What really summed up Sam Bankman-Fried was his Sequoia Capital profile.
The investment powerhouse posted a flattering article (now removed) on its website detailing the story of Bankman-Fried’s founder. The former FTX CEO highlighted how Sequoia’s partners have been dazzling when he said in a phone call that the exchange would become a super app and commented in the chat, “I love this founder.” While Bankman-Fried plays League of Legends.
The profile revealed how Bankman-Fried was able to convince anyone that he was a crazy genius with crazy hair who drove a Toyota Corolla and slept on a bean bag. This established his star power in the industry, including visits to the White House and sharing the stage with former presidents and prime ministers.
But everything behind the curtain was smoke and mirrors.
“All the stupid things I’ve said,” he told Vox reporter Kelsey Piper in a message to X, referencing his previous comments about being ethical. “It’s not true, it’s not really true.”
In this conversation, Bankman-Fried revealed his true intentions, without any knowledge that the other party intended to publish it. He explained that he is good at talking about ethics because you have to say the right things to be loved. Another comment read: “Fuck the regulators.” This is what the judge said. talking During his sentence.
Alameda’s former co-CEO Caroline Ellison added to this, claiming Bankman-Fried had grown her hair long as a deliberate ploy. “He said that after Jane Street he received higher bonuses because of his hair and that he thought it was an important part of FTX’s story and image,” Ellison testified.
Finally, on March 28th, it all caught up to him. Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 24.25 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $11.02 billion. This means that FTX customers will be held liable if they are not made whole.
At the same time, the FTX bankruptcy process is progressing rapidly. The estate is rapidly shedding assets, and the high demand for storing large quantities of locked Solana has made things easier. We are already looking at a 100% recovery in dollar terms, and this probability is likely to increase once interest payments and the potential for further recovery are included. It seems like everyone involved in this process is trying to get things done as quickly as possible.
Most of the ideas for FTX 2.0 were also scrapped. This was officially due to a shortage of concrete buyers, but considering the expected recovery, it seems more likely that it was an unnecessary risk. Again, that’s all you need to get the job done and dust away.
This means that FTX will not be launched again in a few years. The exchange would have been halted for a long time and Bankman-Fried would have been quietly locked away in a medium-security prison. The SBF and FTX story will continue to live on in memes on ‘Crypto Twitter’ and elsewhere, but the world will continue to evolve.
on the block
Take a look at some of the stories that caught my attention this week.
There is high demand for FTX’s fixed SOL.
As previously mentioned, FTX Real Estate’s sale of the locked-up Solana has found favor among investors. I have spoken to several people who have invested or have been provided with details of potential investments involving locked tokens. Several funds appear to be making up a large portion of the allocation, including Galaxy Trading. However, some investors noted that the price was cut by 13% when the deal closed.
Hong Kong Jumps into the Bitcoin ETF Game
Hong Kong-based financial services company Venture Smart Financial Holdings Ltd. has submitted an application for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund and is targeting an ETF launch as early as May, writes Timmy Shen. Brian Chan, head of VSFG’s investment and product group, told The Block on Thursday that the team hopes to launch in May “if all goes well.”
Cryptocurrency companies are facing more criticism from regulators
The Justice Department has indicted cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin and two of its founders, claiming they violated anti-money laundering laws. The indictment states that KuCoin intentionally avoided U.S. AML and KYC regulations by “falsely representing that it had no U.S. customers when in fact KuCoin had a significant U.S. customer base.” The government alleges that KuCoin allowed its platform to be used to launder more than $9 billion. The founders are still at large.
In the case of Ripple Labs, the Securities and Exchange Commission wants to impose a $1.95 billion fine and has asked a New York court to assess the “seriousness” of the company’s misconduct. The SEC’s proposed final ruling concerns direct sales to institutional investors. The SEC said Ripple received nearly $1 billion from “illegal XRP sales.”
FTX’s bankruptcy lawyers are under fire.
FTX’s bankruptcy lawyers must not only deal with the complexities left behind by the collapse, but do so while preventing an investigation into transactions with FTX before the collapse.
Matthew Gold, partner at Kleinberg Kaplan, explains that this is a very unique situation because objections to the debtor’s attorney are typically heard early in the case. “In FTX, the bankruptcy court judge refused to appoint an examiner, and because it took time to appeal that decision, the examiner began work more than a year and a half after the case began. “This is very unusual,” he said.
The law firm is currently handling a class action lawsuit, an internal investigation into potential conflicts of interest, and a paper by two law professors making a number of similar claims. The law firm argues that all these parties are simply parroting the words of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
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