Posted on 11/28/2022 9:21:16 PM PST by DoodleBob
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX, was a darling in some Washington D.C. policy circles. He proselytized for digital assets in testimony on Capitol Hill and gave more than $990,000 to candidates plus an additional $38.8 million to outside groups this election cycle, making him the sixth biggest individual donor of the 2022 midterms.
But his pledge to spend up to $1 billion during the 2024 election cycle likely won’t come to pass. Bankman-Fried’s $16 billion fortune was wiped out almost overnight last week, one of the largest ever single-day collapses among billionaires, according to Bloomberg.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced a nonbinding agreement to buy FTX last Tuesday, but the world’s largest cryptocurrency platform backed out of the deal the next day, citing “mishandled funds and alleged U.S. agency investigations.” At least $1 billion in FTX client funds were reported missing by Reuters.
“I’m sorry. That’s the biggest thing,” Bankman-Fried tweeted last Thursday. The next day, FTX filed for bankruptcy.
The collapse of FTX has cast a shadow over the “effective altruism” movement, a theory of giving that relies on data and evidence to do the most good for the most people that shaped Bankman-Fried’s philanthropic and political investments.
“Everyone should always be skeptical” of donor motives, Bankman-Fried said
Bankman-Fried, co-CEO Ryan Salame and Director of Engineering Nishad Singh poured $70.1 million into the 2022 midterm election, making FTX the third largest contributor in the entire political giving landscape. That’s ten times more than the $7 million FTX individuals contributed during the 2020 election cycle.
In an interview with NBC News’ Chuck Todd released Sept. 22, Bankman-Fried said “everyone should always be skeptical” of donor motives but insisted his political giving had nothing to do with influencing the push by lawmakers and federal regulators to rein in the crypto industry.
Bankman-Fried poured $28 million of his 2022 election cycle political giving into his hybrid PAC, Protect Our Future PAC, to ostensibly boost candidates prepared to prevent future pandemics. But critics told POLITICO that Bankman-Fried’s political giving was an excuse to ingratiate himself with lawmakers weighing crypto regulations. (FTX did not respond to requests for comment, and Protect Our Future PAC declined to comment.)
Bankman-Fried gave $6 million to House Majority PAC – the fourth biggest individual contribution this election cycle to the hybrid PAC aligned with Democratic House leadership – and an additional $500,000 to the Senate Majority PAC.
FTX’s Bankman-Fried and Salame were also the biggest donors to the nonpartisan, pro-crypto super PAC, GMI PAC. Bankman-Fried gave $2 million, and Salame gave $1.5 million.
Bankman-Fried told NBC News that “it’s probably true” lawmakers returned his calls more quickly because of his political giving, adding “I think it would be irresponsible of me not to engage with Capitol Hill, with regulators.”
FTX also spent more than $640,000 on lobbying during the first nine months of 2022. That’s up from just $50,000 in 2021, the first year the firm reported spending money on federal lobbying.
The most lobbied bill so far this year was the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act of 2022, a bill introduced in September that would give the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission the power to oversee the spot digital commodity market. Bankman-Fried described his “vision for the CFTC as a digital-assets market regulator for the U.S.” during his testimony before the Senate Agriculture Committee in February.
The crypto exchange hired 13 lobbyists in 2022, 10 of whom had swung through the revolving door. That included former Rep. Mike Conaway (R–Texas), a founding principal at the Conaway Graves Group, one of the firms hired by FTX.
Lobbyists who worked for FTX, including Conaway Graves, told CNBC they have cut ties with the crypto exchange. Conaway Graves did not respond to a request for comment.
Protect Our Future PAC boosted several winning Democrats
Protect Our Future PAC, which is still active according to the Federal Election Commission website, spent more than $23.3 million in Democratic primaries in the 2022 election cycle. Fifteen of the 18 candidates that benefitted from Protect Our Future PAC outside spending won their primary, and 13 went on to win the general election.
Illinois was a major test for crypto industry political spending, OpenSecrets reported. All three of the Democratic candidates boosted by Protect Our Future PAC in the primary – Jonathan Jackson in the 1st Congressional District, Rep. Jesús Garcia in the 4th District and Nikki Budzinski in the 13th District – went on to win their general election.
The most Protect Our Future PAC spent boosting an incumbent was more than $1.9 million in support of Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath in Georgia’s 7th Congressional District. Protect Our Future PAC also poured $963,000 into the Democratic primary in Florida’s 10th Congressional District supporting Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who was elected the first Generation Z member of Congress last Tuesday.
But nearly $10.5 million of the super PAC’s primary spending went to boost a family friend, Carrick Flynn, who lost in a landslide to state Rep. Andrea Salinas (D) in the Democratic primary in Oregon’s 6th Congressional District.
Salinas – who won her general election – was the only candidate Protect Our Future PAC spent money opposing this election cycle.
Democrats lose top megadonor
Bankman-Fried was the second biggest Democratic-leaning megadonor this election cycle, according to OpenSecrets data. Only about $235,000 of his total political giving went toward Republican candidates.
More of Bankman-Fried’s money actually made it into the political ecosystem this election cycle than money from the largest Democratic megadonor George Soros, founder of the investment firm Soros Management Fund and the philanthropic Open Society Foundations.
Soros contributed $125 million of his total $128.5 million in political giving to his super PAC, Democracy PAC II, which did not report spending any money during the 2022 midterms. Fund for Policy Reform, a 501(c)(4) “dark money” group funded by Soros contributed an additional $25 million to Democracy PAC.
Seven of the top 10 biggest individual donors this election cycle contributed entirely to GOP candidates and outside groups supporting Republicans during the 2022 election cycle. The exception was businessman Timothy Mellon, who gave $10,700 of the more than $40 million he contributed this election cycle to Democratic candidates.
The loss of Bankman-Fried’s wealth could leave a vacuum in top Democratic-leaning political megadonors, and it remains to be seen who will fill that void heading into 2024.
Why isn’t this creep in jail?
Ping
He is a rat 🐀
Will never see the inside of jail cell.
Ummm, because he gave the democrats tens of millions of dollars. And that is exactly why he gave it to them.
So...
1) Other people were stupid enough to give their money to him
2) He stole the other people’s money
3) He gave much of the stolen money and MOSTLY to Democrats
4) He pretends he “messed up”
I think that about sums up SBF and his Democrat-funding Ponzi Scheme
[Will never see the inside of jail cell.]
IF he does, then (I predict)...
1) The security cameras / recording system shall malfunction
2) The guards shall, unexpectedly, fall asleep
Thx for the heads up.
Senate has to defend 23 seats in 2024......good to know the mop haired crud got squished.
Then lost it all, like it was his money to lose
Actions like these are presumably what led FTX attorney Bromley to tell the bankruptcy judge that the company was being “run as a personal fiefdom of Sam Bankman-Fried.”
<><>a “substantial amount” of FTX Group’s assets “have either been stolen or are missing.”
<><>unclear whether the “substantial amounts” were stolen or mishandled
<><>includes several billion in combined loans that Alameda Research reportedly made to SBF, two of his deputies, and a company majority-owned by him; or are separate from them.
<><>SBF also raised $420 million from investors on behalf of FTX —
<><>only he paid himself $300 million of that amount, claiming it as a personal reimbursement for re-purchasing the 15% stake in the exchange held by rival company Binance.
*************************************
The court has been told FTX has 36 banks and more than 200 bank accounts.....
....all that laundry........hmmmmmmm.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried opened a “bank” (a crypto exchange), accepted deposits of real money, helped himself to customers’ deposits without their knowledge, and then distributed mountains of cash to friends and, more importantly, Democratic coffers. Indeed, Bankman-Fried ranked as the Democratic Party’s second-biggest individual donor in the 2021–2022 election cycle, pumping an estimated $40 million into various Democratic campaigns and activist groups.
ACTION Among the evidence we seek
<><>all docs and communications among employees or agents of the DNC, and FTX donor list
<><>any and all references relating to the Biden Administration’s control, transfer, storage, or other handling of documents subject to FTX donations.
MUST INCLUDE ALL OF BIDENS MEMOS, NOTES, SNAIL MAIL, EMAIL, CALENDAR NOTES, OFFICIAL ORDERS WRT FTX DONATIONS.
All communications records between BIDENS office and RELEVANT PERSONS SUCH AS OBAMA, THE CLINTONS PELOSI, in connection with FTX.
The FOIA request should seek
all calendar entries,
phone messages,
text messages,
emails,
encrypted app chats,
letter correspondence
long-distance toll records
made from relevant dates.
Office of Information Policy (OIP)
U.S. Department of Justice
441 G St, NW, 6th Floor
Washington, DC 20530
E-mail: National.FOIAPortal@usdoj.gov
“’effective altruism’ movement, a theory of giving that relies on data and evidence to do the most good for the most people”
Lots of articles on this clown, but is ANYONE going to ask what ‘data and evidence’ is used for ‘effective altruism’? Is it the crime rate, inflation, how many countries we destroy by starting wars, the prices of diesel, how many children were groomed last week in our schools?
Just what is this shiite and who decides it?
He ran a money laundering fraudulent operation, which at the end of the day is what all crypto is…
He didn’t buy access, he was doing what his entire industry is designed to do
Yes I agree he will meet an untimely death.
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