Tag Archives: SBF

Business, Technology

Is SBF Laundering Money As We Speak?

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Sam Bankman-Fried is accused of committing one of the largest frauds in history. Now out on bail, he may be siphoning off what little money his bankrupt empire has left.

Out this morning from Bitcoinist:

A few hours ago, former Alameda Research wallets came to life, as noted by several on-chain analysts. Oddly enough, the transfers of altcoins come just shortly after Bankman-Fried was allowed to make himself comfortable in his parentsā€™ home, equipped with an Internet connection.

The transactions totaled about $200,000.

Whoever moved the money used tools called mixers to mix the coins with other tokens. This makes them harder to trace.

A liquidator put in charge of the Alameda assets by a court would not use a mixer. This points to the transfers being initiated by a hacker, or by SBF himself.

Shockingly, the terms of SBFā€™s bail donā€™t stop him from using the internet.

If SBF is in fact looting the last of Alamedaā€™s assets, heā€™s committing another crime. This would be ample cause to revoke his bail, putting him in jail until his trial ends.

Since the bail is secured by SBFā€™s parentsā€™ house in Palo Alto, his parents would also lose their home.

Most people would never consider committing fraud while on bail. Theyā€™d be worried about going back to jail, not to mention their parentsā€™ losing their home.

But SBF isnā€™t most people. If he did this, the level of arrogant stupidity is astounding.

What do you think is going on with these mysterious transfers? Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

More on markets:

How SBFā€™s Hedge Fund Imploded

Seeing Through SBF: How One VC Found the Truth

Why Crypto is Still Massively Overvalued

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Photo: FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried

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Business, Technology

Seeing Through SBF: How One VC Found the Truth

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The best venture firms in the world stand to lose billions in the FTX collapse. But one man saw through Sam Bankman-Fried.

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His name is Alexander Pack. Pack planned to invest millions in FTX, until the red flags started to mount.

Pack, managing partner of Dragonfly Capital at the time and currently of Hack.vc, was bewitched by SBF at first. From a new report in Fortune:

ā€œHe seemed like one of the smartest people Iā€™ve ever metā€¦He looks different from everybody else; he thinks different from them. So yeah, I was very taken with him. We all were. Thatā€™s why we spent so much time and were so interested in it.ā€

For all SBFā€™s charisma, warning signs began to appear. The profits of his trading firm, Alameda Research, were dropping bit by bit.

It turned out SBF wasnā€™t focused on the business he was pitching Pack. Instead, he was working on a new crypto exchange called FTX.

[Pack] was interested in SBFā€™s new exchange, but Bankman-Fried balked and supposedly told Pack he couldnā€™t invest in the separate business. Bankman-Fried, he says, haggled, telling Pack he would have to pay more if he wanted exposure. ā€œAnd that was a big red flag, obviously for our investment,ā€ Pack said.

Pack was right to take this as a huge red flag. A founder whoā€™s distracted from day one isnā€™t a good bet.

SBF also became increasingly secretive:

ā€œHe wouldnā€™t tell us who [the investors] were because he didnā€™t want us to talk to them,ā€ Pack said.

Bankman-Fried thought if the seed investors knew he was considering taking venture funding, the seed investors might redeem their money, Pack said.

Pack asked him how he would deal with the situation. ā€œAnd Sam said, ā€˜Oh, I probably just wonā€™t tell them at all. You know, weā€™ll keep it secret. Weā€™ll figure out some way to keep it secret.ā€™ā€

Pack realized that the FTX founder could easily keep valuable information from him as well. ā€œThat was definitely one of the flags,ā€ he said.

Pack is 100% right that if SBF will deceive his existing investors, heā€™ll deceive Pack too.

Whatā€™s more, existing investors should be your biggest cheerleaders! You should be begging prospective investors to talk to them and find out how great you are.

And why would those early investors want to sell if the company was doing well?

In all, we have a picture of a distracted, unscrupulous founder. With hundreds of deals available at any given time, why choose this one?

Pack was considering investing just a couple of million dollars. But he appears to have done more diligence than the giant firms that put in hundreds of millions!

Those big firms have huge teams to diligence a company backward and forward. But they were outmaneuvered by little old Pack.

The lessons for founders and investors are clear.

Founders must be focused and keep their financials tight. And investors should be wary of distracted, secretive, and unscrupulous entrepreneurs.

What do you think of the FTX collapse? Leave a comment below and let me know!

More on tech:

Is SBF Headed toĀ Prison?

Tiger Global Losing $185 Million a Day

Where Did Sequoia Go Wrong on FTX?

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Photo: FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried

Business, Technology

Where Did Sequoia Go Wrong on FTX?

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Sequoia Capital is the greatest venture capital firm of all time. So how did it lose $214 million on FTX?

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Sequoia made two large investments in the crypto exchange, which went bankrupt earlier this month. Sequoia has since marked down those investments to zero.

The firmā€™s top leaders apologized to investors on a call yesterday. From Bloomberg:

Top partners at the powerful venture capital firm Sequoia Capital apologized to their investors in a conference call Tuesday for backing FTX, a pair of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchanges that had allegedly been mismanaged by Sam Bankman-Fried, according to people familiar with the meeting.

Despite the mea culpa, Sequoia defended its process:

Although partners on the call were conciliatory, they also defended the due diligence they conducted on the deal. They said staff reviewed financial statements and asked on multiple occasions about the relationship between FTX and Alameda Research, a trading firm that Bankman-Fried also founded and which reportedly borrowed and lost FTX customersā€™ money.

Sequoia is wrong to defend this investment.

FTX had no board. This despite being valued at over $30 billion and entrusted with hundreds of millions of investorā€™s money.

Seed stage companies I invest in routinely form a board when the round closes! This is in line with the best practice recommended by attorneys.

Benchmark General Partner Bill Gurley said it best:

Benchmark avoided the crypto FOMO. The partners stuck to their knitting and kept backing real startups.

Sequoia was not so lucky.

Indeed, its diligence in other crypto deals appears questionable. From The Wall Street Journal:

When FTX declared bankruptcy earlier this month, Sequoia also edited another post for a crypto investment called LayerZero. An earlier version said the Sequoia partnership approved the investment just 48 hours after an investment memo was completed. The newer version removed references to the fast decision-making.

In yesterdayā€™s call, Sequoia said it was considering making startups use Big Four accounting firms in the future. Especially for a huge company like FTX, thatā€™s a no-brainer.

Like most angels and VCā€™s, I idolize Sequoia. Theyā€™re the best of the best.

I hope to see them get back to their roots. And if other VCā€™s want to chase crypto dreams, let them.

In the words of Sequoia founder Don Valentine:

ā€œWhat is important is to have the ability and willingness to be different.ā€

Don Valentine


What do you think of Sequoiaā€™s FTX losses? Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

This is the last blog for this week. See you on Monday!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

More on tech:

Hedge Funds Lose Billions as FTX Implodes

Talking FTX, Twitter and Startups at Starta VC

Getting to $10 Million ARR Without a Series A

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Photo: FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried

Business, Technology

Hedge Funds Lose Billions as FTX Implodes

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Hedge funds trusted crypto exchange FTX with billions of dollars. Now, they stand to lose it all.

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Some funds have lost most of their assets and may cease to exist. From a report out overnight in the Financial Times:

Hedge funds have billions of dollars stuck on failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX and could face years of waiting to recover anything at all from a marketplace they once believed to be one of the industryā€™s most reliable bets.

ā€œI lost my investorsā€™ money after they put faith in me to manage risk and I am truly sorry for that,ā€ tweeted Travis Kling, founder of Ikigai Asset Management, which has a ā€œlarge majorityā€ of its hedge fundā€™s assets stuck on FTX. ā€œI have publicly endorsed FTX many times,ā€ he added. ā€œI was wrong.ā€

Other funds, such as Galois Capital, had half or more of their assets on FTX. It could take years to recover those assets, if theyā€™re recoverable at all.

Crypto exchanges typically hold customersā€™ money longer than stock brokers. This leaves customers more exposed to problems at the exchange.

To add insult to injury, hackers may be looting what little money FTX has left. A series of abnormal transactions have vacuumed hundreds of millions out of the bankrupt exchange.

Rather than place their trust in FTX, hedge funds shouldā€™ve used a service like Coinbase Custody.

Coinbase Custody puts customer assets in segregated cold storage. Its parent company is US-based.

As a public company, Coinbase has to make disclosures FTX would never dream of. And it even has SOC 2 security certification.

An exchange like Coinbase is a real, grown-up company. FTX was an amphetamine-fueled commune in a questionable jurisdiction.

But hey, why not trust them with billions in your investors’ money?

I expect to see a lot of the funds that did business with FTX shut down. Itā€™s hard to trade when all your money’s gone.

Investors big and small should be careful about who they do business with. Stick to companies in reputable jurisdictions with the right controls in place.

It turns out the brave new world of crypto is a lot like the old world: full of scammers. Buyer beware.

After the implosion of FTX, who do you think is next? Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

More on tech:

How SBFā€™s Hedge Fund Imploded

Is SBF Headed to Prison?

FTX Blows A Massive Hole in Tigerā€™s Portfolio

Note: I have no affiliation with Coinbase.

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Photo: FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried

Business, Technology

How SBF’s Hedge Fund Imploded

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Let’s say I create $1 million worth of Frankcoin. Will you loan me $1 million with my Frankcoin as collateral?Ā 

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Not if you’re in your right mind, you won’t. But that’s exactly what lenders did for Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research.Ā 

From a report out this morning in The New York Times:

Ā …Alameda, which held a large stake in the token, began using its FTT holdings as collateral for more loans to facilitate its trading activities.Ā 

Like Frankcoin, FTT had no real value. It was created out of thin air by SBF.

This didn’t stop Alameda from making bold claims in a presentation to lenders:

…it could offer lenders ā€œhigh returns with no riskā€ and ā€œno downside.ā€

At this point, lenders should’ve known this was BS. There are no returns without risk. 

Anyone guaranteeing you a return is a fraud. Con artists, Bernie Madoff among them, love to promise you a sure thing. 

Perhaps these lenders were blinded by the big returns Alameda promised. 

For years, this house of cards stood. But as crypto came under pressure this year, Alameda’s fraud became harder to conceal:

With crypto prices falling, more lenders wanted their money back. The falling prices also reduced the value of FTT, which Alameda had used as collateral for some loans. As the firm struggled to pay lenders back, FTX resorted to using funds that customers had deposited with the exchange for ease of trading to pay Alamedaā€™s lenders back.

What can we learn from this, as investors? 

Never believe anyone who says they can guarantee you a return. There are no guarantees. 

Don’t call something someone invented an asset. It’s funny money. 

And never let the promise of riches blind you to reality. 

What do you think of FTX and Alameda’s collapse? Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know! 

Have a great weekend everyone! 

More on tech:

Talking FTX, Twitter and Startups at Starta VC

Is SBF Headed toĀ Prison?

FTX Blows A Massive Hole in Tigerā€™sĀ Portfolio

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If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/etc. This helps more people find the blog! 

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

Fundrise

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so Iā€™m not too exposed to any one market. Iā€™ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

Misfits Market

Iā€™ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

Use this link to sign up and youā€™ll save $15 on your first order. 

Photo: FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried