1) Alright so here's what I gather happened with EMN:
@AndreCronjeTech was working on a new protocol. It was still in the testing phase, not ready to be released, in case e.g. it had bugs. He hadn't yet vetted it.
2) People were digging around Andre's code, found what he was working on, and started to talk about it.
To be clear Andre hadn't promoted it and wasn't intending it to be used yet--it (obviously) wasn't finished with testing!
But people found it anyway.
3) The people who found it started talking about it and spreading it (probably not maliciously -- probably just excited).
Everyone wants to get in on the next big Andre project, so people started FOMOing into it when they got wind of it.
So a bunch of people started buying.
4) But, remember, it wasn't tested, and had an exploit (involving flash loans).
So someone exploited it, taking all the funds ($16m I think?).
The hacker then sent half to Andre (as an "I'm sorry" note?) and kept half for themselves.
Andre wakes up and is like 'WTF happened'.
5) News spreads, people are confused and hurt and angry and impressed and lots of other things at once.
So, TL;DR:
a) Andre didn't intend any of this to happen
b) people dug around and found his incomplete projects
c) people bought his incomplete projects
d) flash loans
6) This could be wrong, I'm writing this on the fly, don't put 100% confidence in it.
also NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE
7) seems like they're going to try to pay back what they can, at least returning the $8mm that they were sent
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Today, I filed FTX, FTX US, and Alameda for voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the US.
2) I'm really sorry, again, that we ended up here.
Hopefully things can find a way to recover. Hopefully this can bring some amount of transparency, trust, and governance to them.
Ultimately hopefully it can be better for customers.
3) This doesn't necessarily have to mean the end for the companies or their ability to provide value and funds to their customers chiefly, and can be consistent with other routes.
Ultimately I'm optimistic that Mr. Ray and others can help provide whatever is best.
2) I also should have been communicating more very recently.
Transparently--my hands were tied during the duration of the possible Binance deal; I wasn't particularly allowed to say much publicly. But of course it's on me that we ended up there in the first place.
3) So here's an update on where things are.
[THIS IS ALL ABOUT FTX INTERNATIONAL, THE NON-US EXCHANGE. FTX US USERS ARE FINE!]
[TREAT ALL OF THESE NUMBERS AS ROUGH. THERE ARE APPROXIMATIONS HERE.]
Things have come full circle, and FTX.com’s first, and last, investors are the same: we have come to an agreement on a strategic transaction with Binance for https://t.co/DWPOotRHcX (pending DD etc.).
2) Our teams are working on clearing out the withdrawal backlog as is. This will clear out liquidity crunches; all assets will be covered 1:1. This is one of the main reasons we’ve asked Binance to come in. It may take a bit to settle etc. -- we apologize for that.
3) But the important thing is that customers are protected.
FTX keeps audited financials etc. And, though it slows us down sometimes on product, we're highly regulated.
3) We've already processed billions of dollars of deposits/withdrawals today; we'll keep going. (Taking up anti-spam checks to process more--sorry if you got those. We're hitting node rate capacity, will keep going.) Also tons of USD <> stablecoin conversions going on.