🧵1/Ω
Amended $MCB 🧵: $MCB's auditor Crowe LLP raised a "critical audit matter" relating to the "qualitative" & "subjective" nature of $MCB's measurements of how many loans would go bad. (@RasooliSheida made a mistake w/r/t whether it was on the $MCB site but it's still bad.
🧵2/Ω
$MCB took a huge $35 million charge that wiped out their profits for 2022-Q4 in anticipation of getting fined civilly and possibly criminally for #PPP loan fraud of some kind.
🧵3/Ω
They did that because... they're under investigation. At the very least they are gonna get hit with major civil violations, but I have a hunch it will escalate to criminal bc of the #CryptoCom/#Binance connection... $MCB
🧵6/Ω
I will leave this mini-thread about how $MCB just hired the team that ran the extremely fraud prone EB-5 "greencards 4 cash" related program over at the now completely collapsed $SBNY right here:
🧵7/Ω
Given that everyone's a bubblin' about how commercial real estate is an absolute fucking train wreck that just keeps accelerating into what appears to be a brick wall, maybe good to note $MCB's loans are 80% CRE.
And 19% of those are in a category called "Other".
WTF?
🧵8/Ω
In addition to it's vast commercial real estate loan portfolio that is going to absolutely eat shit in the next few years $MCB has about a half billion in treasuries and mortgage backed securities...
Also all of the same long term kind that sank $SIVB.
ngmi
🧵9/Ω
If we look at $MCB's employees' work histories we find a whole lot of references to small banks convicted of fraud:
- $SBNY
- #CrossRiverBank (@coinbase's bank, #PPP loan fraud accusations f. Congress)
- #HSBC (🚩)
- Deutsche Bank
- Popular Bank
- Bank of China
Ω👇Ω
🧵10/Ω
What's that thing the smart short sellers say about executives leaving the firm being the #1 best indicator that something is wrong at a company?
🧵11/Ω
Almost no one at $MCB has been there even two years. It makes me think the ongoing NYDFS investigation and soon to be written civil and / or criminal charges for the bank led NYDFS to restructure it...
🧵14/Ω
Morgan Stanley also reporting that $MCB has four (4!) active crypto clients as of January 2023 but then only lists 3 (and one of them might not be a "banking client").
Who are the other ones?
Also lol at all these sus banks offering #TassatPay AKA #SigNET by $SBNY.
🧵15/Ω
Countdown to $MCB's cry of "misinformation from short sellers"...
🧵1/Ω
It’s that time again. Gather round, children, for a thread about the closing arguments in the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried. #FTXTrial #FTXScam
Ω👇Ω
🧵2/Ω
The govt’s case revolves around a few things but fundamentally it’s about risks that were not disclosed to customers/investors.
According to the govt not only were these risks not disclosed SBF took steps to conceal them. Which is, you know, a crime
Text from my 📌 twt 👇
🧵3/Ω
It’s conceded by everyone including SBF himself that there were undisclosed risks so the question becomes one of intent. The govt’s argument is that the many steps taken to conceal the risks reveal ill intent. SBF's argument is basically "being irresponsible is not illegal"
🧵1/Ω
Thoughts from SBF’s 2nd day of cross examination:
Today went very, very badly for Mr. Bankman-Fried but it was still kind of a shame the jury didn’t get to witness the absolute train wreck of his first attempt especially this part:
🧵2/Ω
Things got off to a rough start when SBF tried to say that the million and one times he claimed that Alameda was just like any other FTX customer in every way he secretly was communicating that “every way” meant “one way”: Alameda didn’t front run FTX's customers.
🧵3/Ω
Cue AUSA bringing up approximately a bazillion tweets, emails, slack messages, etc. where SBF said Alameda was just like any other customer followed by the question “does it say ‘in terms of frontrunning customers’ here?”
1. I never imagined it would be so grimly satisfying to watch a man hang himself before my eyes. The only disappointing part was that today wasn’t in front of the jury.
🧵2/Ω
SBF’s “my view from the perspective of the data I had available to me at the time” and “I’ll try to answer the question I think yr asking”¹ schtick did not play well with the judge.
¹ he actually said this, after which the prosecutor said “you didn’t answer my question".
🧵3/Ω
His testimony today was about whether he would be able to use the “but my lawyer said it was OK” defense in front of the jury. Let me summarize how it went:
🧵1/Ω
Things I Learned From Caroline Ellison's Testimony That CoinDesk Has Declined to Mention, a Thread:
1. The billion dollars that SBF had to bribe Chinese officials to give back was held on Huobi and OKX.
🧵2/Ω
That bribe was for $150 million.
🧵3/Ω
Multiple people at FTX/Alameda had family ties to the Chinese government. One of those people thought the bribe was a bad idea and quit shortly thereafter. The other one was the guy who suggested the bribe.
🚨Ω🚨
Pumping my bags: another issue of #TheCryptocalypseChronicles is out on The Blogging Site That Shall Not Be Named concerning the actions of one #AxosFinancial AKA "#Binance's new US bank".
Link in bio because Elmo is pathetic and demonetizes links to That Other Site. $AX
🧵2/Ω
Perhaps unsurprisingly Axos Financial / $AX appears in the list of #FTX creditors.
🧵3/Ω
Also looks like the infamous #ReggieFowler, Crypto Capital Corp's main money launderer, invested $1.3 million with $AX according to court documents filed by #Tether / #Bitfinex begging for their money back.
Also $5 million to something related to Wacky Cathie's $ARKK? lol.
🧐 Just stumbled on this "FIAT INTEGRATION AND REVOLVING LOAN AGREEMENT DATED 10/16/2020" from #iFinex in the list of #FTX's assets from a few days ago.
🧵2/Ω
If you think through what that means... given that it appears in the FTX list of assets it appears that Tether had an open line of credit where they could borrow money from FTX?
1. What assets were they borrowing? 2. Why does a stablecoin issuer need to borrow anything?
🧵3/Ω
This might explain it... (h/t @ParrotCapital)