Cyber Greed and Hubris. How $120 Billion in Crypto vanished

[Phil1111 910]

From $32 billion to criminal investigations: How Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire vanished overnight

Crypto Billionaires With $96B Loss Add Distance From FTX

Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself The fallen crypto CEO on what went wrong, why he did what he did, and what lies he told along the way.

Hopefully nobody in SC bought too deep into the "Kidnappers Currency" and the whole crypto craze. Billions and billions have been stolen, defrauded, scammed and gone missing.

It all seems like a modern day tulip craze of greed.

[ryoder 1,382]

Molly White maintains this site of crypto news. It is a timeline with the newest stories at the top, so you can scroll down to see previous news.

Molly White: Web3 Is Going Just Great

Now tell me why anyone would think cryptcurrency is an "investment".

[Phil1111 910]

1 hour ago, ryoder said:

Molly White maintains this site of crypto news. It is a timeline with the newest stories at the top, so you can scroll down to see previous news.

Molly White: Web3 Is Going Just Great

Now tell me why anyone would think cryptcurrency is an "investment".

If somebody buys it from you at twice what you paid for it. Then the next person pays twice as much from that person. Then the next.....

Isn't that an investment?

[gowlerk 1,910]

2 hours ago, ryoder said:

Now tell me why anyone would think cryptcurrency is an "investment".

A few young skydivers I know who are basically labourers for a living were all about getting rich "investing" in crypto. I'm not sure how they did, they aren't really talking much about it anymore.

[mistercwood 287]

3 hours ago, gowlerk said:

I'm not sure how they did, they aren't really talking much about it anymore.

If they had dreams of being rich, they probably got greedy and never cashed any out during peaks, so are well in the red now. It's a complete casino market, but you can still make money if you're not dumb.

I only chucked a grand in, back in 2017. Things took off over the next 6 months, so I took my original money back out and left the rest to ride - turned out I picked almost the top of that cycle. In the years since I've probably taken another 4-5k out, just cashing out a little every time the headlines start getting a little too hysterical about how good things are going.

I'll keep doing this until the market finally burns out completely. It doesn't matter to me, I've already won.

Edited November 18, 2022 by mistercwood

[ryoder 1,382]

Celebrities who appeared in FTX ads are being sued, including Larry David. But the funny thing is: He played a skeptic in the ads, who could not be persuaded.

 

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

2 hours ago, Phil1111 said:

If somebody buys it from you at twice what you paid for it. Then the next person pays twice as much from that person. Then the next.....

Isn't that an investment?

Hi Phil,

Ever heard of AmWay?

Jerry Baumchen

[ryoder 1,382]

37 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Phil,

Ever heard of AmWay?

Jerry Baumchen

And Herbalife.

[gowlerk 1,910]

9 minutes ago, ryoder said:

And Herbalife.

My brother once tried to sell me Melaleuca.

[ryoder 1,382]

4 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

My brother once tried to sell me Melaleuca.

Never heard of them before. But I found this:

Wikipedia: Frank VanderSloot

However, according to the US Federal Trade Commission study on multi-level marketing companies, fewer than 0.29% of Melaleuca distributors make any profit and more than 99% of distributors lost money. The FTC report goes on to note that the odds of winning from a single spin of the wheel in a game of roulette in Las Vegas are "22 times as great as the odds of profiting after enrolling as a Melaleuca distributor”.

Sounds legit.

I once had a GF whose family was Herbalife True Believers. [groan]

[BIGUN 1,053]

2 hours ago, ryoder said:

Now tell me why anyone would think cryptcurrency is an "investment".

Once any company's P/E Ratio steps significantly outside the interquartile range, there's going to be a problem. 

[gowlerk 1,910]

1 minute ago, BIGUN said:

Once any company's P/E Ratio steps significantly outside the interquartile range, there's going to be a problem. 

Of course the problem is not crypto. Gambling with customer funds has brought down many "clever" over leveraged operators. The currency used is a side issue. The level of misunderstanding and hype around crypto just made it easy to the point of almost inevitability. 

[BIGUN 1,053]

12 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Of course the problem is not crypto.

The problem IS Crypto. Soon, the nearly 1,855 other bitcoin-like currencies out there will begin to tumble. This was a bad investment from the beginning. I looked into it in the beginning, but chose not to pursue it. It was a solution looking for a problem. 

[Phil1111 910]

2 minutes ago, BIGUN said:

The problem IS Crypto. Soon, the nearly 1,855 other bitcoin-like currencies out there will begin to tumble. This was a bad investment from the beginning. I looked into it in the beginning, but chose not to pursue it. It was a solution looking for a problem. 

Perhaps a solution in search of a problem?

Joe can be a pessimist sometimes.I keep telling Joe that after every storm there is a rainbow. Crypto crash threatens North Korea's stolen funds as it ramps up weapons tests  The nosedive in cryptocurrency markets has wiped out millions of dollars in funds stolen by North Korean hackers, four digital investigators say

"North Korea has poured resources into stealing cryptocurrencies in recent years, making it a potent hacking threat and leading to one of the largest cryptocurrency heists on record in March, in which almost $615 million was stolen, according to the U.S. Treasury. read more "

[ryoder 1,382]

2 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

Perhaps a solution in search of a problem?

Joe can be a pessimist sometimes.I keep telling Joe that after every storm there is a rainbow. Crypto crash threatens North Korea's stolen funds as it ramps up weapons tests  The nosedive in cryptocurrency markets has wiped out millions of dollars in funds stolen by North Korean hackers, four digital investigators say

"North Korea has poured resources into stealing cryptocurrencies in recent years, making it a potent hacking threat and leading to one of the largest cryptocurrency heists on record in March, in which almost $615 million was stolen, according to the U.S. Treasury. read more "

I knew about their operations, but I hadn't even thought about how this would affect them. I just assumed they were smart enough to cash out any crypto as soon as they stole it.

LOL!

Edited November 18, 2022 by ryoder

[BIGUN 1,053]

10 hours ago, Phil1111 said:

Perhaps a solution in search of a problem?

"No Market Need."

[Phil1111 910]

Evidently Bahamian jails are not the places that former billionaires are used to. Sam Bankman-Fried Reverses Decision to Contest US Extradition Request After a Few Nights in Bahamian Jail

"It was just a few days ago that Sam Bankman-Fried, the ex-billionaire CEO of defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX and hedge fund Alameda, decided to contest a US extradition request for his central role in the FTX meltdown that defrauded thousands of investors. However, after spending a few nights in a Bahamian jail, he has reversed his decision and agreed to be extradited back to the United States."

More reporting suggests that like crypto itself. FTX was just a big scam.

 

[Phil1111 910]

Sam Bankman-Fried to Be Released on $250 Million Bond With Restrictive Terms

Two Executives in Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Empire Plead Guilty to Fraud

"Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, a founder of FTX, are cooperating in the federal criminal case against Mr. Bankman-Fried."

[Coreece 190]

On 11/17/2022 at 8:46 PM, BIGUN said:

On 11/17/2022 at 8:31 PM, gowlerk said:

Of course the problem is not crypto.

The problem IS Crypto. Soon, the nearly 1,855 other bitcoin-like currencies out there will begin to tumble. This was a bad investment from the beginning. I looked into it in the beginning, but chose not to pursue it. It was a solution looking for a problem. 

He's right that it didn't matter which currenncy was used in the fraud, but ya, the silver lining is that bad actors will tumble away along with their useless coins, regulations will make it more stable, but with less opportunity for the little guy.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Coreece

[gowlerk 1,910]

1 minute ago, Coreece said:

regulations will make it more stable, tho with less opportunity for the little guy.

So, is it supposed to be a currency? Or an investment? Where is the value supposed to come from? Nothin from nothin leaves nuthin.

 

[Coreece 190]

1 minute ago, gowlerk said:

4 minutes ago, Coreece said:

regulations will make it more stable, tho with less opportunity for the little guy.

 Where is the value supposed to come from? 

In this context, I guess it's the opportunity for the little guy to take from the big guy.

[gowlerk 1,910]

1 minute ago, Coreece said:

In this context, I guess it's the opportunity for the little guy to take from the big guy.

Only if the big guy is willing to play. In the end it is sort of like a game of chicken. Speculation, greed and fear just like the price of equities. Only with no assets to provide profits. It goes up and down by huge amounts and there are winners and losers among those who buy and sell. But nothing produced other than sales for server providers. All crypto will eventually become worthless but many fortunes will be won and lost getting there. A scam with no real people running it but many trying to and getting pieces along the way. Truly a phenomenon not quite like any other seen before. 

[Coreece 190]

15 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

But nothing produced other than sales for server providers. All crypto will eventually become worthless 

Just like everything else, it's just a matter of when. But I bet my prediction happens before yours.

[billvon 2,396]

2 hours ago, gowlerk said:

All crypto will eventually become worthless but many fortunes will be won and lost getting there.

Not much different than any other currency, then.

[kallend 1,623]

At least with tulip bulbs you can grow tulips.