This hasn’t come up in a while and I want to share what was obvious to me but contrasted heavily with the prevailing narrative: The FTX downfall was more of a freak accident caused by poor communication, outside greed, and over-ambitious prosecution intent on using FTX as a means of scaring big crypto into behaving themselves. A deep dive into Sam’s character will reveal someone with a strict adherence to honesty and truth with a strong altruistic nature. The primary issue was his manner of communication dogged by Aspergian stoicism, manifested as apparent obfuscation or outright dishonesty to those unfamiliar with neurodivergent expression. That being said, if you go back and treat everything Sam said as if he was being as honest as anyone could possibly be, which he was, it paints a sad story of someone who’s inability to intuitively know how to be socially relatable, resulted in being swallowed up by the imaginative sensationalism of attention seeking media and disliked by nearly everyone else, including the jury. There’s more but I’ve scratched my itch.
Didn’t Sam tell several straightforward lies? e.g. claiming that they had enough assets to fully cover the account values of all users, which they didn’t; claiming that Alameda never borrowed users’ deposits, which it did.
Nearly everyone who lost money is being (or has already been) repaid + 20% − 45% on top. Not long after the bankruptcy team took control, they had recovered enough funds such that FTX would have been able to cover what it needed to. That tells me, if Sam hadn’t filed bankruptcy (at his counsels recommendation, who later joined the bankruptcy team to earn $100′s of millions) he could have come up with the money in short order. Going by Sam’s testimony, he was keeping numbers in his head and simply thought there was more working capital than there was.… which means he didn’t intentionally defraud anyone… which is what he was convicted of.… intentional being the key word.
Those who lost money are being repaid in cash based on the value of their crypto when the bankruptcy filing was made. The market was down at that time and later recovered. The victims are not being put in the same place they would have been in absent the fraud.
“Intentional fraud” is redundant since fraud requires intent to defraud. It does not, however, require the intent to permanently deprive people of their property. So a subjective belief that the fraudster would be able to return monies to those whose funds he misappropriated due to the fraudulent scheme is not a defense here.
“[F]raud is a broad term, which includes false representations, dishonesty and deceit.” United States v. Grainger, 701 F.2d 308, 311 (4th Cir. 1983). SBF obtained client monies through false, dishonest, and deceitful representations that (for instance) the funds would not be used as Alameda’s slush fund. He knew the representations made to secure client funds were false, dishonest, and deceitful. That’s enough for the convictions.
Why did Caroline Ellison, the CEO of Alameda Research, Gary Wang, a co-founder of FTX, and Nishad Singh, an FTX executive, all plead guilty to fraud and testify that Sam Bankman-Fried was directly involved in the fraud? How do you explain the evidence such as spreadsheets, code, emails, and internal documents that point toward FTX committing fraud and Sam Bankman-Fried being involved?
Because they were given the option by the prosecution, “Take this plea and help us nail Sam or spend xx many years in prison.” There’s no smoking gun that shows “Sam knew he was committing fraud and did it anyways.” But the prosecution managed to convince a jury of it anyways.
You’re right to be concerned about the incentives of cooperators who had their own legal exposure. But those witnesses stood up to days of cross-examination about specifics by SBF’s lawyers. Those attorneys had access to documentary evidence with which to try to impeach the witness testimony—so it’s not like the witnesses could just make up a story here.
Circumstantial in relation to his intentions. This is also circumstantial, but one would have to ask themself why would someone of seemingly exceptional character, who was deemed trustworthy by many prominent people, who was relatively disinterested in personal wealth yet increasing in net worth faster than anyone at the time, who was raised in a good family at an ivy league university… son to legal scholars, of exceptional intelligence, with no criminal record or shadiness to speak of, decide to throw it all away for a few extra bucks? The collective probability there is likely less than 1%. Also, leading up to and continuing past the final days of FTX, a respected journalist (Michael Lewis) happened to be keenly observing Sam, his character, his interactions, and how he thinks/operates. He has stated that he doesn’t think Sam did anything intentionally wrong, that it was more a matter of disorganization or mismanagement.
This hasn’t come up in a while and I want to share what was obvious to me but contrasted heavily with the prevailing narrative: The FTX downfall was more of a freak accident caused by poor communication, outside greed, and over-ambitious prosecution intent on using FTX as a means of scaring big crypto into behaving themselves. A deep dive into Sam’s character will reveal someone with a strict adherence to honesty and truth with a strong altruistic nature. The primary issue was his manner of communication dogged by Aspergian stoicism, manifested as apparent obfuscation or outright dishonesty to those unfamiliar with neurodivergent expression. That being said, if you go back and treat everything Sam said as if he was being as honest as anyone could possibly be, which he was, it paints a sad story of someone who’s inability to intuitively know how to be socially relatable, resulted in being swallowed up by the imaginative sensationalism of attention seeking media and disliked by nearly everyone else, including the jury. There’s more but I’ve scratched my itch.
Didn’t Sam tell several straightforward lies? e.g. claiming that they had enough assets to fully cover the account values of all users, which they didn’t; claiming that Alameda never borrowed users’ deposits, which it did.
Nearly everyone who lost money is being (or has already been) repaid + 20% − 45% on top. Not long after the bankruptcy team took control, they had recovered enough funds such that FTX would have been able to cover what it needed to. That tells me, if Sam hadn’t filed bankruptcy (at his counsels recommendation, who later joined the bankruptcy team to earn $100′s of millions) he could have come up with the money in short order. Going by Sam’s testimony, he was keeping numbers in his head and simply thought there was more working capital than there was.… which means he didn’t intentionally defraud anyone… which is what he was convicted of.… intentional being the key word.
Those who lost money are being repaid in cash based on the value of their crypto when the bankruptcy filing was made. The market was down at that time and later recovered. The victims are not being put in the same place they would have been in absent the fraud.
“Intentional fraud” is redundant since fraud requires intent to defraud. It does not, however, require the intent to permanently deprive people of their property. So a subjective belief that the fraudster would be able to return monies to those whose funds he misappropriated due to the fraudulent scheme is not a defense here.
“[F]raud is a broad term, which includes false representations, dishonesty and deceit.” United States v. Grainger, 701 F.2d 308, 311 (4th Cir. 1983). SBF obtained client monies through false, dishonest, and deceitful representations that (for instance) the funds would not be used as Alameda’s slush fund. He knew the representations made to secure client funds were false, dishonest, and deceitful. That’s enough for the convictions.
Why did Caroline Ellison, the CEO of Alameda Research, Gary Wang, a co-founder of FTX, and Nishad Singh, an FTX executive, all plead guilty to fraud and testify that Sam Bankman-Fried was directly involved in the fraud? How do you explain the evidence such as spreadsheets, code, emails, and internal documents that point toward FTX committing fraud and Sam Bankman-Fried being involved?
Because they were given the option by the prosecution, “Take this plea and help us nail Sam or spend xx many years in prison.” There’s no smoking gun that shows “Sam knew he was committing fraud and did it anyways.” But the prosecution managed to convince a jury of it anyways.
You’re right to be concerned about the incentives of cooperators who had their own legal exposure. But those witnesses stood up to days of cross-examination about specifics by SBF’s lawyers. Those attorneys had access to documentary evidence with which to try to impeach the witness testimony—so it’s not like the witnesses could just make up a story here.
What about the spreadsheets, code, emails, and internal documents?
Circumstantial in relation to his intentions. This is also circumstantial, but one would have to ask themself why would someone of seemingly exceptional character, who was deemed trustworthy by many prominent people, who was relatively disinterested in personal wealth yet increasing in net worth faster than anyone at the time, who was raised in a good family at an ivy league university… son to legal scholars, of exceptional intelligence, with no criminal record or shadiness to speak of, decide to throw it all away for a few extra bucks? The collective probability there is likely less than 1%. Also, leading up to and continuing past the final days of FTX, a respected journalist (Michael Lewis) happened to be keenly observing Sam, his character, his interactions, and how he thinks/operates. He has stated that he doesn’t think Sam did anything intentionally wrong, that it was more a matter of disorganization or mismanagement.
Are you saying he did everything the prosecution alleged he did, but he didn’t have bad/criminal/fraudulent intentions in doing it?