Will someone ever love me the way the court sketcher loves Sam Bankman-Fried??????
There is no limit on the number of projects I can engage with about FTX and its many crimes.
If you’ve got a good podcast, article or whatever about the rise, fall and ensuing fallout of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, I’m your girl. I am obsessed. I cannot get enough. It’s got everything you want in a story: sex, scams, and Anthony Scaramucci.
However, be wary: I’ve already read Michael Lewis’ ‘Going Infinite’, which journalist Jacob Silverstein rightly called a load of nonsense on ‘TrueAnon’ episode on the whole affair because, in the book, Lewis is like, ‘Oh my gosh, this man is incapable of ripping anyone off’, which is deranged! As we all know, crypto is inherently a rip-off, secured against nothing and only helpful in buying drugs! However, the book outlines what makes Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, Alameda Research, tick. These include, but not are not limited to, video games, mathematics, and an infuriating thing called effective altruism.
For those confused, FTX was for the plebs to buy and sell various tokens, and Alameda Research is a hedge fund, which is too boring to explain. Both are bad! The latter is a bit more respectable but less democratic! It’s a lot of betting, but the kind that won’t ruin your life, just someone else’s.
Anyway, what is so fascinating about the ordeal, I think, is how the question ‘Are these people victims?’ is never fully answered, and I don’t think it will ever be. It’s just a whirlwind of grey area, pondering and then being like, ‘Clara, you’re being a huge bitch’ and then finding something else to think about. It’s never-ending.
Those involved, from investors to executives, are worthy of both pity and scorn! Is the man featured in the ‘Panorama’’ documentary trying to sue Larry David and Tom Brady for endorsing FTX after he lost $2 million a fool or a genius? I could easily be tugged back to the other option. It feels definite and not all at the same time. Has Caroline Ellison been punished enough for her role as CEO of Alameda after dating SBF? I would veer towards '“Of course”, but Judge Lewis Kaplan might disagree.
The crux is that those people tried to make money and failed. Capitalism is predicated on risk. The higher it is, the higher the potential return. To negate it, you do your research. There are whole industries dedicated to answering this question: what level is right for you, based on your saving goals, the kinds for normies and the kinds for the actual rich bitches. Typical wisdom tells you to put your pension into bonds if you want a slow and steady yield. You go full throttle for a short, sharp injection of asset enrichment. Either way, in theory, you ought to find the best way and hope you don’t lose money.
Which leaves me with the question: why would you get into crypto, then? Everyone, including the ex ‘The OC’ star Ben Mackenzie, has been screaming from the rooftop about how the crypto market is based on nothing. It is a pyramid scheme, propagated not by boss babes selling beauty products to everyone they went to secondary school with but by crypto bros shilling a false dream of deregulation and a pretend vanguard financial revolution. Please give me the diet regimes over their offerings! At least I can hold and wear an Avon lipstick. A fungible token? You can’t.
Once, I got into a fight with many teenagers about crypto. They were like, ‘It’s brilliant because banks are shit’, and I was like, ‘Well, yes, banks are shit’, but their asset’ worth is tied to things, and they are regulated by the government and the FCA and the like, and then I got furious because I was like, ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE MAKING ME DEFEND BANKS!’ For ominous, large financial institutions are responsible for much, if not all, human suffering. I wouldn’t say I like any of it, the trad or the short-lived trends, but I only really partake in them in so far as a person living a so-called modern life in the so-called developed west needs to (I have a current account, a savings account and credit card I use for cashback). If you play stupid games (make unearned income based on investing), you sometimes get stupid prizes (lose it all).
SBF, who will probably be put in prison for the rest of his life, if not more next March, after being found guilty of fraud, and you could say, ‘Clara, the people who invested did not know he was channelling all their money into his other venture without their knowledge,’ and I would agree with you. But I would also be like, ‘Crypto is dumb’, and that would be just as valid.
However, I do have to hand it to Sam for shining a spotlight on the terrible-ness that is US politics and the way they’ll take money from anyone! Kamala Harris et al took $$$ from him, and I think that’s very funny (not as funny as KH believes everything else is, but you know), but do you see my point? The fun doesn’t stop when you’re learning about FTX! It’s mad! There’s just endless crazy shit happening in every element of it. It’s like a much less chic version of Anna Delvy but will much more lore, but with some of the delusion of the Fyre Fest’s Billy McFarlane, who was the tippy top of saying, ‘eh, it’ll be alright on the night’,
But seriously, if you have any suggestions, I’m all ears (or eyes)!!!