This is the same guy who tried to make "effective altruism" part of his image. That was a pretty strong signal that the outcome we all witnessed was highly likely.
It's a status thing as much as the crime. Who he had access to and what knowledge everyone involved could have had to detect it earlier. If that is real idk but that's the pitch
Crypto is a bit unique though. Not many markets would have tolerated this behaviour.
The common type of white collar criminal remains in silence and follow orientations from their very well paid lawyers. And it is a pretty proven strategy that leads to minimal or no relevant punishment. If SBF was a common criminal in this sense, he possibly could leave all of this judged not guilty by the justice.
All very privileged and sheltered.
I probably won't attract many friends by separately pointing out that "it'll all work out in the end" was also the primary investment strategy of virtually every crypto "investor" who lost money, but that's another matter...
He could still get a decade in ClubFed with work release which… while obviously not great, is a hell of a lot better than living under guard in a low or medium security prison.
Doesn't that require him to still have money?
Like Hans Reiser trying to beat the murder charges, representing himself in court.
Common white collar criminals say “let’s take this offline” in their chat transcripts.
... and then the lawyer wakes up and has to deal with his real client, who has done no such thing.
It’s not as if people are saying he’s going to be studied because he’s fascinating. I don’t think he ever tried to cultivate the image that he’s idiotic bordering on the pathological, because that discrepancy seems to be study-worth.
It’s like on one side, there are Musk actions, some call them insane and idiotic, but they can be explained away, theoretically, and then there’s SBF where even the most adamant supporter would just stand there, open-mouthed.
That assumption is often, but not always correct.
We aren't astonished or confused when a broke high school dropout maxes out their credit card on Candy Crush in-app purchases and drives drunk and crashes into a tree. Some people are stupid and stupid people are going to make stupid, thoughtless decisions.
People are more surprised when the rich and powerful do dumb shit like this because of a presumption that they must have been consistently able to not do dumb shit in order to acquire their stature.
But that assumption is very often wrong. Trump had his father slowly plow $700m of his wealth into his son in order to burnish his own image. Musk inherited wealth. SBF came from prestige and then lucked into a historical moment where fake Internet money could temporarily be exchanged for real money.
These people are just fucking morons with limited ability to delay their gratification or think through the consequences of their actions who happened to win the lottery. Most of the time, it's because they lived an entire childhood where they never needed to learn to think about the consequences of their actions because they were completely insulated from them.
Take your juvenile behavior back to Reddit.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/d...
Why do you think that was such a strong signal?
> Judge Kaplan: He subscribed from the Bahamas and used a VPN as if he were in the Bahamas when he was in Palo Alto and could have watched it on public TV. It shows the mindset. All things considered I am going to revoke bail.
Playing by the book it's an easy, open and shut case that he loses very badly badly. No other conceivable outcome that way.
His only option is to throw the book out and create as much chaos as possible so prosecutors are faced with the unusual and novel and make mistakes his team can capitalise on.
It's a long shot, sure. He's got nothing else. This lunacy is all 100% rational behaviour on his part.
You did see this, right?
https://unusualwhales.com/politics/article/senate_ftx
Washington corruption is rampant and at an all time peak, both R&D, to be sure but he's got to give them some kind of smoke screen by making a really simple thing like his being a thief "complicated." The guy knows where the bodies are, he has some leverage. Probably not nearly enough but we'll see.
I don't see how that's very rational at all.
Classic asymmetric payoff. Any trader will see that. (Maybe my analysis is wrong and it /can/ make things meaningfully worse but if not, it's extremely rational).
I just don't see him as meaningfully worse off. The muddier, smokier, more controversial and strange make it at least /possible/ there can be some lawyers "Aktuhally..." and he comes out somehow ahead. If not, nothing lost, he's unlikely to go to jail for longer or a worse one. It's a hail mary to be sure but it's a free throw of the dice.
Do you think this list of, um, "politicians" wants to give all the stolen money back that he donated? They sure have an interest in how this plays out, huh?
https://unusualwhales.com/politics/article/senate_ftx
Just because someone act like a total idiot doesn't mean that they aren't.
If he successfully tampers with the witness, enough to sow reasonable doubt and lead to his acquittal at trial, then it's worth it. That's why it's a crime - because there is a potential payoff to it. If actually tampering with the witness never worked, there would be no need to criminalize it.
Or, more likely, his life as he knew it was under threat and he was panicking by following the same script that always worked for him before. But it wasn't NECESSARILY the wrong call.
In other words: It's not their delusion at all.
You shouldn't expect them to be good at anything else. They aren't good at anything else.
Is SBF connected at all anymore? At this point, everyone knows he's a fraud (at least in the court of public opinion). There's no money to be gained by helping him; associations to him are toxic; favors are unlikely to ever be repaid. He may have used some of the money he scammed for donations to curry favor, but that only works up until the scam falls apart. What sort of connections are you thinking of?
When you have 100bn you are well connected. When you had 100bn but now have nothing, you are not well connected. Even people you have litterally given 100mil to wont take your phone calls.
A common Warren Buffet quote passed around : "We look for three things when we hire people. We look for intelligence, we look for initiative or energy, and we look for integrity. And if they don't have the latter, the first two will kill you, because if you're going to get someone without integrity, you want them lazy and dumb"
people with law degrees do
This is the same guy who dialed into tech conferences and made provably false statements after the public collapse of FTX and after his parents (both law professors) had retained counsel. And yet, nobody thought to explain to him how easily he might get caught up on witness tampering and obstruction of justice charges if he continued making public statements.