Also, thanks for taking a position on both. We are on the same side of 50⁄50 for the “gambled deposits” question, though. I wish we could come up with something we disagree on that might also resolve sooner, I’ll think on it…
Maybe we disagree on just how big FTX’s financial hole is? Could we bet on “as of today, FTX liabilities—FTX liabilites >= 4bn”? I’d go positive on that one.
Dunno… Really can’t tell what you believe. You commented that folks are being too negative yet seem to also think that FTX “gambled” user deposits, which sounds pretty negative to me (though we can disagree about whether it was good to have done this). Oh wellz.
Maybe we disagree on just how big FTX’s financial hole is? Could we bet on “as of today, FTX liabilities—FTX liabilites >= 4bn”? I’d go positive on that one.
It’s hard to say, 4B is the ask but 8B was mentioned as a figure too. They could mean the ability to deploy some latent funds in some complex way. Honestly, this doesn’t seem that meaningful.
Dunno… Really can’t tell what you believe. You commented that folks are being too negative yet seem to also think that FTX “gambled” user deposits, which sounds pretty negative to me (though we can disagree about whether it was good to have done this). Oh wellz.
The crux here is what “collateralization” or “gambling”.
Boiled down, I believe that you can’t absolutely prevent all failures, not even real brokerages can.
Instead, you have a sliding scale of risk that has probabilities of failure, and none of these are truly zero risk unless you basically not have a business at all. Given this, it’s not clear to me that a failure indicates “gambling”.
A major consideration is that the norms of crypto are insane—like actually hard to communicate to normal people and sound normal. FTX’s main business is basically clients trading leveraged sh*t coins, which is absolutely crazy for 99.9% of people. Collateralizing with FTT was the issue, but it’s unclear if the current exchanges would survive a similar run on their tokens—should they shut down now? Are their CEOs guilty now?
As I type this, I think people think USDD is literally unpegging?
So hanging this on one person’s neck is pretty unfair if he just pushed the “risk slider” a bit farther than other people, in this surreal space, where “NFTs” were a primary product. There’s other issues that undermined him that aren’t his fault, but explaining this to EAs would just make everyone sad.
If that sounds like mumbo jumbo and insanity with extra steps, well it might be, but is actually how sort of how capitalism and finance actually work. This literally happened with Bear Sterns and caused the 2008 crash.
To “resolve” the above, and what is “true”, I think what is used here is “social constructionism”, like Foucault, as opposed to the “rationalist” “positivist” view.
Relevant to our bet, as I mentioned, I’m not sure how this is resolved or communicated by me or you winning money in a bet. Also, I’m pretty sure that the social/political/legal things are going to drive this far more than the actual “crime” or “not crime”. I’m sort of worried but I’ll go through with it.
What I think: I think that FTX was insolvent such that even if FTT price was steady, user funds were not fully backed. That is, they literally bet the money on a speculative investment and lost it, and this caused a multibillion dollar financial hole. It is also possible that some or all of the assets—liabilities deficit was caused by a hack that happened months ago that they did not report.
As far as I can tell, you don’t think this. Well, if you really don’t think that, and it turns out you were wrong, then I’d like you to update. I think probabilities are a good way to enforce that, that is my actual good-faith belief. Of course I’m also always looking for profitable trades.
Is there any bet you’d take, that doesn’t rely on a legal system (which I agree adds a lot of confounders, not to mention delay), on the above claim? Could we bet on “By April 2023, evidence arises that FTX user funds were not even 95% backed before Binance’s FTT selloff?” Or maybe we could bet on Nuno’s belief on the backing?
BTW your chart is USDD not USDC. Idk what USDD is.
Also I’ve now spent like wayyy too much time chatting about this on here. Making a bet would involve further chatting. So FYI the most likely outcome is that I wake up tomorrow and pretend it was all just a dream. Sorry to disappoint and thanks for indulging me a bit in the end.
What I think: I think that FTX was insolvent such that even if FTT price was steady, user funds were not fully backed.
Yes you are right, I disagree. I think this collapse happened because of the FTT “attack” (or honestly, huge vulnerability) and Alameda was forced to defend. Without this depletion, SBF or FTX could cover these funds in a routine sense and we wouldn’t hear about this.
That is, they literally bet the money on a speculative investment and lost it, and this caused a multibillion dollar financial hole. It is also possible that some or all of the assets—liabilities deficit was caused by a hack that happened months ago that they did not report.
This was very crisp and helpful, yes, you are correct, we definitely disagree here, I don’t think there was a major gaping hole like a major speculation or hack that was being concealed.
Is there any bet you’d take, that doesn’t rely on a legal system (which I agree adds a lot of confounders, not to mention delay), on the above claim? Could we bet on “By April 2023, evidence arises that FTX user funds were not even 95% backed before Binance’s FTT selloff?” Or maybe we could bet on Nuno’s belief on the backing?
Thank you for thinking about this! I agree with this bet! With the addition that includes any major selloff/attack on FTT (it’s possible Binance actually was in the minority of sales on this week’s events). I will accept this bet very happily at 50⁄50 that no such evidence will merge that is substantiated (e.g. not a rumor).
(This can still be hard to operationalize, because the forensics or seeing what happened can be difficult, especially if FTX is restructured in some way. E.g., it could have happened but we don’t hear about it. This is to your disadvantage.)
So FYI the most likely outcome is that I wake up tomorrow and pretend it was all just a dream. Sorry to disappoint and thanks for indulging me a bit in the end.
I will only accept bets on escrow, so we’re both clear that it’s active. I will honor any bets discussed, if you want, and you can leave it or not mention it again, if you don’t want to take them.
You are extremely thoughtful and helpful. Have a good night! Thank you and sorry again.
Wait...(the experience of actually putting real money seemed appalling and sort of scary, so I was looking through your profile to see if I would wiggle out of it.)
You’re Agrippa! The guy with very short timelines, is Berkeley adjacent and knows that cool DxE person.
No, I do care about you! I respect you quite a bit. I was wrong and I retract what I said before in at least a few comments, and I apologize for my behavior. I upvoted every comment in this chain of yours. Also, I’ll be happy to take any negative repercussions.
For the bet, I’ll do $500? Is that acceptable or do you want more? Can we give money to a trusted person, do you know of someone in real life?
Hey, just to be clear, note that “pays a fine” — this reads to me as SBF personally paying a fine versus FTX or Alameda, that’s quite a big difference IMO and that favors me. Also, Jan 1st 2024 I assume is the date.
You’re Agrippa! The guy with very short timelines, is Berkeley adjacent and knows that cool DxE person.
No, I do care about you! I respect you quite a bit. I was wrong and I retract what I said before in at least a few comments, and I apologize for my behavior. Also, I’ll be happy to take any negative repercussions.
😳 That’s nice of you, thanks.
I’m actually not a guy though I don’t take any offense to the assumption, given my username.
Maybe Nuno would escrow for us.
I’m probably down for $500, would need to talk to my partner about going much higher anyway. If you are in the US we might not need escrow since suing eachother is an option, if we went >5k that would be worth it.
Re SBF vs FTX/Alameda paying: Yeah I meant SBF personally. I agree it’s a big difference. Jan 1st is the date but I also don’t know how fast this stuff ever goes and researching it sounds annoying.
Given that you think it’s likely FTX “gambled” user funds I am really not sure we disagree on anything interesting to begin with :-[
Maybe you think it’s only 70% likely and I think it’s a lot more than that?
I’ll escrow with Nuno at any time, you can reach out to me by PM or Nuno can reach out to me.
Given that you think it’s likely FTX “gambled” user funds I am really not sure we disagree on anything interesting to begin with :-[
I think this is true, but sort of productive to clarify this.
Maybe you think it’s only 70% likely and I think it’s a lot more than that?
I’m >90% sure FTT was collateralized in a way that had “a major role” in FTX’s collapse, but like, I’m not sure exactly what that means in a causal way, and how severe it is in a moral sense. Financial engineering is complicated and I don’t know much about it.
Cool, what size bet? And, after we figure that out, any thoughts on an escrow?
Also, thanks for taking a position on both. We are on the same side of 50⁄50 for the “gambled deposits” question, though. I wish we could come up with something we disagree on that might also resolve sooner, I’ll think on it…
Maybe we disagree on just how big FTX’s financial hole is? Could we bet on “as of today, FTX liabilities—FTX liabilites >= 4bn”? I’d go positive on that one.
Dunno… Really can’t tell what you believe. You commented that folks are being too negative yet seem to also think that FTX “gambled” user deposits, which sounds pretty negative to me (though we can disagree about whether it was good to have done this). Oh wellz.
It’s hard to say, 4B is the ask but 8B was mentioned as a figure too. They could mean the ability to deploy some latent funds in some complex way. Honestly, this doesn’t seem that meaningful.
The crux here is what “collateralization” or “gambling”.
Boiled down, I believe that you can’t absolutely prevent all failures, not even real brokerages can.
Instead, you have a sliding scale of risk that has probabilities of failure, and none of these are truly zero risk unless you basically not have a business at all. Given this, it’s not clear to me that a failure indicates “gambling”.
A major consideration is that the norms of crypto are insane—like actually hard to communicate to normal people and sound normal. FTX’s main business is basically clients trading leveraged sh*t coins, which is absolutely crazy for 99.9% of people. Collateralizing with FTT was the issue, but it’s unclear if the current exchanges would survive a similar run on their tokens—should they shut down now? Are their CEOs guilty now?
People literally believed Tether might unpeg several in the last year, which is crazy, like thinking the USD might crash. It’s still a mystery how the main fiat instrument in crypto has value.
As I type this, I think people think USDD is literally unpegging?
So hanging this on one person’s neck is pretty unfair if he just pushed the “risk slider” a bit farther than other people, in this surreal space, where “NFTs” were a primary product. There’s other issues that undermined him that aren’t his fault, but explaining this to EAs would just make everyone sad.
If that sounds like mumbo jumbo and insanity with extra steps, well it might be, but is actually how sort of how capitalism and finance actually work. This literally happened with Bear Sterns and caused the 2008 crash.
To “resolve” the above, and what is “true”, I think what is used here is “social constructionism”, like Foucault, as opposed to the “rationalist” “positivist” view.
Relevant to our bet, as I mentioned, I’m not sure how this is resolved or communicated by me or you winning money in a bet. Also, I’m pretty sure that the social/political/legal things are going to drive this far more than the actual “crime” or “not crime”. I’m sort of worried but I’ll go through with it.
What I think: I think that FTX was insolvent such that even if FTT price was steady, user funds were not fully backed. That is, they literally bet the money on a speculative investment and lost it, and this caused a multibillion dollar financial hole. It is also possible that some or all of the assets—liabilities deficit was caused by a hack that happened months ago that they did not report.
As far as I can tell, you don’t think this. Well, if you really don’t think that, and it turns out you were wrong, then I’d like you to update. I think probabilities are a good way to enforce that, that is my actual good-faith belief. Of course I’m also always looking for profitable trades.
Is there any bet you’d take, that doesn’t rely on a legal system (which I agree adds a lot of confounders, not to mention delay), on the above claim? Could we bet on “By April 2023, evidence arises that FTX user funds were not even 95% backed before Binance’s FTT selloff?” Or maybe we could bet on Nuno’s belief on the backing?
BTW your chart is USDD not USDC. Idk what USDD is.
Also I’ve now spent like wayyy too much time chatting about this on here. Making a bet would involve further chatting. So FYI the most likely outcome is that I wake up tomorrow and pretend it was all just a dream. Sorry to disappoint and thanks for indulging me a bit in the end.
Yes you are right, I disagree. I think this collapse happened because of the FTT “attack” (or honestly, huge vulnerability) and Alameda was forced to defend. Without this depletion, SBF or FTX could cover these funds in a routine sense and we wouldn’t hear about this.
This was very crisp and helpful, yes, you are correct, we definitely disagree here, I don’t think there was a major gaping hole like a major speculation or hack that was being concealed.
Thank you for thinking about this! I agree with this bet! With the addition that includes any major selloff/attack on FTT (it’s possible Binance actually was in the minority of sales on this week’s events). I will accept this bet very happily at 50⁄50 that no such evidence will merge that is substantiated (e.g. not a rumor).
(This can still be hard to operationalize, because the forensics or seeing what happened can be difficult, especially if FTX is restructured in some way. E.g., it could have happened but we don’t hear about it. This is to your disadvantage.)
I will only accept bets on escrow, so we’re both clear that it’s active. I will honor any bets discussed, if you want, and you can leave it or not mention it again, if you don’t want to take them.
You are extremely thoughtful and helpful. Have a good night! Thank you and sorry again.
Wait...(the experience of actually putting real money seemed appalling and sort of scary, so I was looking through your profile to see if I would wiggle out of it.)
You’re Agrippa! The guy with very short timelines, is Berkeley adjacent and knows that cool DxE person.
No, I do care about you! I respect you quite a bit. I was wrong and I retract what I said before in at least a few comments, and I apologize for my behavior. I upvoted every comment in this chain of yours. Also, I’ll be happy to take any negative repercussions.
For the bet, I’ll do $500? Is that acceptable or do you want more? Can we give money to a trusted person, do you know of someone in real life?
Hey, just to be clear, note that “pays a fine” — this reads to me as SBF personally paying a fine versus FTX or Alameda, that’s quite a big difference IMO and that favors me. Also, Jan 1st 2024 I assume is the date.
😳 That’s nice of you, thanks.
I’m actually not a guy though I don’t take any offense to the assumption, given my username.
Maybe Nuno would escrow for us.
I’m probably down for $500, would need to talk to my partner about going much higher anyway. If you are in the US we might not need escrow since suing eachother is an option, if we went >5k that would be worth it.
Re SBF vs FTX/Alameda paying: Yeah I meant SBF personally. I agree it’s a big difference. Jan 1st is the date but I also don’t know how fast this stuff ever goes and researching it sounds annoying.
Given that you think it’s likely FTX “gambled” user funds I am really not sure we disagree on anything interesting to begin with :-[
Maybe you think it’s only 70% likely and I think it’s a lot more than that?
I’ll escrow with Nuno at any time, you can reach out to me by PM or Nuno can reach out to me.
I think this is true, but sort of productive to clarify this.
I’m >90% sure FTT was collateralized in a way that had “a major role” in FTX’s collapse, but like, I’m not sure exactly what that means in a causal way, and how severe it is in a moral sense. Financial engineering is complicated and I don’t know much about it.