to other inmates in a high-security location.
Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of 40 to 50 years.
“The defendant victimized tens of thousands of people and companies, across several continents, over a period of multiple years. He stole money from customers who entrusted it to him; he lied to investors; he sent fabricated documents to lenders; he pumped millions of dollars in illegal donations into our political system; and he bribed foreign officials. Each of these crimes is worthy of a lengthy sentence,” prosecutors said in a court filing.
Prosecutors said Bankman-Fried had cost customers, investors and lenders over $10 billion by misappropriating billions of dollars to fuel his quest for influence and dominance in the new industry, and had i llegally used money from FTX depositors to cover his expenses, which included purchasing luxury properties in the Caribbean, alleged bribes to Chinese officials and private planes.
Fallen crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
RUIN is a feature documentary about Sam Bankman-Fried and the stunning collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, as narrated by Bloomberg journalists and some of the central players in the rise of digital assets.
On Nov. 2, 2023, Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty in Manhattan federal court of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy.
On March 28, 2024, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He plans to appeal.
Nice find. I’m gonna check it out!
It’s amazing what happens to the human ego, especially the male ego, when money becomes no object.
If people have self-control AND big money, they can make some wonderful things happen.
When people don’t have their inner demons in check, and they get a lot money, that inner demon has both hands on the steering wheel, and the ride ends in a wreck.
There is something I notice about financial crimes around the world, the majority of them involve people having access to other people’s money / client’s money.
You get a company like a money manager, hedge fund, mutual fund, investment company or a company like FTX where their customers deposit money into FTX account. When people have access to customer accounts that total millions or billions, no matter how much the owner or worker makes in salary, it’s hard to look at such a large amount of money and not think about taking a few millions or a few billions.
Even though I can say I wouldn’t do such a thing because I’m not a thief, I have never been in a position where I had access to millions or billions of dollars, so I cannot say for sure, At that point I must check my inner demons.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I think everyone dreams of mysteriously finding a bag of money.
If my bank account suddenly had $500k, assuming that I would never get caught in this scenario, would I tell the bank anything?
However, if I was placed in charge of a huge pile of cash, I’m confident I would refrain from pocketing any of it.
The difference is that in the first scenario, it’s not my fault. Someone made an error to my benefit. In the second scenario, I’m directly stealing.
@SmallPaul However, is there really a difference?
This starts to open the Robin Hood argument. Is it morally justifiable to steal from the wealthy if you plan to do good with it?
she does what is right and doesn’t get rewarded
Despite her initial hopes, it was not a Christmas miracle. It was a banking error.
You should tell the bank or else
What would you do if you woke up to an extra $1.2 million in your account? One woman found herself behind bars after allegedly spending the money her bank accidentally deposited in her account on a new house and car. Fair or foul?
No, Let’s suppose you start a business, you put blood, sweat, and tears into it, and it takes you 20 years to see the fruits of your labor, and now you’re a billionaire. would you want someone to steal your money after all that hard work, and how would they know if you are helping people or not?
There are lots of angles to this argument. I’m not so sure it was a good idea haha.
I think there are degrees of stealing. If I have a huge business of department stores, and on average 1% of goods is stolen every month. Something like that, I wouldn’t care.
But if I’m investing 10% of my entire portfolio with FTX, and then it’s just gone, poof, then I have a problem.
I think the tolerance level depends on the person.
But what IF the bank would never know? Would you still tell them in that scenario?
I think it depends on how well you can justify it to yourself. At what point do you just say ¨f*** it!¨ and keep the money?
That’s a problem, how would we know ahead of time that the bank would never find out, the lady that spent the 1.2 million probably thought the bank would never find out, now she’s in prison.
Imagine if it took a year for the bank to catch this mistake and the guy was able to transfer 5 billion offshore in the meantime
A Baton Rouge family got the shock of a lifetime when an enormous amount of money was mistakenly deposited into their bank account.
haha of course you’d never know, in reality.
I just meant as a hypothetical situation…
This is when you gotta start analyzing reality. The real way to get wealthy is not by stealing. Look at big pharma during COVID, and predatory lenders. Sure, there’s a fine to pay in the end, but that’s just the spread on the trade.
Best thing is to form a corporation or a religious group.
If you’re wishing for a bag of money to appear on your doorstep, you’d best quit your job and find something else.
The above pretty much sums it up, since you brought up big pharma, I’ll use your photo and names you use, to described the pharmaceutical industry.
Pastor - Big pharmaceutical companies.
Pastor wife - Doctors who prescribed the medicine
Deacon - Drugs stores where people go to get their prescription fill
Church Members - The Patients
you nailed it!!
Could you do the same with FTX as the pastor?
Or perhaps this model fails because Bankman got too greedy and reckless? But along the way people were making money. He may be in jail, but when he gets out, in 25 years or less, he’ll have some hidden money waiting for him.
I have a feeling he might enjoy jail, though…
It is rare for pastors to be indicted on criminal charges, but it does happen, but not often, and this is why I called Big Pharma the pastors. With crypto, you see a lot of retail guys getting indicted and the one big player Binance got ban from the U.S. In my opinion, FTX is the decon responsible for stealing the Church Members Offerings before it reached the pastor hands.
The church members would be all FTX clients who have deposited funds with the company
The pastors would be all the big financial institutions that got into the crypto business right around the time Binance was banned
I was about 10 years old when this happened and my mother doesn’t know how I remember it
It happens that our pastor died of old age. Having owned that church for 33 years, when he died, his grandson took over. During the winter, the church needed a new furnace because the furnace blew out within a week of him taking over, The new pastor passed the plate around telling the church members that he could get a new furnace for $3000, the entire congregation reached into their pockets for cash and even wrote checks. This pastor does this for about six weeks.
One sunday the new pastor pulls up to church with two new mink coats, one for his wife and one for him, as well as 30 day tags on a new Cadillac but still no furnance, the church closed its doors within four months of the new pastor taking over.