FTX Assets Frozen By Bahamas Regulator, Liquidator Appointed, Arrest Rumored

[Ptarmigan]

FTX Assets Frozen By Bahamas Regulator, Liquidator Appointed, Arrest Rumored
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ftx-assets-frozen-bahamas-regulator-liquidator-appointed

The Bahamas Securities Commission has frozen the assets of FTX Digital Markets “and related parties" and has appointed a provisional liquidator as the Bahamas securities regulator seeks to place the beleaguered crypto exchange into receivership, i.e. bankruptcy, the agency said in a statement issued late on Thursday.

The lockdown comes just hours after Sam Bankman-Fried said that he is closing his affiliated trading house at the center of the FTX scandal, Alameda Research, and after FTX said it may halt trading in FTX US, the remote US-based platform which has so far avoided scrutiny.

An asset freeze was “the prudent course of action” to preserve assets and stabilize the company, the agency said.

“The commission is aware of public statements suggesting that clients’ assets were mishandled, mismanaged and/or transferred to Alameda Research. Based on the commission’s information, any such actions would have been contrary to normal governance, without client consent and potentially unlawful" it warned

FTX Digital Markets has collapsed. It could cause cryptocurrency to collapse.

FTX Digital Markets is where cryptocurrency is traded. More at the link.
https://www.investopedia.com/ftx-exchange-5200842

[Ptarmigan]

Hero to Zero: Dems’ ‘Newest Megadonor’ Faceplants on Election Day
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/hero-to-zero-dems-newest-megadonor-faceplants-on-election-day/

The man who has cast himself as one of the Democratic Party’s emergent power players found his company in shambles—forced to sell to its biggest rival—on Election Day.

Suffering from a liquidity crunch after a run in which users pulled nearly $6 billion from the company, according to Reuters, Sam Bankman-Fried was forced into an emergency sale to a rival company, Binance. The announcement of FTX’s acquisition prompted Bitcoin to plummet to two-year lows.

It's a stunning reversal for the 30-year-old who donated over $5 million to Joe Biden's campaign in 2020 and who just three months ago was vaunted as a potential savior for Democrats in the midterm elections.  "Some Democrats see Bankman-Fried’s investments and engagement as the thing that could help them hold back a red midterm wave," Politico reported in August.

Sam Bankman-Fried is a Democrat megadonor. His company, FTX, has collapsed.

[Drafe Hoblin]

Presenting the Laundromat Elite...

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/11/breaking-exclusive-tens-billions-transferred-ukraine-using-ftx-crypto-currency-laundered-back-democrats-us/

[Ptarmigan]

Presenting the Laundromat Elite...

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/11/breaking-exclusive-tens-billions-transferred-ukraine-using-ftx-crypto-currency-laundered-back-democrats-us/

Sam Bankman-Fried is Biden’s second biggest donor.

In addition to this, Daily Caller lists many of the lawmakers who Sam Bankman Fried was bankrolling who oversaw the institution that was supposed to keep on eye on companies like FTX:

Sam Bankman-Fried, prolific Democratic donor and ex-CEO of now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, funded the campaigns of members of Congress overseeing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), one of the key bodies tasked with regulating the crypto industry and the subject of Bankman-Fried’s aggressive lobbying.

Bankman-Fried’s FTX is currently under investigation by the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after Bankman-Fried allegedly moved $10 billion in client assets from his crypto exchange to his trading firm Alameda Research, and a liquidity crisis at his  exchange which prompted the company to file for bankruptcy. However, prior to the agency’s probe, Bankman-Fried aggressively courted the CFTC – and funded several key lawmakers charged with overseeing the agency, pouring cash into their campaign coffers.

FTX also happens to be related to Ukraine.

[Ptarmigan]

FTX Facing Criminal Probe By Bahamas Authorities, But Musk Counters There Will Be "No Investigation" Of "Major Democrat Donor" SBF
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/sbf-questioned-bahamas-police-elon-counters-there-will-be-no-investigation-major-democrat

Amid growing speculation of his whereabouts, Bloomberg reports that Sam Bankman-Fried was interviewed by Bahamian police and regulators on Saturday, although Bloomberg was quick to add that in the Bahamas, law-enforcement inquiries don’t necessarily mean someone will be arrested or charged with a crime.

In a separate report, Bloomberg also notes that the Bahamian police said they’re working with the Bahamas Securities Commission to investigate whether there was any criminal misconduct in the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX (narrator: there was).

“In light of the collapse of FTX globally and the provisional liquidation of FTX Digital Markets Ltd., a team of financial investigators from the Financial Crimes Investigation Branch are working closely with the Bahamas Securities Commission to investigate if any criminal misconduct occurred,” a police spokesperson said in a statement Sunday.

Separately, CoinTelegraph adds that in addition to SBF, the low profile FTX co-founder Gary Wang and director of engineering Nishad Singh are also said to be in the Bahamas and are “under supervision” by the local authorities. A source familiar with the matter told Cointelegraph that the three former FTX executives, as well as Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, are looking for ways to flee to Dubai. While the plan was made assuming that the United States “doesn't have any extradition treaties” with the UAE, the nations signed a mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) back on Feb. 24, 2022, to work against criminals.

The FTX executives could flee to either UAE or Argentina.

[Ptarmigan]

Bankman-Fried’s Cabal of Roommates in the Bahamas Ran His Crypto Empire – and Dated. Other Employees Have Lots of Questions
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/11/10/bankman-frieds-cabal-of-roommates-in-the-bahamas-ran-his-crypto-empire-and-dated-other-employees-have-lots-of-questions/

"Shocking" is a word that aptly describes the rapid fall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency empire. To a surprising degree, it’s a sentiment that pours out from people who worked for him, people who you’d think would’ve had a clue.

How can that be? It may have something to do with a luxury penthouse in the Bahamas. That’s where 30-year-old Bankman-Fried is roommates with the inner circle who ran his now-struggling crypto exchange FTX and trading giant Alameda Research.

Many are former co-workers from quantitative trading firm Jane Street, others he met at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his alma mater. All 10 are, or used to be, paired up in romantic relationships with each other. That includes Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, whose firm played a central role in the company's collapse – and who, at times, has dated Bankman-Fried, according to people familiar with the matter.

CoinDesk spoke to several current and former FTX and Alameda employees who agreed to talk on the condition of anonymity, citing ongoing harassment and death threats due to the exchange’s solvency issues. And they said essentially this: It’s a place full of conflicts of interest, nepotism and lack of oversight.

FTX was run by 10 people who lived in the same penthouse in The Bahamas. Lots of red flags right there.

[Ptarmigan]

How Sam Bankman-Fried’s ‘Effective’ Altruism Blew Up FTX
https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/11/11/how-sam-bankman-frieds-effective-altruism-blew-up-ftx/

The ongoing collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire will have innumerable victims. One of the most important may be “effective altruism,” Bankman-Fried’s beloved philanthropic philosophy.

In very broad strokes, effective altruists believe that making a lot of money to influence the world is a noble goal as long as you’re very, very smart – and there is evidence that this mindset contributed to the decisions that have cost Bankman-Fried’s victims billions of dollars.

Late Thursday, the team behind FTX’s philanthropic “Future Fund” resigned. The Future Fund was set up to help implement Bankman-Fried’s effective altruism playbook, but departing staff say it won’t have funds to deliver grants it had already approved.

The resigners wrote in an open letter that "To the extent that the leadership of FTX may have engaged in deception or dishonesty, we condemn that behavior in the strongest possible terms. We believe that being a good actor in the world means striving to act with honesty and integrity."

Sam Bankman-Fried pursued effective altruists. Turned out, effective altruism was the downfall of FTX.

[Ptarmigan]

Divisions in Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Empire Blur on His Trading Titan Alameda’s Balance Sheet
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/11/02/divisions-in-sam-bankman-frieds-crypto-empire-blur-on-his-trading-titan-alamedas-balance-sheet/

Billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency empire is officially broken into two main parts: FTX (his exchange) and Alameda Research (his trading firm), both giants in their respective industries.

But even though they are two separate businesses, the division breaks down in a key place: on Alameda’s balance sheet, according to a private financial document reviewed by CoinDesk. (It is conceivable the document represents just part of Alameda.)

That balance sheet is full of FTX – specifically, the FTT token issued by the exchange that grants holders a discount on trading fees on its marketplace. While there is nothing per se untoward or wrong about that, it shows Bankman-Fried’s trading giant Alameda rests on a foundation largely made up of a coin that a sister company invented, not an independent asset like a fiat currency or another crypto. The situation adds to evidence that the ties between FTX and Alameda are unusually close.

FTX has a trading firm, Alameda. A lot of money went to that firm from FTX.

[Ptarmigan]

Report: At Least $1 Billion in Investor Assets Are ‘Missing’ After FTX Collapse
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/11/13/report-at-least-1-billion-in-investor-assets-are-missing-after-ftx-collapse/

Following the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, at least $1 billion in investor assets seems to be missing according to multiple reports.

Reuters reports that according to two anonymous sources who formerly worked at FTX and claim to have been privy to the company’s finances, FTX is missing at least $1 billion in client funds. The sources claimed that the funds were part of $10 billion in client funds that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried purportedly siphoned off to Alameda Research, the hedge fund he owns.

The Wall Street Journal later reported that it appeared as if hackers had actually stolen $370 million. Bankman-Fried told Reuters that he “disagreed with the characterization” of the transfer, adding: “We had confusing internal labeling and misread it.” Reuters questioned Bankman-Fried about the missing customer funds via text message, to which he replied “???”

FTX U.S. General Counsel Ryne Miller tweeted on Saturday that the company had detected “unauthorized transactions” and moved all digital assets to cold storage, or offline. According to the cryptocurrency analytics and compliance firm Elliptic, $473 million in crypto assets were stolen from FTX last Friday night, although the exact amount has yet to be confirmed.

The missing $1 billion is the tip of the iceberg.

[Ptarmigan]

Cryptocurrency Exchanges Scramble to Contain FTX Fallout
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/11/14/cryptocurrency-exchanges-scramble-to-contain-ftx-fallout/

Following the spectacular collapse of FTX and its Democrat super-donor founder Sam Bankman-Fried, other centralized cryptocurrency exchanges are scrambling to shore up their reputation and contain the fallout.

During a Q&A on Reddit, the CEO of Crypto.com, Kris Marszalek, reassured users that funds the top-ten exchange had sent to FTX had (mostly) been recovered.

“Over a year, $1 billion was moved to FTX, and we recovered all of this,” said Marszalek. “We only had exposure of under $10 million when FTX shut down. And FTX was a trading venue where — this is one of the few trading venues with decent liquidity for some of the coins, like the ones I mentioned earlier.”

Marszalek also had to answer questions about $400 million in Ether that was mistakenly sent to another centralized crypto exchange, Gate.io. Both Crypto.com and Gate.io said the funds were sent in error and were returned.

Could the fall of FTX spread to other cryptocurrency exchanges?

[enslaved1]

Cryptocurrency Exchanges Scramble to Contain FTX Fallout
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/11/14/cryptocurrency-exchanges-scramble-to-contain-ftx-fallout/

Could the fall of FTX spread to other cryptocurrency exchanges?

Don't know crypto well enough to say yes or no, but I have seen some rumblings online saying this is very possible. Would be very interesting if accurate.   

[Texacon]

Some of the stuff I'm reading, if true, could be one of the biggest scandals of our time.  It could potentially ensnare some top politicians from both parties.

It'll be interesting to follow.

KC

[Ptarmigan]

Don't know crypto well enough to say yes or no, but I have seen some rumblings online saying this is very possible. Would be very interesting if accurate.   

Crypto is hard to understand. All I know it involves blockchains and computer processing them endlessly.

Some of the stuff I'm reading, if true, could be one of the biggest scandals of our time.  It could potentially ensnare some top politicians from both parties.

It'll be interesting to follow.

KC

FTX is the tip of the iceberg. It will be interesting to follow.

[DefiantSix]

I'm going to go out on a limb now, and say that if it's true that this con artist really is the #2 donor to #JoeThePedophile's 2020 campaign, they could find a basement full of Dominican child sex slaves when they search his place _{Looking at you, Chucky Schumer} and the only way he's going down is if some federal DA says either HE goes before a jury, or Hunter Biden does.

[Ptarmigan]

FTX Contagion Spreads: Crypto Lender BlockFi Faces Potential Bankruptcy
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/11/15/ftx-contagion-spreads-crypto-lender-blockfi-faces-potential-bankruptcy/

BlockFi, a platform for crypto-backed loans and trading, may also face bankruptcy due to its exposure to FTX, the beleaguered cryptocurrency exchange that was led by Democrat megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried.

Sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal that BlockFi is preparing for a potential bankruptcy filing, after pausing withdrawals and limiting activity on user accounts last weeks.

BlockFi could fall next due to exposure to FTX. More cryptocurrency falls to come?

[Ptarmigan]

Crypto’s Lost Vision: Breaking Down the FTX Scandal
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/11/cryptos-lost-vision-breaking-down-the-ftx-scandal/

A scandal in the cryptocurrency universe erupted last week, causing a once-vaunted and widely admired cryptocurrency exchange and trading firm to go belly-up in a matter of days. Judging by the media reaction, one might think this is the first time the industry has experienced a high-profile bankruptcy.

But crypto-land has seen this before. In 2014, a highly popular but poorly run Bitcoin exchange called Mt. GOX—an acronym for Magic the Gathering Online Exchange—similarly failed in spectacular fashion. Many early bitcoin adopters were effectively robbed of their funds, and Bitcoin slumped into a protracted bear market for several years. Just this year, in fact, the crypto market has seen collapse after collapse. The Terra Luna crash and Celsius implosion, for example, saw major sell-offs and a rapid (largely unsuccessful) scramble by users to secure the cryptocurrency they held with these organizations.

The FTX scandal sweeps more broadly than any prior industry collapse because its investors comprised many elite players from the traditional finance and political classes. FTX was seen as a safe way to gain exposure to cryptocurrency without having to invest in the volatile market directly. And these beliefs were uncritically confirmed by a fawning media that spent much of the last year knighting FTX’s now-disgraced founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.

As someone who has been in the Bitcoin space for quite a while now, the mainstream obsession with SBF, as Bankman-Fried is commonly known, never made much sense. In July, responding to Anthony Scaramucci’s praise of a New York Times puff piece on SBF, I noted the probable demise of such a seemingly astroturfed campaign to elevate this unproven kid to godlike status (forgive the salty language, it’s Twitter).

Bitcoin exchange have collapsed before, but not to the level of FTX.

[Ptarmigan]

Let’s Talk About the New York Times' ‘Puff Piece’ on Sam Bankman-Fried
https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/11/15/lets-talk-about-the-new-york-times-puff-piece-on-sam-bankman-fried/

Sam Bankman-Fried has been typing out a cryptic message in the days since his crypto empire, composed primarily of the FTX exchange and Alameda Research hedge fund, bottomed out. “What,” the thread began, followed by single tweets containing single letters spelling out “H A P P E N E D.”

Indeed, what happened? A lot of information has come to light in the days since crypto poster boy Bankman-Fried has become a subject of criminal investigations the world over, including on-chain evidence suggesting FTX customer funds were used to backstop losses at the market making trading shop Alameda.

There are conspiracies regarding Bankman-Fried’s donations and familial ties to political leaders, suggesting he was prepaying for amnesty or favorable regulatory treatment, and screenshots of Bankman-Fried’s open-office desk, with what appear to be prescription stimulants and off-brand nootropics on view.

The New York Times wrote a puff piece on Sam Bankman-Fried.

And so, on Monday, after the New York Times published the first interview with Bankman-Fried since his public fall from grace, it wasn’t surprising there would be angry readers and commenters. The article, written by Times crypto beat reporter David Yaffe-Bellany (with contributions by industry legends including Erin Griffith and Ephrat Livni), has been widely slammed as a “puff piece.”

“At the same time they were pumping the FTX scam, they were writing defamatory gossip pieces about industry stalwarts, driving their audiences away from safe, reliable and proven venues,” Kraken ex-CEO Jesse Powell said, presumably referring to his exchange and Coinbase, which have been center to a few media storms.

“Disgusting complicity on the part of the New York Times. He has ruined countless people's lives by theft and fraud, and NYT is now helping him to delay or evade justice by whitewashing him in their prestigious, influential newspaper. I doubt this is just a mistake on their part,” Zcash co-creator Zooko Wilcox said.

Here is what Sam Bankman-Fried's desk looks like.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AutismCapital/status/1592237980458323969

Autism Capital 🧩
@AutismCapital
EXTRA CONFIRMED: The stimulant patch that Sam preferred was EMSAM, a drug normally used to treat depression or Parkinson's, but used off-label for its alertness and focus benefits.
1:28 PM · Nov 14, 2022
·Twitter Web App

[Ptarmigan]

Bankman-Fried Trying To Raise Fresh Capital As Bankruptcy Lawyers Reveal More Than One Million Creditors
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/bankman-fried-trying-raise-fresh-capital-bankruptcy-lawyers-reveal-more-one-million

We have been waiting for the FTX bankruptcy docket to add anything more than merely procedural filings (or any filings for that matter), and certainly the so-called First Day filings which should lay out what really happened at the now bankrupt exchange-cum-hedge fund, but the only thing we have gotten so far is this: just two entries in the docket for a case which the entire world is closely following.

And while the criminal mastermind behind FTX, Bankman-Fried, should at least be doing everything he can to explain where the billion in client funds vaporized to, as he promised...

11) I'll get to what happened. But for now, let's talk about where we are today.

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 15, 2022
... at least until such time as he is finally arrested (which Elon Musk said will never happen because he is such a prominent Democratic donor), he appears to have little desire to do the right thing, and instead has been trying to salvage an unfixable situation and according to the WSJ, the 2nd largest democrat donor still thinks that he can raise enough money to make users whole.

There are 1 million creditors for FTX. Billions of dollars just disappear into thin air.

[Ptarmigan]

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried triggered downfall by badmouthing crypto rival: sources
https://nypost.com/2022/11/15/ftx-founder-sam-bankman-fried-triggered-downfall-by-badmouthing-crypto-rival-sources/

Three weeks before the implosion of FTX, its disgraced founder Sam Bankman-Fried bad-mouthed a rival crypto mogul at an investor conference in Saudi Arabia — an indiscretion that sources say may have triggered his downfall, The Post has learned.

The 30-year-old Bankman-Fried — whose FTX fund filed for bankruptcy on Friday, obliterating his $16 billion personal fortune — had traveled to Riyadh for the annual “Davos in the Desert” financial summit on Oct. 25 – Oct.27, where he was angling to raise money from some of the world’s deep-pocketed investors.

But in private meetings at the event, Bankman-Fried, known as “SBF” in crypto circles, raised eyebrows as he “trashed” ChangPeng Zhao — the China-born CEO of Binance who, in addition to being one of Bankman-Fried’s early backers, is a highly respected tech founder in the region.

That’s despite the fact that Zhao — known as “CZ” among crypto enthusiasts with a net worth of $17.4 billion, according to Forbes — was at the conference, too. When Middle East investors tipped off Zhao that Bankman-Fried had slammed him behind his back, Zhao was furious, according to a crypto observer.

Sam Bankman-Fried's numerous reason for downfall could of been because he insulted ChangpPeng Zhao, who runs Binance.

[Ptarmigan]

The FTX Collapse Looks an Awful Lot Like Enron
https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/11/16/the-ftx-collapse-looks-an-awful-lot-like-enron/

The corpses of FTX and Alameda Research are barely cold, but financial coroners are already deploying scalpels and bone saws to try and figure out what went wrong. These autopsies are far from complete, but the findings so far suggest deep parallels between the Alameda and FTX blowup and the most infamous business fraud in American history – the Texas-based energy trading con Enron (ENE).

Those parallels are extensive and nuanced, even apart from the strange twist that Enron's former lawyer is the new CEO of FTX. But one core similarity is the role of publicly-traded, equity-like assets ultimately linked to the performance of the firms themselves. In both cases, these internal assets flowed between entities that were nominally or even legally separate, but that in fact served the same masters. This enabled egregious financial self-dealing in the form of balance sheets pumped up by fictional valuations, a very fragile form of bootstrap leverage that unwound rapidly as soon as the falsely-inflated assets began to waver.

FTX’s FTT token appears to have been the largest linchpin of Sam Bankman-Fried’s house of cards. The token was nominally intended to give FTX users a discount on trading fees. But in practice its market price reflected sentiment about the performance of FTX itself, much as a stock tracks the performance of a public company. CoinDesk’s Ian Allison reported on Nov. 2 that a huge portion of Alameda Research’s balance sheet consisted of the FTT token, including some valued at its public price, and locked positions valued at half of that.

This raised alarms for a number of reasons, including by undermining the (already tenuous) idea that FTX and Alameda Research were truly separate operations. It remains unclear how exactly Alameda wound up with the FTT in the first place, but one theory is that the fund participated in the initial sale of FTT. If FTX and Alameda operated in tandem, which seems increasingly clear, this could be considered fraudulent price manipulation.

Shades of Enron.

[Ptarmigan]

Crypto Exchange Gemini Suffers $485M Rush of Outflows Amid Contagion Fears
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2022/11/16/crypto-exchange-gemini-suffers-485m-rush-of-outflows-amid-contagion-fears/

Gemini, a crypto exchange and custodian founded by the Winklevoss brothers, has suffered a rush of withdrawals as crypto firms wrestle with the reverberations of the FTX-Alameda bankruptcy and subsequent contagion within the digital asset industry.

Data by blockchain intelligence platform Nansen shows that Gemini saw $485 million in net outflows in the past 24 hours, the largest among crypto exchanges. Outflows totaled $563 million, and were offset by only $78 million in inflows. In the past seven days, Gemini experienced a total of $682 million net outflows – the difference of $866 billion of inflows and $1.55 billion of inflows provided by Nansen – suggesting that most of the withdrawals have occurred on Wednesday.

Digital asset balances on crypto wallets identified as Gemini dropped to $1.7 billion from about $2.2 billion a day ago, according to blockchain data platform Arkham Intelligence. Arkham and Nansen do not cover data from the Bitcoin blockchain and may not include all Gemini’s wallets.

The rush of withdrawals came as Gemini paused withdrawals earlier Wednesday from its yield-generating Earn program. The lending unit of crypto investment bank Genesis Global Trading, which powered the program for Gemini, announced that it was suspending customer redemptions citing “extreme market dislocation” and “loss of industry confidence caused by the FTX implosion."

There is a rush to withdraw from Gemini. A bank run of cryptocurrency.

[Ptarmigan]

Bankman-Fried Praises Regulators Hours After Saying 'F*** Regulators'
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/11/16/bankman-fried-praises-regulators-hours-after-saying-f-regulators/

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried threw his meandering “What H-A-P-P-E-N-E-D” Twitter thread into damage control Wednesday after a Vox reporter published Twitter direct messages of him cursing about regulators – a group he famously and publicly courted for their influence.

“It’s *really hard to be a regulator,” he said Wednesday of three- and four-letter agencies with the “impossible” job of overseeing fast-moving industries such as crypto. “And so often they end up mostly unable to police as well as they ideally would.”

Sam Bankman-Fried hates and loves regulators.

[Ptarmigan]

Bankman-Fried: I Made An $8 Billion Mistake
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/bankman-fried-i-made-8-billion-dollar-mistake

When facing lengthy jail time, one usually crawls up in a ball, cries quietly and whatever happens, one does not tweet. At least that's what lawyers would advise any rational, sane client. Apparently that designation does not apply to cryptofraud and Democratic donor par excellence, Sam Bankman-Fried, who either knows Democrats and their pet FBI will never allow him to go to prison, or is otherwise a complete idiot, and instead of keeping the lowest public profile he can, he keeps reminding the public of his record-breaking crypto fraud that has wiped out millions and led to hundreds of billions worth of value lost.

Case in point, his latest tweetstorm - we are now up to tweets 18 through 26 - in which the former CEO of now-bankrupt FTX who may or may not be facing extradition to the US to face criminal charges, said in a series of tweet - in which among other things he said that he "was on the cover of every magazine, and FTX was the darling of Silicon Valley. We got overconfident and careless" - he said that he made an $8 billion mistake on the cryptocurrency exchange’s leverage levels. It was $13 billion, not about $5 billion.

20) I was on the cover of every magazine, and FTX was the darling of Silicon Valley.

We got overconfident and careless.

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 16, 2022
22) And that risk was correlated--with the other collateral, and with the platform.

And then the crash came.

In a few day period, there was a historic crash--over 50% in most correlated assets, with no bid side liquidity.

And at the same time there was a run on the bank.

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 16, 2022
24) Shrapnel

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 16, 2022

Sam Bankman-Fried is on tweetstorm after billions of dollars just vanish.

[Ptarmigan]

Report: Disgraced FTX CEO and Democrat Super Donor Sam Bankman-Fried Attempted to Raise Even More Cash Amidst Bankruptcy, Liquidity Crisis
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/11/16/report-disgraced-ftx-ceo-and-democrat-super-donor-sam-bankman-fried-attempted-to-raise-even-more-cash-amidst-bankruptcy-liquidity-crisis/

According to people familiar with the matter, FTX founder and Democrat super donor Sam Bankman-Fried still believes that he can raise enough money to make users whole, even though the cryptocurrency exchange filed for bankruptcy last week.

The Wall Street Journal reports that FTX founder and chairman Sam Bankman-Fried has been making phone calls over the last few days seeking to raise up to $8 billion in fresh capital to repay FTX’s investors.

It appears that so far Bankman-Fried has been unable to raise the cash to cover the shortfall. The WSJ was unable to determine if Bankman-Fried is offering anything in return for a cash infusion or whether other investors have committed.

FTX filed for bankruptcy Friday shortly after Bankman-Fried reassured customers that the firm was “fine.” The move came as a shock to those who had hoped they would be able to recover some of their lost assets in order from the exchange.

Sam Bankman-Fried is trying to raise money. However, it has not worked out.

[Ptarmigan]

FTX Employees Were Encouraged to Keep Life Savings in the Now-Bankrupt Exchange, Sources Say
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/11/16/ftx-employees-were-encouraged-to-keep-life-savings-in-the-now-bankrupt-exchange-sources-say/

Retail and institutional investors weren’t the only ones to get rug pulled by FTX’s swift and stunning collapse last week.

In addition to losing their jobs at the now-bankrupt exchange, many of FTX’s employees also appear to have significant amounts of personal wealth locked in the platform – wealth that is likely gone after being sucked into the black hole of the FTX disaster.

FTX’s deficit was allegedly created, according to a Wall Street Journal report last week, by former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s penchant for playing fast and loose with customer funds, using them to cover the debts of his quant trading firm, Alameda Research, violating the exchange’s own terms and conditions.

Former FTX Head of Marketing Nathaniel Whittemore, who is also a CoinDesk podcaster, said this week that he and the majority of the exchange’s other employees had no idea about the allegedly fraudulent treatment of customer funds. His account rhymes with claims other former employees have made on social media, as well as a CoinDesk report last week that showed Bankman-Fried’s inner circle may have had an unusual level of control over the company.

FTX employees were encouraged to keep life savings in FTX. All their life savings are now gone.