> Lewis gave SBF all the rope he needed to hang himself with, and that was all he needed to do.

Very nicely put.

Book recommendations: Faux Number go up is beautifully reported, in particular on the many scam and trafficking victims, the culture (Bored Ape parties), some of the players (eg SBF, the Tether people, etc.), and the underlying anarcho-capitalist mindset.

On the impact on the underprivileged (that the "check your financial privilege" and "banking the unbanked" predatory inclusion crypto crowd purports to care so much for), the green-washing of Bitcoin, the crypto philanthropy "bad samaritans", Metaverse and Web3, check Peter Howson's Let Them Eat Crypto.

Ben McKenzie and Jacob Silverman's Easy Money is another non-technical examination of fraud in crypto, El Salvador, and the severe consequences for victims.

Great recommendations! I've read all three of those books and they're terrific in different ways and all worth reading.

Everyone is a cocky MF until they get caught.

> About how unapologetic and manipulative he is. About his willingness to gamble with other people's money.

This describes most bankers? They’re generally smarter in that they work for an organization that dillutes responsibility for their crimes.

That's why most bankers are subject to all the laws that SBF didn't like.

Like Bernie Madoff?

Yeah that worked out great.

Madoff wasn't a banker.

Bernie Madoff did die in prison, so there’s that.

He died in prison. I don't know how much more subject to laws you can possibly get.

If you're aware of a financial crime, please report it to the SEC or one of the other financial regulators through their whistleblower hotline. You may be in for a big payday.

They are smart enough to make all their grifts "fees" and "interest rates"

For example, charging 17% on a credit card bill when the interest rate is 5.25%

and that's on excellent credit like mine where I haven't missed a payment in almost 20 years

There are important distinctions between fraud and greed. For one, you can know the conditions.

If you think the terms are unfair to you, you have the option to not do business with this particular bank. If all banks do the same, have you thought there's a financial reason behind it that you might not be aware of (say, default rate, operational costs, etc).

for people with credit over 800 the default rate must be extremely low

otherwise I wouldn't have this credit rating and the bank wouldn't trust me with over $100,000 credit limit combined over all of my credit cards

the reason I agree to this rate is because I never pay it, I loan from my broker instead where I pay like a few bips over LIBOR

> They are smart enough to make all their grifts "fees" and "interest rates"

> For example, charging 17% on a credit card bill when the interest rate is 5.25%

That's not fraud or a financial crime though, since the interest rate is prominently shown on the front page of every credit card bill.

If they're telling you it is 6% and then charge you 17% without explanation, that would be fraud.

For example, payday loans are explicit in saying they will charge you a percentage of your payday for a 14 day loan. But if you do the math, it's about 1000% interest annually

It's not a crime either, but it's predatory

Selling an expensive product or service is very different from committing fraud or stealing. There are plenty of practices within banking that are a lot more immoral than charging high fees.

I am aware of at least 2, I'm not in the U.S. , to disclose one crime I'd have to breach confidentiality and the most likely outcome would be that the bank would get a slap in the wrist or even nothing, meanwhile I'd be sued to oblivion and it would ruin my life (the same happens with some other crimes I know about, I once tried an anonymous tip about some grifting in the military and instead of taking it they said they went fully hostile and said they'd trace my call !!).

The other one I didn't have enough proof, apparently someone else did tip the authorities and the shady payday loan company is getting a slap in the wrist. Not exactly something to instill confidence in our justice (and my country is one of the least corrupt ones!)