We've been early and we've been right about everything connected with Sam Bankman-Fried and the FTX/Alameda fraud, the evolution of the crypto market into a perversion of traditional markets, and Wall Street and Washington's co-opting of Bitcoin.
On Thursday, Dec. 8 we presented a webinar to review the entire sordid tale and connect it to what we've been writing about for years now here on Epsilon Theory. Here's an intro clip. Please upgrade to Premium or Pro to view the full webinar!
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Nice job Ben! I always learn so much, thank you!
You are so welcome, Jim! Thanks for being a member of the ET Pack.
Well done Ben - I particularly liked two things #1 - your honest appraisal of yourself as a young man in Houston in the late 80s (I was out of college and consulting at First City Bank if you remember that disaster!) and #2 in the midst of so many bad actors, sharps, and emissaries, you took time to give Gary Gensler a positive shout out.
Thank you, Joe, on both counts!
That was well worth the time to watch, well done.
A thing I find interesting about raccoons is the way they use their physical self as part of their con, which plays on our beliefs about attractive vs. unattractive. Whether it’s the impeccable grooming as in Steve Martin/Dick Fuld’s case or the stark black turtle necks of Elizabeth Holmes or the perpetually messy hair of Boris Johnson and Sam Bankman Fried, it’s used to project a certain image for a certain reason, to inspire trust, to disarm suspicion and perhaps, even to let me believe I’m just a bit better dressed, groomed, or smarter, so not vulnerable to the con; which is when I’m likely the most vulnerable.
Thanks Ben. I am roughly your age and also have 3 daughters. They are all getting the link and we will have a family review.
Another thought: Since our pack has “superstitious” tendencies and we have been told many times that crypto is the payment system for human traffickers, drug cartels and arms dealers, why is SBF still alive if he stole all their money?
Thanks for a wonderful presentation but I think the structure of the con was something different.
IMHO FTX was double layered con. A massively scalable small con within a large con but still within the Spanish Prisoner framework. Ultimately the “Spanish Treasure” was a network of regulated exchanges where insiders could operate all the broker, trader, and exchange scams that have been made illegal over the past 100 years.
Insider trading, bucket shop(ing), corners, raids, pump and dump, spoofing, washing, front running, churning, pumping, backstopping, last look, washing…etc. Crypto was the trojan horse. Once it was approved they could (a) securitize any asset on a blockchain and (b) extend leverage to everyone. It was similar to Robinhood and the ultimate marks were thousands of retail investors and punters.
I don’t think the investors and enablers were conned. They were fully in… Unfortunately for them SBF was a crap risk manager and blew up Alemeda
Appreciate your insight and presentation. Very helpful in gaining a better understanding of this insidious crime. I hope you can find a meaningful way to present this to the general public.
100%. Our brains are evolved to respond to visual social cues and linguistic social cues.