Re:FTX’s Collapse Was a Crime, Not an Accident
by BlueTemplar on Thursday December 01, 2022 @08:33AM
(#33815990)
Not doing their own due diligence is clearly the main issue here.
It's just ridiculous that the whole fraud seems like it could have been revealed by just sending a (not even specialized in crypto !) accountant to either FTX or Alameda, and the """sophisticated""" investors (and worse : US banking """regulators""") failed to to so !
P.S.: And this is also where the defense of SBF comes in : he's pretty young, focused on "moving fast and breaking things", so of course he would have been emboldened by the above, and might not have realized just how criminal his doings were ??
Maybe I'm confused but even "dumb money" doesn't typically buy billion dollar scams at IPO where their financials are arranged by Goldman Sachs et al. Unless I missed some obvious examples in recent history where a bullshit (let alone crypto tier bullshit) tech company IPOd with hundreds of millions invested by legit Sequia/OTPP style investors and then the whole charade got exposed after the fact.
You could maybe point to a tiny set of VC companies in history, like Groupon where the stock price was overvalued at IPO, but even they are still a real business with 4000 employees 11 years later.
If anything you could say the grand conspiracy was betting on an acquirer buying them before crypto went bust. But I highly doubt that was a key part of some calculated plan.
Why is it so hard to believe they thought there was real longterm value in the business? It seemed on paper like they were making revenue for legit sources and successfully hid their relationships/high risk bets elsewhere?