ELON TUSK IS GOD

[sonatine]

some market maker types are poking some holes in the finer points of that thesis but if nothing else its educational and probably at least partially correct.

[devidee]

Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraudulent company received a higher ESG score on “Leadership & Governance” than did Exxon Mobil.

[Kalam]

I dont have a particular opinion on FTX one way or another. But I feel that most banks ("real" and Crypto) would have the same problem if everyone tried to withdraw at once. Of course real banks have governments to prop them up. So it seems the real moral of the story is that if you want to run a bank, make sure there is a lot of people with a lot of guns making sure you stay afloat if something goes wrong.

[sonatine]

I dont have a particular opinion on FTX one way or another. But I feel that most banks ("real" and Crypto) would have the same problem if everyone tried to withdraw at once. Of course real banks have governments to prop them up. So it seems the real moral of the story is that if you want to run a bank, make sure there is a lot of people with a lot of guns making sure you stay afloat if something goes wrong.

as someone pointed out elsewhere, the difference between unicorn juggernaut and ponzi is often a bear market suddenly appearing.

ftx's biggest holding was 2.2bn USD of some shitcoin that has a current notational value of like 84m USD.

their model required market liquidity to survive and when it went away, they didnt survive.

the fact that the top dogs were a dozen amphetamine addicted polyamorous weirdos living together in a penthouse in the bahamas lends itself to the theory that they simply didnt have the financial / management acumen to hedge against downturns, only double down on hypergambling to gut through them.

[devidee]

[Kalam]

I dont have a particular opinion on FTX one way or another. But I feel that most banks ("real" and Crypto) would have the same problem if everyone tried to withdraw at once. Of course real banks have governments to prop them up. So it seems the real moral of the story is that if you want to run a bank, make sure there is a lot of people with a lot of guns making sure you stay afloat if something goes wrong.

as someone pointed out elsewhere, the difference between unicorn juggernaut and ponzi is often a bear market suddenly appearing.

ftx's biggest holding was 2.2bn USD of some shitcoin that has a current notational value of like 84m USD.

their model required market liquidity to survive and when it went away, they didnt survive.

the fact that the top dogs were a dozen amphetamine addicted polyamorous weirdos living together in a penthouse in the bahamas lends itself to the theory that they simply didnt have the financial / management acumen to hedge against downturns, only double down on hypergambling to gut through them.

Ok. I read that customers attempted $6 billion in withdrawals in a short time span in a panic. Do you think Binance, Coinbase or any other exchange could survive that? Could most US banks survive that? My gut is no, but I really dont know. The point is the narrative seems to be all about the eccentricities of the owner (and his questionable money management), and seems to be missing the forest for the trees.

In China recently didn't Chinese citizens try to make a run for their money and were met with tanks that told them to go home? In comparison, seems that FTXs main shortcoming was lack of tanks.

[Kalam]

--Why would the DNC need a fundraising scam in the first place? Thanks to lax fundraising laws that both parties take advantage of, there isn't really any need. The DNC can (and does) raise practically infinite money completely in the open from a variety of special interest (that they in turn give favorable legislation to), and no-one cares.

[devidee]

Nothing to see here…

[sonatine]

as someone pointed out elsewhere, the difference between unicorn juggernaut and ponzi is often a bear market suddenly appearing.

ftx's biggest holding was 2.2bn USD of some shitcoin that has a current notational value of like 84m USD.

their model required market liquidity to survive and when it went away, they didnt survive.

the fact that the top dogs were a dozen amphetamine addicted polyamorous weirdos living together in a penthouse in the bahamas lends itself to the theory that they simply didnt have the financial / management acumen to hedge against downturns, only double down on hypergambling to gut through them.

Ok. I read that customers attempted $6 billion in withdrawals in a short time span in a panic. Do you think Binance, Coinbase or any other exchange could survive that? Could most US banks survive that? My gut is no, but I really dont know. The point is the narrative seems to be all about the eccentricities of the owner (and his questionable money management), and seems to be missing the forest for the trees.

In China recently didn't Chinese citizens try to make a run for their money and were met with tanks that told them to go home? In comparison, seems that FTXs main shortcoming was lack of tanks.

mark cuban actually made an interesting post about all this;

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/1591470047499018241

banks savings are FDIC insured up to a point so even if you get turned away at the door, as long as there is a functional government, youre $100k per account or whatever is covered, it just not might be immediately available. so a bank run isnt really a great analog scenario. but of course ftx wasnt a bank, it was an offshore gambling site if we are being honest.

and its biggest sin was that it was doing incredibly stupid shit. just ... weird shit.

in your china example, you have people showing up to demand their yuan, and being sent home with tanks because banks dont have that much cash on hand. no bank has enough cash on hand to cover client savings. but they do have positions in the market they can unwind to cover those accounts, they just need to be given the opportunity to do so, or to be extended short term cash loans to cover them etc etc.

now recently, in early summer, small banks in rural china started becoming insolvent (i think thats the particular example youre referring to). i forget the particulars but i think the banks were caught up from heavily leveraged investments in the scam real estate sector, something like that. so anyway they go insolvent and customers were unable to access their money for months. but china is covering those losses because of course it is, and there was never any real doubt that it would because to not do so would raise bigger questions about the yuan and invite greater scrutiny into a economy whose growth is largely predicated on opacity.

ftx was never going to get tanks because it wasnt the banks deploying tanks in china, it was china itself. ftx has no army behind it, private or other. ftx has no central bank behind it, or government; there is no FDIC insurance there. you cant do weird shit like issue perps on a coin you own 90% of if you are FDIC insured. and doing weird shit was ftx's bread and butter. alameda had some of the most profitable trading desks in crypto, they topped leaderboards consistently. and sam knew it, so sam felt like it was basically his fucking job to make 100x levered yolos on that pattern repeating. after all, thats pretty much exactly how you end up worth $15bn on paper.

and its worth noting that if CZ hadnt tossed a lit match on this pile of oily rags ftx called a ledger, ftx and its clients were probably one bull run away from being financially stable. all that insane hypergambling would have paid off.

...the notion that there was some sort of grift at work where sam and his cozy bahamian sex cult were deliberately robbing people increasingly appears to be an invention of substandard imaginations and conspiracy theorists.

[Sanlmar]

Ok. I read that customers attempted $6 billion in withdrawals in a short time span in a panic. Do you think Binance, Coinbase or any other exchange could survive that? Could most US banks survive that? My gut is no, but I really dont know. The point is the narrative seems to be all about the eccentricities of the owner (and his questionable money management), and seems to be missing the forest for the trees.

In China recently didn't Chinese citizens try to make a run for their money and were met with tanks that told them to go home? In comparison, seems that FTXs main shortcoming was lack of tanks.

mark cuban actually made an interesting post about all this;

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/1591470047499018241

banks savings are FDIC insured up to a point so even if you get turned away at the door, as long as there is a functional government, youre $100k per account or whatever is covered, it just not might be immediately available. so a bank run isnt really a great analog scenario. but of course ftx wasnt a bank, it was an offshore gambling site if we are being honest.

and its biggest sin was that it was doing incredibly stupid shit. just ... weird shit.

in your china example, you have people showing up to demand their yuan, and being sent home with tanks because banks dont have that much cash on hand. no bank has enough cash on hand to cover client savings. but they do have positions in the market they can unwind to cover those accounts, they just need to be given the opportunity to do so, or to be extended short term cash loans to cover them etc etc.

now recently, in early summer, small banks in rural china started becoming insolvent (i think thats the particular example youre referring to). i forget the particulars but i think the banks were caught up from heavily leveraged investments in the scam real estate sector, something like that. so anyway they go insolvent and customers were unable to access their money for months. but china is covering those losses because of course it is, and there was never any real doubt that it would because to not do so would raise bigger questions about the yuan and invite greater scrutiny into a economy whose growth is largely predicated on opacity.

ftx was never going to get tanks because it wasnt the banks deploying tanks in china, it was china itself. ftx has no army behind it, private or other. ftx has no central bank behind it, or government; there is no FDIC insurance there. you cant do weird shit like issue perps on a coin you own 90% of if you are FDIC insured. and doing weird shit was ftx's bread and butter. alameda had some of the most profitable trading desks in crypto, they topped leaderboards consistently. and sam knew it, so sam felt like it was basically his fucking job to make 100x levered yolos on that pattern repeating. after all, thats pretty much exactly how you end up worth $15bn on paper.

and its worth noting that if CZ hadnt tossed a lit match on this pile of oily rags ftx called a ledger, ftx and its clients were probably one bull run away from being financially stable. all that insane hypergambling would have paid off.

...the notion that there was some sort of grift at work where sam and his cozy bahamian sex cult were deliberately robbing people increasingly appears to be an invention of substandard imaginations and conspiracy theorists.

I just hate everything here - especially the Cuban tweet. I respect the brainstorming

If CZ didn’t call bullshit and sell - things woulda been fine? No run? Ppl wanting out of a fraud is just reflex.

SBF and Caroline were trying to escape insolvency by gambling with customer funds. This was the unpardonable sin. Absent this crime they had no dough to play with.

Caroline and co were not trading geniuses. She was lighting money on fire.

I’ll try to deflect your animosity toward me with a potentially entertaining diversion. I haven’t dug in yet but did Citadel do a deal with Alameda where they swapped GME, AMC meme squeeze paper for FTT? Was that the fuse? Was that the Caroline trade from which could never recover?

We need to take a break from the SBF craziness and survey the broader field. We will be rewarded I think.

The exchanges were always your theme from nearly day one.. scammy filthy fraudsters. always were

[sonatine]

mark cuban actually made an interesting post about all this;

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/1591470047499018241

banks savings are FDIC insured up to a point so even if you get turned away at the door, as long as there is a functional government, youre $100k per account or whatever is covered, it just not might be immediately available. so a bank run isnt really a great analog scenario. but of course ftx wasnt a bank, it was an offshore gambling site if we are being honest.

and its biggest sin was that it was doing incredibly stupid shit. just ... weird shit.

in your china example, you have people showing up to demand their yuan, and being sent home with tanks because banks dont have that much cash on hand. no bank has enough cash on hand to cover client savings. but they do have positions in the market they can unwind to cover those accounts, they just need to be given the opportunity to do so, or to be extended short term cash loans to cover them etc etc.

now recently, in early summer, small banks in rural china started becoming insolvent (i think thats the particular example youre referring to). i forget the particulars but i think the banks were caught up from heavily leveraged investments in the scam real estate sector, something like that. so anyway they go insolvent and customers were unable to access their money for months. but china is covering those losses because of course it is, and there was never any real doubt that it would because to not do so would raise bigger questions about the yuan and invite greater scrutiny into a economy whose growth is largely predicated on opacity.

ftx was never going to get tanks because it wasnt the banks deploying tanks in china, it was china itself. ftx has no army behind it, private or other. ftx has no central bank behind it, or government; there is no FDIC insurance there. you cant do weird shit like issue perps on a coin you own 90% of if you are FDIC insured. and doing weird shit was ftx's bread and butter. alameda had some of the most profitable trading desks in crypto, they topped leaderboards consistently. and sam knew it, so sam felt like it was basically his fucking job to make 100x levered yolos on that pattern repeating. after all, thats pretty much exactly how you end up worth $15bn on paper.

and its worth noting that if CZ hadnt tossed a lit match on this pile of oily rags ftx called a ledger, ftx and its clients were probably one bull run away from being financially stable. all that insane hypergambling would have paid off.

...the notion that there was some sort of grift at work where sam and his cozy bahamian sex cult were deliberately robbing people increasingly appears to be an invention of substandard imaginations and conspiracy theorists.

I just hate everything here - especially the Cuban tweet. I respect the brainstorming

SBF was trying to escape insolvency by gambling with customer funds. This was the unpardonable sin.

Caroline and co were not trading geniuses. She was lighting money on fire.

I’ll try to deflect your animosity toward me with a potentially entertaining diversion. I haven’t dug in yet but did Citadel do a deal with Alameda where they swapped GME, AMC etc paper for FTT?

i dont know what to tell you when you manage to say crypto leaderboards dont exist and newsom isnt a cali democrat in 2 consecutive posts.

[sonatine]

"SBF was trying to escape insolvency by gambling with customer funds."


like honestly as opposed to whom exactly?

[sonatine]

like, the more these kids gambled, the more the crypto bull run rewarded them, and the louder the world applauded.

the same people insisting that the root cause of this collapse be pinned on some orchestrated deliberate grift have been the voices most conspicuously silent about an entire financial gambling industry predicated on synthetic securities with literally 0 intrinsic value.

[sonatine]

Jan 18, 2021:


Renaissance Says Losses Should Have Been Expected at Some Point
Quant hedge fund tells clients that drop of 20% to 30% was partly due to increased volatility

[Sanlmar]

like, the more these kids gambled, the more the crypto bull run rewarded them, and the louder the world applauded.

the same people insisting that the root cause of this collapse be pinned on some orchestrated deliberate grift have been the voices most conspicuously silent about an entire financial gambling industry predicated on synthetic securities with literally 0 intrinsic value.

Your first line may best describe the crypto era

My personal favorite quote describing our times

“they mistook leverage for genius”
Steve Eisman (Big Short star)

[sonatine]

like, the more these kids gambled, the more the crypto bull run rewarded them, and the louder the world applauded.

the same people insisting that the root cause of this collapse be pinned on some orchestrated deliberate grift have been the voices most conspicuously silent about an entire financial gambling industry predicated on synthetic securities with literally 0 intrinsic value.

Your first line may best describe the crypto era

My personal favorite quote describing our times

“they mistook leverage for genius”
Steve Eisman (Big Short star)

everyone loves a ponzi on the way up, amirite?

speaking of the big short and as mentioned on the other site, michael lewis was embedded with sbf for 6 months.

im guessing 95% of the book is exactly your take on this and the last chapter is him saying 'but honestly is any of this really some huge departure from what investment banks and hedge funds do every day?'

[Sanlmar]

speaking of the big short and as mentioned on the other site, michael lewis was embedded with sbf for 6 months.

You made my day. I had no idea. I have checked in from time to time on Lewis. I was fearful he might have packed it in after his daughter’s death.

Lewis often starts with an article that subsequently demands a book.

Can he submit anything before 6 months? I lean over

[sonatine]

speaking of the big short and as mentioned on the other site, michael lewis was embedded with sbf for 6 months.

You made my day. I had no idea. I have checked in from time to time on Lewis. I was fearful he might have packed it in after his daughter’s death.

Lewis often starts with an article that subsequently demands a book.

Can he submit anything before 6 months? I lean over

as you can imagine, theres a massive bidding war for film rights to the book taking place at the moment so hes being fairly cloistered re content.

[Sanlmar]

Read the Forbes SBF piece on the printed page in a library.

Strike me dead if I’m lying.

Forbes really has become Newsweek. Forbes clearly needs to offer a big print edition for their audience.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/twt/status/1591117717687635968

[Sanlmar]

You made my day. I had no idea. I have checked in from time to time on Lewis. I was fearful he might have packed it in after his daughter’s death.

Lewis often starts with an article that subsequently demands a book.

Can he submit anything before 6 months? I lean over

as you can imagine, theres a massive bidding war for film rights to the book taking place at the moment so hes being fairly cloistered re content.

I keep checking Fandango for the Liars Poker premiere.