# FTX Crypto Fraud & Collapse



## The Triangle (15 December 2022)

Video from the US government outlining charges against the old boss of FTX Sam Bankman Fried.   One of the charges is conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the campaign finance laws. Not exactly an interesting video but a few quotes from the first few minutes:

_"...by causing tens of millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions to be made to candidates and committees associated with both Democrats and Republicans...
 And all of this dirty money was used in service of Bankman-Fried's desire to buy bipartisan influence and impact the direction of public policy in Washington... *To any person, entity or political campaign that gas received stolen customer money, we ask that you work with us to return that money to the innocent victims*."_

The last line is the very interesting as that indicates the republicans and democrats are going to be forced to give back a lot of money - and all those who received funds are going to be outed.  I think it also means anyone - including all the news agencies who were rumored to have accepted essentially stolen money from FTX for favorable media coverage will be outed.  

Then, if you're _really _bored (doing yardwork like me) you can listen to 4 hours of testimony from John Ray, the guy who is now in charge of FTX in bankruptcy.



At about the 1h45m mark there is some questioning about basics like FTX not having a board of directors, an HR department, IT department, questionable (if any) auditing or compliance.   John Ray made it very clear that a company the size of FTX should have had all those controls in place.  There were questions from politicians of what level of due diligence (or lack of) the supposed smartest investors in the world - Sequoia and Blackrock were named - did before investing in FTX (which John obviously could not answer for them).   The same questions were asked about the celebrity endorsements.  My takeaway from that line of questioning is that we're going to see massive class actions coming in the months going after blackrock et al for incompetence - especially considering they were managing government pension funds.  

This really does look like a pretty basic and simple fraud which could have been uncovered a year or two ago by any investor doing any kind of due diligence.  Doesn't seem to actually have much to do with crypto currency in my book.


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## Belli (15 December 2022)

Putting aside any self-congratulatory flavour in the vid, this blogger raised some serious doubts about FTX over six months ago.


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## divs4ever (15 December 2022)

The Triangle said:


> Video from the US government outlining charges against the old boss of FTX Sam Bankman Fried.   One of the charges is conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the campaign finance laws. Not exactly an interesting video but a few quotes from the first few minutes:
> 
> _"...by causing tens of millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions to be made to candidates and committees associated with both Democrats and Republicans..._
> _And all of this dirty money was used in service of Bankman-Fried's desire to buy bipartisan influence and impact the direction of public policy in Washington... *To any person, entity or political campaign that gas received stolen customer money, we ask that you work with us to return that money to the innocent victims*."_
> ...




 i think i will go for the vid. with the current CEO  first , a guy that could be SHOCKED after handling the Enron aftermath , has to be  a 'must see  '


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## The Triangle (16 December 2022)

Belli said:


> Putting aside any self-congratulatory flavour in the vid, this blogger raised some serious doubts about FTX over six months ago.




Correct, A lot of smart people on youtube, twitter, and small blogging sites raised concerns, but they were outweighed by the likes of the following promoters who were all apparently paid by FTX (all being sued at the moment):

Tom Brady - Greatest US football quarterback of all time
Gisele Bündchen - One of the best-known supermodels of all time
Steph Curry - One of the best US basketball players of all time
Namoi Osaka - Most will known us tennis player right now other than serena
Larry David - One of the most well-known TV/Writers/Comedians (invented Seinfeld) in the US
Kevin O’Leary - Famous for Shark tank financial TV show and frequent US financial news shows guest and paid 'influencer' for FTX.  
Then add in all the big-name global investors who put money into FTX:

Blackrock
Sequoia
Softbank
Then add in the general marketing on Superbowl adverts, sports stadiums, paid spots on major networks, stories in the media, shout-outs and meeting with politicians like Bill Clinton in the Bahamas (As he can't hang with Epstein anymore down there) or Biden in the Whitehouse and the average pleb is going to think FTX is the most stable company in the world.   The politicians, investigators, media (who aren't corrupt) are/were probably very scared to call out FTX publicly before last month if they knew or suspected there was fraud happening.


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## Garpal Gumnut (16 December 2022)

Thanks everyone.

I reckon all these hustlers will get out of Crypto all at once when there is enough liquidity at their satisfactory loss price.

Maybe tonight.

gg


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## Boggo (16 December 2022)

The Triangle said:


> Correct, A lot of smart people on youtube, twitter, and small blogging sites raised concerns, but they were outweighed by the likes of the following promoters who were all apparently paid by FTX (all being sued at the moment):
> 
> Tom Brady - Greatest US football quarterback of all time
> Gisele Bündchen - One of the best-known supermodels of all time
> ...


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## Craton (16 December 2022)

...and the fraudsters continue ever on wards!

Warren Buffett's Berkshire warns about crypto website using its name​
‘Delusion’ Rampant Among Crypto’s Institutional Investors, Warren Buffett’s Billionaire Confidant Says​


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## rcw1 (Thursday at 7:29 AM)

Good morning
Article published today (12/01/23)
Hoping they find more coin to distribute back ...

Kind regards
rcw1

Managers sifting through Sam Bankman-Fried’s bankrupt FTX have located more than $US5bn in cash and liquid assets, a US court has heard.

Another $US4bn in additional asset sales have also been flagged as the team led by new FTX chief executive and restructuring expert John J Ray III continue “building financial statements from the ground up”. It's a positive sign for 9 million customers left in the lurch after FTX collapsed in November with Bankman-Fried now indicted for fraud by US prosecutors.

“We have located over $US5bn of cash, liquid cryptocurrency, and liquid investments securities,” FTX lawyer Andrew Dietderich told a Delaware bankruptcy court. He also said that the company was “well underway” on plans to sell other investments that had a book value of $US4.6bn.

The lawyer said it was too soon to say how much was needed to compensate customers that saw their deposits vanish overnight. “We know that all this has led to a shortfall in value to repay customers and creditors. The amount of the shortfall is not yet clear,” Dietderich told the court. FTX and its sister trading house Alameda Research went bankrupt in November, dissolving a virtual trading business that at one point had been valued by the market at $US32bn.

– AFP


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