The 32-year-old, widely known as SBF, had a meteoric rise in finance and technology after founding FTX in 2019, and he quickly became a top political donor. Before its collapse in 2022, FTX was the third-largest cryptocurrency marketplace in the world.
Really a fairly conventional fraud and not so much about crypto, a rival executive had expressed concerns on social media about the finances of Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange, spooking customers into a multi-billion dollar bank run.
Sam Bankman-Fried stole money from investors and did not have $8 billion to cover the theft. Darn deficits. One can unfortunately see the RWNJs pouncing on this verdict as some DEI thing with a tinge of antisemitism.
I feel nothing. Schadenfreude fades. This isn’t a victory for the government, much less “the people,” by any meaningful metric. Indeed, for at least three years, Bankman-Fried won. He hacked D.C. as regulators, policymakers, investigative journalists, foundations, and too many young progressives treated him as a boy-wonder Robin Hood. They uncritically accepted his claims that he merely hoped to achieve the most good, which required extraction today but redistribution tomorrow (or, if not tomorrow, any day now).
The tech mystique was undoubtedly part of the con. Distributed ledger technology (of which blockchain is the most popular form) now comprises the payments, information, and communications infrastructure of many different organizational enterprises, but most critically, the cryptocurrency and broader digital asset industry. “On the chain,” true believers try to craft the building blocks of economic systems. Most obviously, they try to create something resembling money, a task of sorcery and violence at any level. Companies operating in a nominal vacuum of public law grapple with market governance, managing labor and competition. To address fraud and money laundering, but also the trafficking of arms and humans, they sometimes negotiate terms of surveillance, discipline, and punishment with government intelligence agencies. On the chain, we find nightmares of immortal property and unbreachable contract. We also find dreams of cooperation and shared abundance.
Yet in executing “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history,” SBF deployed this putatively decentralized tech to not just build outward from U.S. space and power but inward, capturing U.S. political institutions with astounding ease and speed. While SBF flew the Skull & Crossbones at his headquarters in The Bahamas, he flew the Stars & Stripes at the capitol. He conned regulators, cops, and Congress. He didn’t succeed despite the law—he succeeded because of it.
lpeproject.org/...
After another double-digit percentage gain, the parent of Truth Social approached $9 billion in market value, a windfall for insiders awarded shares in the company.
The biggest beneficiary is Mr. Trump, the company’s largest shareholder, whose stake is worth more than $5 billion, on paper. No other shareholder comes close, according to regulatory filings, but many of Trump Media’s executives have seen their net worth swell this week, in some cases by many millions of dollars.
Trump’s social media company rises 16% in first day trading gains, but the stock price could fall by 95%, says an IPO expert
Flashback 1995: Massive #DJT stock FAIL, in less than a decade. Tanked within 2ys, delisted within 9yrs
Mr. Trump and other major Trump Media shareholders are barred from selling their shares for at least six months, or pledging them as collateral for loans. Trump Media’s board, which is filled with loyalists to Mr. Trump, including his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., could waive those restrictions.
Any significant selling of shares by Mr. Trump or other big shareholders has the potential to depress Trump Media’s share price and cut the value of the sellers’ holdings.
Major investors or institutions that own less than 5 percent of a public company are not required to disclose stock sales and purchases, until 45 days after the end of a quarter. That means any major institutions that traded shares of Digital World or Trump Media over the past few weeks would not be required to publicly disclose their holdings until the middle of May.
At the end of December, the biggest institutional investor in shares of Digital World was Susquehanna International Group, the Wall Street trading firm owned by Jeffrey Yass, the billionaire investor and major Republican donor. His firm owned about 2 percent of Digital World’s shares at the end of last year.
It is unclear whether Susquehanna still owns shares in the company that became Trump Media. Susquehanna has said that it serves as a market maker — facilitating the trading of stocks — and “has zero economic interest in Trump Media.”
www.nytimes.com/...
1) No Revenue
2) Massive Insider Manipulation
3) 2 Million active users vs Trump having 7 Million followers. More Bots than Humans
4) No transparency on Pending Lawsuits
5) @SECGov
IF/When cash-poor Trump sells off a significant portion of his shares
