14 pointsby adam_ridaan hour ago4 comments
  • Shank35 minutes ago
    Liquidity has value too. Many FTX customers needed immediate liquidity. If you need immediate liquidity the value proposition years later is meaningless for most people because most people can’t get any bridge financing to cover the gap.

    Mt. Gox also ran a fractional exchange for a long time until the bottom fell out. The trouble is that you simply can’t run an unannounced fractional exchange.

    • lesuorac23 minutes ago
      Isn't the bigger issue with the parent's argument that its comparing apples and oranges?

      Like the customers were largely owed _not_ USD and so compared the USD value owed _4 years ago_ to the _current day_ USD value of something else that wasn't owed is just not correct.

      ---

      To do some of the math, assuming all the funds owed were bitcoin then 9 Billion / $17,000 ~= 47 thousand BTC owed.

      At current $64k/BTC prices that's roughly $30 Billion. Which while still lower than $75B is much higher than just $9B and doesn't excuse SBF from fraudulently and very publicly claiming that all the money invested as backed 1:1 when it wasn't.

      I also don't know how much more FTX's stake would be diluted as well and another commentator talked about nearly half so then it might not cover the "actual" owed value.

    • vkou29 minutes ago
      A fractional bank is one that doesn't have liquidity to cover all obligations, but has enough non-liquid assets to cover all obligations. They can get the money if all customers withdraw, it just might take them a few days.

      A fraudulent bank is one that doesn't have enough liquidity or assets to cover all their obligations. Mt Gox and FTX were perfect examples of this.

      The fact that some of their assets went up in the years or decades since is irrelevant. Madoff would probably be in the green now, too, simply thanks to asset inflation.

  • KingMachiavellian hour ago
    Assuming they would not have liquidated it earlier (perhaps via some semi-legal instrument) to cover past or future bad decisions. Crypto certainly isn’t doing well now.

    The 7.84% state would probably be significantly diluted over this time frame so 4-5% is probably a more accurate estimate but perhaps high estimate.

    • reisse28 minutes ago
      > Crypto certainly isn’t doing well now.

      This "not doing well" is being three times higher than at the time of FTX collapse.

  • satvikpendeman hour ago
    If only Sam wasn't caught, then he'd have more than enough to refill what he stole, ironic.
    • dolphinscorpiona minute ago
      Nah, he would've spent more and more and more.
    • JumpCrisscross36 minutes ago
      > If only Sam wasn't caught

      They levered into wrong-way bets into the crypto winter while stealing the money for yachts and effective-altruism philanthropy and political donations. This wasn’t a Madoff-type leak and confession. Their risk setting didn’t permit a world in which they didn’t blow up.

      • reisse25 minutes ago
        I'd argue the money spent for yachts and donations were a drop in the ocean compared to what they burned via Alameda and lack of whatsoever accounting.
    • jknoepfler33 minutes ago
      Whether that would constitute restitution or furtherance of a Ponzi scheme is open for debate, I guess...
  • FireBeyond24 minutes ago
    Trustees, not estate.

    If only the role of trustees wasn't to do as they can to make creditors as whole as possible now, without risk, rather than keep playing the same kind of bets that got the bankrupt entity into the hole it was in...