gazuty wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 9:35 pm
wearthefoxhat wrote: ↑Sat Dec 03, 2022 8:02 pm
From what I can gather, FTX had no business bank account(s), Alameda did though, as their trading arm. (what a mess for sure)
So, all the clients deposits went to Alameda directly and FTX records can't account for the "loans" they made to Alameda. (Chapter 11 can't track the money flow)
Interesting if that is the case. That seems to indicate that no one using FTX ever asked for a transfer of their BTC back to themselves (so that they could put it in cold storage or take it to another exchange etc). Perhpas people did ask and were just given the run around until they gave up. Would be interesting to investigate that.
I'm also interested in the FTX "origin" story. How did it get going? Did SBF have some coding skills to write the software to run the exchange? Or did they just buy a trading platform from someone else, perhaps tweak it a little, and then market the crap out of it? Was SBF very good at software and very bad at business? Where is the Michael Lewis book that explains all of this.
The process was that organisations/individuals would deposit bitcoin/cash and then everyone were designated tokens, (FTT). These could be used to discount dealing on their platform for trading..etc The ones that were quick enough did manage to withdraw, but as we know, the withdrawals were $$billions a day not the normal 10's of millions a day, so the liabilities soon overtook their assets. (around Nov 6th/7th/8th)
It seems, he coded the exchange in a similar way previous crypto tokens conversions had been done. ie: Bitconnect and their tokens set up. (we all know what happened to that one) It was also allowing lending/margin contracts between other clients. SBF seems to be using that as justification when agreeing to loan Alameda billions from the clients deposits.
Sounds as though those around him were all tech bods, as well as his own coding skills/talents. Also, SBF over delegated the business aspects to those he thought could run with it, ie: legal, finance, advertising/marketing. For the most part they did, Tom Brady, Formula One, and the 19 year $135 million FTX arena deal...
Reckon more will come out, but it'll take time. He went from $20 billion down to £100k in quick time, and leans heavily on his credit card...so he says.
His parents, whom are compliance experts, must have had some idea that he was short cutting the protocols. Maybe they just took the view he'll learn from his mistakes as he goes along without realising he'd crash and burn like he did.