Like Elizabeth Holmes, they are kids of the elite who are well connected and supported at high levels. Further, SBF is one of the biggest political donors and there may be corruption in the SEC. The general counsel of FTX US had served as lead counsel to Chairman Gensler at the CFTC.
And then there's this from a congressman yesterday, "@GaryGensler runs to the media while reports to my office allege he was helping SBF and FTX work on legal loopholes to obtain a regulatory monopoly. We're looking into this." https://twitter.com/RepTomEmmer/status/1590717374801809409
Perhaps, but I think many (Dems and Reps) will recognize a sinking ship when they see one. Tighter regulation on cryptocurrencies (and related businesses) was starting to arrive, regardless. There is little incentive to try to slow this down, if the people being regulated don't have any money left to donate to your campaign.
Indeed, the deregulation that led to the 2008 financial crisis was a thoroughly bipartisan effort, one that began in the Clinton Administration. This is why Brooksley Born is a hero for our times, and Larry Summers, a villain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooksley_Born
You might notice that I didn't say that. But I am skeptical that the party that has branded itself as the anti-regulation party for my entire life is really going to embrace regulation all of a sudden in response to the malfeasance of someone they perceive as being a political enemy.
> embrace regulation all of a sudden in response to the malfeasance of someone they perceive as being a political enemy.
Given the GOP's willingness to strong-arm twitter and facebook (remember Trump tried to have it investigated by the DoJ), I feel like regulating companies due to being a political enemy is exactly what I'd expect the GOP to do. Perhaps it's the one time you can be sure they'll start regulating.
From my perspective, the democratic party is constantly talking about how bad Citizens United is (and I am very sympathetic to that) while taking millions upon millions from large companies and wealthy individuals.
> I remember thinking at the time when the Senate called Zuckerberg up to yell at him that if I were Zuck, I would have just said, "thanks for the tax cut, dudes".
Because most of the adults know that there is a window when you can get rich off a known con and get out before it blows up with quite a lot of cash.
The best part of these being unqualified children is that they don't even realize that part of the deal they've signed up for is to take the fall when shit finally hits the fan.
There's plenty of people who have made money from SBF behind the scenes, but you'll never hear their names.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. SBF had enablers who knew what this was from the beginning but kept mum about it. They actually helped hype it up then exit with profits.
He worked at Jane Street prior to starting his own company which was built on a successful arbitrage. Whatever his issues - qualification isn’t one of them.
I’m not defending this catastrophe (which seems like it was partly an execution by a rival), but this kind of comment is just bizarre on hacker news in the world of tech companies and startups. Age is not a good proxy for competence.
Don't know why you are getting downvoted. Yes, I believe that using customer funds to punt shitcoins at a supposed "quant market making firm" is really dumb, but people here really think the people in this operation are random idiots/got there via underhanded means. I think they just believed that the gravy train would last longer than they thought.
Several Alameda employees worked at JS, which is by far one of the most successful quant firms out there and they only hire the best. He also exploited a very creative arbitrage to start the firm, which is also not a fluke.
Then again, I would expect no less since the people on here constantly complain about leetcode interviews and "not wanting to interview for big tech for XYZ random reasons" when I know damn well they couldn't pass even if you gave them the answer.
These aren't valid reasons - I don't want to get into a flame war though.
- Blockchain's main innovation is solving the double spend problem in a decentralized way.
- This means that self-custody is a new capability.
- Self-custody without a centralized authority is a big deal and can empower users (especially those in hostile countries or places with bad currencies).
- There's an extension of this with smart contracts and ethereum that allow for programmatic uses which can extend to completely transparent decentralized finance.
- zk-SNARKs allow for privacy to exist within the above systems.
That people don't self-custody because they don't understand how it works (and terrible UX) is a real problem and why most people should not be using cryptocurrency. They can still get screwed by regular collapses of fiat currency (and they do often), but they won't be helped by increasing their risk with something they don't understand.
The centralized exchange failures are independent of this and arguably a symptom of how centralized finance can cause problems because people don't self-custody funds. Your reasons dismiss the new capabilities they provide (self-custody, protection from government debasement of value, global use) and are an example of the type of HN response I'm talking about.
That isn’t really a solution. The confusion is the inability for most people to discern the words decentralized and distributed, which is the primary fraud of crypto. Centralized finance already has distribution in place just for security and continuity of business, so blockchain doesn’t really provide anything new there.
The only enticing quality of blockchain to finance is just elimination of transaction fees on a more open ledger.
It's unregulated and decentralized, and banks are not your friends. To be honest, they're not, but that doesn't make any of this Ponzi 2.0 economy great.
This is the result the "crypto community" asked for. They may not have wanted it, but they asked for it. A combination casino/money laundry/ponzi breeding ground also comes with intelligent crooks who are capable of running longer games.
You want recourse? That means oversight, audits and regulation.
>why would people throw billions of dollars at unqualified children?
Because investors had too much cash and became increasingly desperate to earn a return on it. When they have an abundance of cash, they become wreckless and wasteful with their investing as they chase profits.
same cause of the 2008 recession, too much money chasing risky bets. Once the party gets going, you will be stupid to not join in. Just amke sure you're not the one holding the bag, when the music sotps.
