Tag Archives: SBM

Making money

Yup, you can make money in three ways. You create it, you steal it, or you can make the government reimburse you. The third one is one that has its own risks. Yet the BBC informs us ‘Customers of failed crypto firm FTX set for refunds’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0qz3dg21vqo) Where we are given “Creditors of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX are poised to receive up to $16.5bn (£12.6bn) under a bankruptcy plan approved in the US on Monday.” And we get more with “Last year, former boss Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of stealing customer funds ahead of the collapse and later sentenced to 25 years in prison. The deal will allow former customers to recover a sum worth about 119% of what they had in their accounts at the time of bankruptcy, according to FTX.” As such it seems that these customers get 19% on top of what they had in their accounts. There are ups and downs. We are also given “Some have suggested the repayment in cash will not match the loss of crypto holdings that would be worth far more today had they not been stolen. The value of bitcoin has more than tripled since November 2022.” As such I would surmise that someone went shopping with an approximate 180% of the total of sums. As the outstanding bill was set to “$8bn in customer funds were reported missing, not including debts to investors and others. Mr Ray’s team has since recovered assets worth $14.7-$16.5bn” As such 8 billion was found missing, Roughly double was retrieved and these customers only get 119%? I think there is a stinky fishy smell coming from the realm of banks. They might small consolation that Sam Bankman-Fried is convicted to 9125 days in Hotel Sing-Sing, but that might be merely the impression some feel. You see, the larger premise might be that we are given “the approval of the plan was a “significant milestone” in the firm’s efforts to repay the money to people and firms in more than 200 jurisdictions around the world” but the underlying issue that the BBC seems to ‘ignore’ is that people like Elisabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried (aka SBM) are given way to much leeway. Holmes was given 11 years imprisonment, where the Guardian on May 8th gave us that her sentence was reduced by two years and four months before original date. As such her sentence is reduced by almost 20%, so what reductions is SBM looking forward to? If is is a similar 20%, he could be out by 2044 and if he plays nice (good behaviour) he might be out even sooner that that. As such we might surmise that crime pays nowadays. And the media will milk these two for whatever they can be milked for. 

Enjoy the day ahead of you.

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