1/ As a securities trial lawyer, I have cross-examined many conmen and financial fraudsters over the last 30 years.
@andrewrsorkin will have his chance to question SBF on Wednesday.
Here are 6 questions I would ask--but doubt he will.
2/ Stealing Customer Funds
The FTX Terms of Service are very clear that customer assets belong to the customer--not to FTX.
You realize it was illegal for you to misappropriate assets from your customers' accounts, right?
3/ Guilty Parties
Who at FTX or Alameda knew you were taking FTX customer assets and transferring them to Alameda?
4/ Guilty Parties 2
The new FTX CEO (John J. Ray) has said that you used special "software to conceal the misuse of customer funds.”
Who helped you do that?
5/ More Missing Money
The NYTimes reported that $515 Million was “suspiciously transferred” from FTX wallets AFTER the bankruptcy filing.
Did you assist in the theft of assets from the FTX bankruptcy estate?
Do you know who has control of those stolen assets right now?
6/ Something Fishy in the Bahamas
The Bahamian authorities have now admitted that they ordered the transfer of certain FTX assets to a wallet under their control AFTER the U.S. bankruptcy was filed.
Did you help the Bahamian authorities transfer those assets to The Bahamas?
7/ The FTX US Mystery
After the bankruptcy filing, you tweeted that FTX US had sufficient assets to repay fully all of its customers.
If that's true, then why was FTX US placed into bankruptcy?
Jeez guys, I'm new on twitter, I wasn't really expecting all this retweeting and tweeting directly at @andrewrsorkin.
You all are really turning up the heat on Andrew!
Maybe he comes through with some hard hitting questions after all?
Wait, another FTX scandal???
Yes, but its not what you think.
FTX filed bankruptcy in Delaware, USA today.
FTX must soon publish a Complete List of Names of its account holders and the Value of Assets in each account--because these account owners are all creditors.
So, I imagine this could get a little uncomfortable for some of these people.
- If you are a Hedge Fund, you should probaby break the news to your investors before they read it in the papers.
- If you are a Pension Fund, you might want to tell your retirees, pronto.
- If you just settled your divorce but forgot to mention your FTX account, ouch!
- If you are a socialist hero of the people, you may have some explaining to do.
- If you are a member of the Chinese Communist Party--uh oh.
- If you're a religious leader who took a vow of poverty.
Here is my Top 10 List of Losers from the FTX situation.
All references to FTX are meant to apply to FTX (International) not FTX US.
I have enormous sympathy for all customers, employees and others who have been hurt by all of this.
1. SBF. Self-explanatory. I guess Warren Zevon put it best, "Send lawyers, guns and money. The sh-t has hit the fan." Listen here:
2. Employees of FTX, Voyager, Celsius etc. These companies hired top notch people with stellar resumes. It profoundly sucks to suddenly lose your job through no fault of your own. It impacts the whole family. And crypto winter makes it that much harder to find the next job.
Ok, it may be a little early for this, but . . .
Here comes my Top 10 list of winners and losers from the FTX meltdown. Spoiler alert, CZ is not a winner.
Ok, for the top 10 winners . . .
1. Gary Gensler, Chairman of the SEC. He gets a gigantic "I told you so" out of this. He gets a large number of victims of apparent fraud (which he doesn't have in the Ripple case). And he probably clears away opposition to his enforcement agenda in Congress and the media.
2. Congressional critics of crypto. Expect to see Elizabeth Warren, Brad ("Ban Bitcoin!") Sherman, etc. taking victory laps in the media. While the demise of FTX has exactly zero to do with bitcoin, it won't matter.
In all the stories and tweets and chats about this, you see almost no mention of the tragic human toll of all of this on the (mostly young) people who put their hard earned assets on Voyager, Celsius, FTX and others and now face uncertain prospects of getting those assets back.
It doesn't really help them now that so many voices advised self-custody of crypto for years. Listen, for any of you in that boat, I wish you the best, don't despair, don't give up. Tomorrow will be a better day.