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A comment on FTX Tapped into Customer Accounts to Fund Risky Bets, Setting Up Its Downfall. Parent comment

Re:FTX Tapped into Customer Accounts to Fund Risky Bets, Set... by NickC25 on Thursday November 10, 2022 @02:30PM (#33551787)
>Presumably FTX expected that its risky bets would pay off and that return would then fund the interest promised.

So did Bernie.

>Otherwise, would you consider corporate debt a ponzi scheme?

Depends on what you count as corporate debt.

I'd have no problem buying the debt of a mature, massive company like Apple or Microsoft, because they have hard assets, steady cashflows, successful products on the market.

The debt of a zombie corporation with a useless product that was only sustainable due to 0% interest rates? No thanks. Is that a ponzi scheme? Probably not the classical definition of one, but it's ponzi-adjecent.

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Re:FTX Tapped into Customer Accounts to Fund Risky Bets, Set... by IanCal on Thursday November 10, 2022 @02:36PM (#33551901)
> So did Bernie.

No, he just straight up didn't invest peoples money, he paid out "gains" just from other deposits. That's why it was a Ponzi scheme - that's what they are.

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Re:FTX Tapped into Customer Accounts to Fund Risky Bets, Set... by NickC25 on Thursday November 10, 2022 @02:45PM (#33552036)
Initially, he did invest their money, he just didn't get the (I believe it was) +/- 10% that he promised investors (and was getting like clockwork) before the 08 crash.

Once he started not being able to make those returns did thing start to unravel. His own kids were in denial right up until the end - almost nobody, even inside Bernie's firm, knew it was fraudulent.

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Re:FTX Tapped into Customer Accounts to Fund Risky Bets, Set... by IanCal on Thursday November 10, 2022 @03:00PM (#33552328)
He hadn't been doing any trades for 15+ years when it all fell apart.
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Re:FTX Tapped into Customer Accounts to Fund Risky Bets, Set... by JackFr on Thursday November 10, 2022 @03:04PM (#33552400)
> almost nobody, even inside Bernie's firm, knew it was fraudulent.

It’s amazing what you can fail to know when not knowing it keeps you out of jail.

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Re:FTX Tapped into Customer Accounts to Fund Risky Bets, Set... by svnt on Thursday November 10, 2022 @06:16PM (#33555017)
It helps if you sleep in fits on a beanbag and play League of Legends with every spare brain cell.
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