>the fact that they intentionally faked reserve balances and treated alameda like a piggy bank and did gymnastics to hide it can't be ignored.

To be clear, they also gambled with normal FTX customer funds. People who were just buying cryptocurrency through ordinary means and not trying to do sophisticated trading. It was simple theft. You can say they thought they'd make the money back plus some, but I think a lot of Ponzi scheme heads think the exact same way.