compliance to what? all those regulations are just hindering the operation of the free market, and we started this whole crypto thing to avoid them on purpose?

Well, they at least had compliance staff. "Most of FTX's legal and compliance staff quit Tuesday evening, people familiar with the matter told Semafor, leaving few executives who could answer questions that now loom large over the firm." https://www.semafor.com/article/11/09/2022/ftx-legal-and-com...

Pretty much every large exchange has a compliance team, btw, at least the ones with US operations.

I mean, would you stay around to answer those sticky questions? They demonstrably failed at their only job.

They’re not securities and they’re regulated. Theres nothing to comply to. Perhaps crypto exchanges should be regulated?

One thing to note is that FTX.us is an affiliated company that is onshore in the US, that does have compliance requirements, and FTX.us is currently not believed to be insolvent/bankrupt.

FTX.com is some conglomeration of entities incorporated in Antigua, Bermuda, and the Bahamas[1]. FTX.com is the one that has blown up, and I won't pretend to know about the reporting requirements of such a complicated structure in multiple jurisdictions.

Also, Sam Bankman-Fried owned 90% of Alameda Research as of last year. So unless that changed(I can't find evidence it has), it looks to me like he tried to bail himself out with customers' money. Presumably he thought he could return the money eventually and no one would be the wiser. So much for that.

This is just my understanding and I am not an expert in these things.

[1] https://help.ftx.com/hc/en-us/articles/360056976411

[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ftx-ceo-sam-bankman-fried-pro...

Isn't it quite possible there might be contagion there though as well? For instance the NY Times had the following in a piece they just published:

>"Mr. Bankman-Fried is also facing dissent from within the senior ranks of FTX. On Wednesday night, the general counsel for FTX’s U.S. arm wrote on an internal messaging system that he had “advised U.S. regulators of my instruction to founders to turn off functionality” of the websites for FTX and the U.S. arm, according to two people who saw the message and a screenshot that has circulated on Twitter.

“Sam has a different perspective than me on this,” wrote the lawyer, Ryne Miller. He added that “we should not be optimistic for an outcome that is positive.” The post was swiftly deleted."[1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/technology/ftx-crypto-exc...

That's the whole promise of the thing.

Think how much cheaper and faster cars could be, if we didn't have to spend resources on seatbelts and catalytic converters. The entrenched car hegemony are in bed with the government to keep the little guy down by requiring these things.

>Do they not have any kind of compliance structure?

Not really, but again banks don't have compliance against this either, it's just that people are less likely to withdraw their money from the bank at the same time, and when they do the gov will tell the fed to print more, and with crypto you can't print more, so a bankrun has immediate effects.