from Hacker News

FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

by abriosi on 11/14/22, 12:38 PM with 326 comments

• by themgt on 11/14/22, 1:38 PM

  It's incredible that SBF was being touted by Sequoia, WEF, Fortune, chumming it up with Clinton and Blair in the Bahamas, getting meetings and kid glove treatment with the SEC, relatively glowing profile as a "do-gooder" by the NYT.

  All while FTX had a Chief Regulatory Officer who was basically a career white-collar criminal. It beggars belief that anyone who dug half an inch into this story wouldn't have seen 90,000 watt flashing red warning signs.

  Crypto turned into a haven for replaying every form of financial fraud ever invented on an epic speedrun against retail "investors", and a whole lot of powerful people and institutions have dirty hands. The idea all of this could be adequately explained by stupidity rather than malice strains credulity.

  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/14/business/sam-bankman-frie...

• by svara on 11/14/22, 1:49 PM

  > Friedberg, who served as FTX’s general counsel before taking on the company’s regulatory role, was recently described by Coingeek’s Steven Stradbrooke as being “almost comically inappropriate” for the job. The description appears apt, given Friedberg’s long history of not complying with various jurisdictions’ regulations, but rather, evading them.

  Can't make this up. Reads to me like, on the contrary, they couldn't have found anyone more qualified.

• by theCrowing on 11/14/22, 1:01 PM

  There is a German saying: "Wo ein Trog ist kommen die Schweine." roughly translates to "Where there is a trough - the pigs will come." Rather fitting for all the crypto meltdowns in the last years.

• by mrleinad on 11/14/22, 1:08 PM

  Larry was right for once [1].

  [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH5-rSxilxo

• by new2this on 11/14/22, 1:54 PM

  Clickbait title. Tether is only vaguely mentioned and there is nothing related to Tether operations- only to an employee at Tether.

  While this article covers an interesting topic, the title is clearly an attempt to bandwagon on the "Tether is next" narrative while contributing nothing substantial to the conversation

• by CPLX on 11/14/22, 1:01 PM

  > The second near-failure of UB occurred when the site was riddled by extensive credit-card fraud during its first year or so of operations. That led parent company ieLogic to develop an antifraud software suite called ieSnare that was so effective that the company was able to license it to other online concerns.

  That’s a pretty interesting little side story.

• by bedhead on 11/14/22, 1:22 PM

  As if crypto wasn’t useless enough, it’s always at the center of endless scams. What’s it gonna take for people to walk away from this poison?

• by arisAlexis on 11/14/22, 1:21 PM

  This has nothing to do with Tether the author added it jut as a sauce, hilarious

• by stephc_int13 on 11/14/22, 1:06 PM

  I wonder if there are cases of large scams where the perpetrators are smart enough to avoid being caught.

  Not all criminals end-up behind bars.

  I suspect that some scams can go unnoticed for long enough.

  I also suspect that scam opportunities are exploding.

• by wly_cdgr on 11/15/22, 3:08 AM

  Disgusting. SBF and this Friedman guy need to be literally physically flogged to a sobbing mess in the public square and then put into the ring for eight rounds with Mike Tyson. Better than they deserve. Absolutely vile. It is bad enough to cheat as a player/trader but to be responsible for the integrity of the platform and act like these guys is beyond the fucking pale

• by mberning on 11/14/22, 1:02 PM

  It’s amazing to me that enough people still believe in the crypto scam to keep pumping BTC above $15k. I guess they are still managing to mint fools at a fast enough pace to keep the price up.

• by loceng on 11/14/22, 2:10 PM

  Is there truth to the U.S. sending money to Ukraine -> Ukraine funding FTX -> FTX being 2nd largest donor to Democratic party in the U.S.?

  Timeline:

  - April 25, 2019: Biden announces his presidential campaign.

  - 13 days later, Sam Bankman-Fried, son of Barbara Fried (co-founder of political fundraising organizations), launched FTX crypto exchange.

  - The exchange is an overnight success. Sam Bankman-Fried (SBM) becomes biggest donor to Biden.

  - Most of the FTX team is reported to have flown to Hong Kong now, so China, the CCP is their safe haven?