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Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself
vox ^ | 11/16/2022 | Kelsey Piper

Posted on 11/18/2022 9:17:23 AM PST by bitt

The fallen crypto CEO on what went wrong, why he did what he did, and what lies he told along the way.

Last night, Sam Bankman-Fried DMed me on Twitter.

That was surprising. I’d spoken to Bankman-Fried via Zoom earlier in the summer when I was working on a profile of him, so I reached out to him via DM on November 13, after news broke that his cryptocurrency exchange had collapsed, with billions in customer deposits apparently gone. I didn’t expect him to respond — typically, people under investigation by both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice don’t return requests for comment.

Bankman-Fried, though, apparently wanted to talk. About how FTX and his hedge fund Alameda Research had gambled with customer money without, he claims, realizing that’s what they were doing. About who gets lauded as a hero and who’s the fall guy. About regulators. (“F regulators.”) About what he regrets (“Chapter 11,” the decision to declare bankruptcy) and about what he would have done differently with FTX and Alameda (“more careful accounting + offboard Alameda from FTX once FTX could live on its own”).

It was past midnight Bahamas time, where Bankman-Fried is reportedly still located, and we went back and forth on Twitter for more than an hour. He was, he said, still working to try to raise the funding needed to pay back all his depositors.

As we messaged, I was trying to make sense of what, behind the PR and the charitable donations and the lobbying, Bankman-Fried actually believes about what’s right and what’s wrong — and especially the ethics of what he did and the industry he worked in. Looming over our whole conversation was the fact that people who trusted him

(Excerpt) Read more at vox.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: bitcoin; cryptocurrency; ftx; sambankmanfried
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1 posted on 11/18/2022 9:17:23 AM PST by bitt
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To: null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; AZ .44 MAG; Baynative; bgill; bitt; ...

YMMV...


2 posted on 11/18/2022 9:17:46 AM PST by bitt ( <IMG SRC=' 'width=50%>)
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To: bitt

Let him keep talking. He’s giving the future prosecutor words to indict him on.


3 posted on 11/18/2022 9:18:32 AM PST by I want the USA back (Our news media isn't worth camel spit. Neither is the democrat party. H)
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To: bitt

setting up the hildabeast defense: no intention


4 posted on 11/18/2022 9:20:38 AM PST by thinden (buckle up ....)
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To: bitt

Another grift for the powers that be.


5 posted on 11/18/2022 9:20:41 AM PST by Tommy Revolts
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To: bitt

So far, he’s using the Marion Berry defense of “the b—ch set me up!”


6 posted on 11/18/2022 9:22:39 AM PST by Yo-Yo (Is the /Sarc tag really necessary? Pray for President Biden: Psalm 109:8)
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To: bitt

In a nutshell he stole billions of dollars from unwitting people. Received an absolute river of US government money from Ukraine. Funneled that money to DC politicians. And now they will use his corrupt company as evidence that bitcoin needs to be eliminated, or heavily regulated by the US government along with other crypto‘s. And they will use that as the excuse to roll out their federal digital dollar… which in an Orwellian twist they will call “crypto”.


7 posted on 11/18/2022 9:24:59 AM PST by DesertRhino (Dogs are called man's best friend. Moslems hate dogs. Add it up..)
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To: Yo-Yo

Marion was re-elected…


8 posted on 11/18/2022 9:26:39 AM PST by EEGator
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To: bitt

Isn’t there a limit as to how much money someone can donate to a political party, or is that to one individual candidate?


9 posted on 11/18/2022 9:26:45 AM PST by telescope115 (Proud member of the ANTIFAuci movement. )
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To: DesertRhino

That money did NOT DISAPPEAR!! It went to CORRUPT DEMOCRATS and obviously to OFF SHORE BANK ACCOUNTS!!!


10 posted on 11/18/2022 9:27:28 AM PST by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience)
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To: Ann Archy

Exactly!


11 posted on 11/18/2022 9:28:35 AM PST by DesertRhino (Dogs are called man's best friend. Moslems hate dogs. Add it up..)
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To: telescope115

They donate the money to a PAC which then spends it on behalf of certain candidates.


12 posted on 11/18/2022 9:30:30 AM PST by circlecity
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To: bitt

Liars lie.

They continue to lie.

They lie when they are in prison.

It’s what they do.


13 posted on 11/18/2022 9:31:23 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer” )
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To: bitt
I read this again, this ape is basically begging for a Congressional subpoena, even a mild read-into his state-of-mind, he actually believes he is state's evidence against his fugly girlfriend! This dude is a momma's boy who used some minor math skills to sell tulips, er, a digital ponzi scheme.

He would be pure anti-Democrat gold under oath, using his phrases like:

"by this dumb game we woke westeners play where we say all the right shiboleths and so everyone likes us

All the GOP needs to do to haul him before Congress is, SBF has information on all the other digital ponzi ready to crash, and then get him up there and have him name names for hours.

This could very well be the GOP version of Schmuck's "Indy Mac" letter.

14 posted on 11/18/2022 9:32:43 AM PST by StAnDeliver (Tanned, rested, and ready.)
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To: bitt

Has he stated how many millions he gave to democratic midterms?


15 posted on 11/18/2022 9:32:59 AM PST by existentially_kuffer
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To: bitt

VOX is written for simple-minded Leftists. The same group that watch “The View” and nod their heads like monkeys.

Of course, evil Sam will be portrayed as a good man and Democrat and the market turned against him. Ignores Sam taking investor money and buying condos in the Bahamas for himself, his ugly girlfriend and his workers. Whitewash of Biden, Democrats or Ukraine/Zelensky connection.


16 posted on 11/18/2022 9:37:50 AM PST by Kaiser8408a (z)
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To: EEGator
Marion was re-elected…

Yes, he was elected to D.C. City Counsel after he was released from prison. The ideal D.C. candidate.

17 posted on 11/18/2022 9:39:30 AM PST by Yo-Yo (Is the /Sarc tag really necessary? Pray for President Biden: Psalm 109:8)
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To: bitt

Dude should be lawyering up. Displays of willingness to talk does not go over well with the Clinton cabal.


18 posted on 11/18/2022 9:41:32 AM PST by taxcontrol (The choice is clear - either live as a slave on your knees or die as a free citizen on your feet.)
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To: Kaiser8408a

“VOX is written for simple-minded Leftists. The same group that watch “The View” and nod their heads like monkeys.”

Now that’s funny.

So true, but funny nonetheless.


19 posted on 11/18/2022 9:41:57 AM PST by unclebankster (Globalism is the last refuge of a scoundrel)
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People really think this goofball wasn’t just a front? Dude where’s my 27 billion?


20 posted on 11/18/2022 9:42:31 AM PST by proust (All posts made under this handle are, for the intents and purposes of the author, considered satire.)
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