News BITCOIN, Heists, Thefts, Hacks, Scams, and Losses

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The discussion highlights significant security issues surrounding Bitcoin exchanges, particularly focusing on the infamous Mt. Gox, which suffered a major theft leading to its bankruptcy. The exchange's management ignored critical warnings about its software's security flaws, resulting in millions lost and a tarnished reputation for Bitcoin. Other exchanges like Flexcoin and Canadian Bitcoins also reported substantial losses due to hacks and social engineering attacks. The conversation underscores the ongoing risks associated with Bitcoin transactions and the need for improved security measures in the cryptocurrency space. Overall, these incidents illustrate the vulnerabilities within the Bitcoin ecosystem that can lead to significant financial losses for users.
  • #601
kyphysics said:
https://www.huffpost.com/highline/article/white-collar-crime/
^^^^I still think he gets out in 5-6 years. We'll see.

Call me jaded/cynical, but our world is unfair.
I didn't get very far in that article before recognizing it is total garbage.

Probably the most similar case is Madoff, who got 150 years, but died after 12.

Jeffrey Skilling only got 14 years, but Ken Lay died before sentencing
 
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  • #602
kyphysics said:
...

russ_watters said:
I didn't get very far in that article before recognizing it is total garbage.

Probably the most similar case is Madoff, who got 150 years, but died after 12.

Jeffrey Skilling only got 14 years, but Ken Lay died before sentencing

+1

Those in cooperation with SDNY might get single digit year modified sentences but SBF is a 'special' case. IMO he will be made an example of what happens when you commit a massive fraud while trying to influence lawmakers using the fruits of that fraud.

The quip about "commercial fusion energy by his release" is more true than funny.
 
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  • #603
russ_watters said:
I didn't get very far in that article before recognizing it is total garbage.

Probably the most similar case is Madoff, who got 150 years, but died after 12.

Jeffrey Skilling only got 14 years, but Ken Lay died before sentencing
I'd FINISH THE ARTICLE, as I'm guessing you got 5% or less of its content. The beginning is a bit "broad," but seriously. . . it gets good/enlightening the further into it you get.

Also, it's NOT garbage, as I'm a sociology major (one of my triple undergrad majors) and its contents comport with literature in the field (see, for example, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, which is standard reading for any introductory course on social stratification/inequality and/or race)
 
  • #604
nsaspook said:
The quip about "commercial fusion energy by his release" is more true than funny.
Well I've wrote it as a factual statement and then realized I had to laugh too, so your right.

kyphysics said:
I'd FINISH THE ARTICLE, as I'm guessing you got 5% or less of its content. The beginning is a bit "broad," but seriously. . . it gets good/enlightening the further into it you get.

Also, it's NOT garbage, as I'm a sociology major (one of my triple undergrad majors) and its contents comport with literature in the field (see, for example, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, which is standard reading for any introductory course on social stratification/inequality and/or race)
I have to side with @russ_watters on this one. I too think Huffpo is very one sided and the journalism is rather poor. It is more ideology with news on top than news with ideology on top.
That being said it is not easy to find any news source these days that doesn't put an editorial spin on to their stories, usually one has to read many of them to get the real story between the lines.

But in a general sense , yes sure , the legal system can be exploited and people with lots of funds usually have a much better chance at doing that. Or celebrities have a chance in that as my mentioned case of OJ Simpson.

SBF I feel won't be this case because pretty much everybody hates him, his former girlfriend already threw him under the bus and there is a political push from both sides to contain the garbage fire that is crypto so I'd guess he will be sentenced rather strongly.
 
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  • #606
fluidistic said:
SBF won't go to jail. His parents bailed him out with 250 mega dollars. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/business/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-bail.html
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/explainer-did-bankman-fried-secure-221259494.html
Does the bail amount mean Bankman-Fried or his family has $250 million?

No. In Bankman-Fried's case, the $250 million bond is secured by his parents' home. Since Bankman-Fried's parents signed the bond agreement, they would be on the hook for $250 million if their son flees.

"They can take everything else," said Michael Bachner, a New York criminal defense attorney. "They can go ahead and take the bank accounts, the IRA accounts, stock accounts."

The $250 million bond does not reflect the family's assets, which could not be determined. Bankman-Fried said in late November that he now had "close to nothing" left and is down to one working credit card with "maybe $100,000 in that bank account."
"Can we pay with crypto?" He's the perfect ex-crypto bro, living with their parents.
 
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  • #607
In a crypto bull market, billions of dollars flowed freely amongst market participants, allowing Alameda’s use of FTX funds to go largely unnoticed and unquestioned. But in May 2022, the stablecoin TerraUSD collapsed, causing a domino effect that wiped out over $400 billion in value in the crypto ecosystem. A stablecoin is so named because it is supposed to stick to the value of the U.S. dollar. Stablecoins are a crucial part of the crypto ecosystem: when they work correctly, they provide traders with the option of parking their volatile crypto assets in a more stable currency.

While some stablecoins are fully backed with dollars being held in an account, TerraUSD was algorithmic, meaning that it relied upon code, market activity and sheer belief in order to keep its peg to the dollar. The stablecoin’s peg was also theoretically propped up by its algorithmic link to another currency, Luna—but many experts questioned the stability of such a system.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mar...pto-investigators-offer-new-clues/ar-AA15xfIF
Where Did FTX's Missing $8 Billion Go? Crypto Investigators Offer New Clues
Several major industry players including Three Arrows Capital and Voyager Digital filed for bankruptcy as a result of TerraUSD and Luna’s crash. The ensuing chaos forced many crypto lenders to call back their loans. Alameda was one of the companies forced to pay up, the CFTC says. The agency alleges that Alameda did not have the cash on hand to service its debts—and that in May or early June at Bankman-Fried’s direction, Alameda directly pulled several additional billion dollars worth of FTX user funds to pay off its debts. (Bankman-Fried has repeatedly denied that he “knowingly” transferred FTX user funds to Alameda.)

Afterward, FTX’s internal books showed that Alameda owed $8 billion to FTX. But in order to hide this hole, FTX executives isolated it into a folder called “our Korean friend’s account,” according to the CFTC. (This may be a reference to Do Kwon, the embattled Korean co-founder of TerraUSD and Luna.) Due to this change, the debt no longer showed up on FTX’s ledgers, the agency alleges.Over the last couple months, Polk and other analysts at Nansen have been tracking money flows from FTX to Alameda. They published their findings in an extensive report on Nov. 17, which shows the many frantic transactions that FTX made following the TerraUSD crash. In particular, FTX transferred hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency first to Alameda and then to the trading firm Genesis, which had served as a major lender to many crypto companies.
It sure looks like there was 'intent'.
 
  • #608
fluidistic said:
SBF won't go to jail. His parents bailed him out with 250 mega dollars. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/business/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-bail.html
Ok , so they bailed him, but what's the point? To give him that last time of freedom to enjoy his morning cappuccino while it lasts?
He will still have to stand trial and get a prison sentence or am I missing something here ?

I am asking because I am not a US native so not that familiar with the US justice system peculiarities.

PS. There is a chance I think that his parents property value is so high because it was acquired with his crypto money help.
That's the classical stuff all crooks do around the world, enrich their relatives so that in case $h!T goes south they can at least cling on to something.
 
  • #609
artis said:
PS. There is a chance I think that his parents property value is so high because it was acquired with his crypto money help.
That's the classical stuff all crooks do around the world, enrich their relatives so that in case $h!T goes south they can at least cling on to something.
If the house was acquired with crypto money related to the crimes SBF is charged with the house can be seized. https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.c...enforcement,without compensation to the owner.
 
  • #610
artis said:
He will still have to stand trial and get a prison sentence or am I missing something here ?
Yes. "Bail" means he doesn't have to stay in jail until the trial is over. If he disappears while on bail, the money (in this case 250 million USD) is forfeit, so it is a kind of guarantee that he will appear at his trial.

It may be a little more complicated than this but that's the basic idea.
 
  • #611
artis said:
Ok , so they bailed him, but what's the point? To give him that last time of freedom to enjoy his morning cappuccino while it lasts?
He will still have to stand trial and get a prison sentence or am I missing something here ?

I am asking because I am not a US native so not that familiar with the US justice system peculiarities.

PS. There is a chance I think that his parents property value is so high because it was acquired with his crypto money help.
That's the classical stuff all crooks do around the world, enrich their relatives so that in case $h!T goes south they can at least cling on to something.

I'm OK with him being out of bail.

Requirements additionally mandate that a third individual, who cannot be related to Bankman-Fried, also sign off on the bond agreement. The parents property absolute value is not the point, it's the fact his parents entire worth of everything including the house is at risk.

https://blockworks.co/news/sbf-wont-actually-pay-250m-for-his-bail-bond
“The real issue is that if he violates his bail, they’re going to take his parents’ house…So the real test is not whether it’s $250 million or $100 million or $25 million. It doesn’t matter — it’s the house that’s the collateral,” Sorkin said.

The bail of Michael Milken — an executive at Drexel Burnham Lambert charged with racketeering and securities fraud in 1989 — was also set at $250 million, which is worth about $570 million today when adjusted for inflation. He pleaded guilty the following year to six felony counts and was sentenced to $600 million in fines and 10 years in prison.

Assistant US attorney John K. Carroll asked Federal District Judge Kimba M. Wood to set bail for Milken at $250 million, to be collateralized by the $700 million being set aside for the racketeering counts, the New York Times reported at the time. The government considered Milken’s earnings — he had received more than $1 billion over the last five years from Drexel —when coming up with that figure.
 
  • #612
"I knew that it was wrong," Ellison said about her actions, according to a transcript of her plea hearing released on December 23. This is what she told a federal judge in Manhattan on Monday in entering her guilty plea, according to a transcript of the hearing that was unsealed on Friday.
https://www.thestreet.com/investing...hat-i-was-doing-was-wrong-says-ftx-co-founder
Gary Wang, the co-founder of FTX, said, during his plea hearing, that he was "directed" to make changes to FTX's platform code in order to benefit Alameda. He also claimed that he was aware of misrepresentations being made to clients and investors.

"I knew what I was doing was wrong,” Wang said, according to the transcript.
Edit/update: https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/caroline-ellison-told-judge-ftx-110951327.html
Ellison, Bankman-Fried's ex-girlfriend, pleaded guilty to seven charges on December 19, carrying up to 110 years in prison after striking a plea deal with the Justice Department. The court unsealed the transcript of her plea hearing on December 22.

FTX cofounder Gary Wang also pleaded guilty. The plea deals that they both have struck with federal prosecutors in New York freed them each on bonds of $250,000. Ellison and Wang are now cooperating with prosecutors as part of their plea agreements.

Wang said during his plea hearing on December 19 that he was directed to change FTX code to give Alameda special privileges on the trading platform.

Ellison has agreed to waive any defenses to the charges. Per her deal with prosecutors, she also agreed to pay restitution that is yet to be determined. She must also provide documents, records, and evidence to prosecutors, as well as testify to a grand jury or at court trials when requested.
 
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  • #613
It seems those two witness guilty pleas from Ellison and Wang are good enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that SBF not only did fraud but preplanned it.
 
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  • #614
Evidence keeps piling up.
A little-known firm with a weird website was central to the misappropriation of FTX customers' money, regulators say
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/t...tx-customers-money-regulators-say/ar-AA15H6YG

Among the 130 or so companies in Sam Bankman-Fried’s sprawling crypto empire, North Dimension Inc. assumed a low profile. Unlike FTX, its name wasn’t splashed on billboards or sporting arenas, and its business wasn’t promoted by celebrities.
. . .
That SEC complaint, against former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and former FTX co-founder Gary Wang, said money wired to North Dimension by FTX clients for their own use wound up funding Alameda’s trading activities and Bankman-Fried’s other ventures instead.“Bankman-Fried had directed FTX to have customers send funds to North Dimension in an effort to hide the fact that the funds were being sent to an account controlled by Alameda,” the SEC said in the complaint. North Dimension’s website did not disclose any connection to Alameda, the regulator added.

Neither did North Dimension’s website, now out of commission, mention any ties to Bankman-Fried. Instead, the company claimed to sell mobile phones, laptops and other such items out of the same Berkeley, California, address that housed FTX US. . . .
 
  • #615
I just watched this video. Not saying is absolutely representative of everything crypto but it definitely gives the vibe I too have got from some folks who have been early fanatics of crypto. The vibe is typically that of an arrogant , full of ones self, money hungry person. The video has some cringe worthy material in it.
Take it as entertainment.



After this you can watch this short 8 min video from the youtuber "Coffeezilla" where he dissects a interview that SBF had done some time before all came crashing down. He basically describes the core of his business as we now know it.
 
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  • #616

Note that this interview was 8 months ago. He basically told everyone that he was running a Ponzi scheme and no one dared call him on it because he was a wunderkind.

Edit: I see artis beat me to it. I’m thinking SBF plays the dumb kid card and gets maybe 10 years but serves 2-4 with good behavior, along with a restitution plan that he never actually pays (a la Jordan Belfort).
 
  • #617
artis said:
After this you can watch this short 8 min video from the youtuber "Coffeezilla" where he dissects a interview that SBF had done some time before all came crashing down. He basically describes the core of his business as we now know it.
I love the term 'Ponzinomics'.

I thought the economic purpose of this approach was to transfer wealth of a lot of people to the few people running the scheme, erh, um, exchange, erh, um, fund - whatever.
 
  • #618
TeethWhitener said:

Note that this interview was 8 months ago. He basically told everyone that he was running a Ponzi scheme and no one dared call him on it because he was a wunderkind.

Edit: I see artis beat me to it. I’m thinking SBF plays the dumb kid card and gets maybe 10 years but serves 2-4 with good behavior, along with a restitution plan that he never actually pays (a la Jordan Belfort).

We can only hope the jury and prosecution will be smart enough to not let him exploit them as he exploited his investors. And frankly I doubt he can pull off the dumb card and even if he can what should that change?

The only case I know where one can escape a severe punishment in exchange for a mental institution is if one is proven to be mentally disabled aka crazy. SBF is nowhere near that he is simply a slick and dishonest conman who got beat by his fellow slick conman at his own game. That's the way I see it, but let's see what turns out of all this.

Anyway, even without direct witness guilty pleas (of which we know there are at least 2 now) it seems there are enough incriminating interviews with him out there that there should be no doubt the guy was running a ponzi scheme.
 
  • #619
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-charges-accused-mango-crypto-manipulator-with-fraud-2022-12-27/

U.S. charges fraud in Mango crypto manipulation case​

According to a complaint made public on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, Avraham Eisenberg's trades in futures related to Mango's crypto token MNGO enabled him to withdraw $110 million in cryptocurrencies from other investors' deposits, with no apparent intention to repay the funds.

Eisenberg was arrested on Monday night in Puerto Rico, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in Manhattan said in a court filing. It was unclear whether Eisenberg has a lawyer.

https://cryptobriefing.com/curve-whipsaws-75-as-defi-degens-squeeze-avraham-eisenberg/
Eisenberg called the Mango Markets exploit a “highly profitable trading strategy,” sparking outrage in the DeFi community. While some in the DeFi community believe Eisenberg did nothing wrong, others have heavily criticized his actions and their negative effect on the space.
 
  • #620
https://cointelegraph.com/news/alam...days-after-sbf-bail-community-mulls-foul-play
The crypto wallets associated with now-bankrupt trading firm Alameda Research, the sister company of FTX, were seen transferring out funds just days after the former CEO Sam Bankman Fried was released on a $250 million bond.
...
The ongoing fund movements from Alameda wallets coincided with Bankman Fried’s bail because right after FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, the exchange wallets were hacked for millions of dollars. The United States Department of Justice is currently investigating the $352 million FTX exploit right after its bankruptcy filing as well.
 
  • #621
Sam Bankman cashing out 600k worth of ethereum using a wallet he proved to have personal control on back in 2020, through a non KYC exchange.
 
  • #622
To add to what @fluidistic already said , also talked about in a video linked to below.
A little bit of a rant from me.

As little as I have followed all of this I still have to say I am amazed at how spoiled and shameless this SBF guy really is.
It's not enough for him to get caught at his unprecedented modern day digital ponzi scheme, his now out on bail and he just goes and transfers what's left of his ill gotten fraud funds to probably his friends and relatives.
At least that's the way I see it , unless he is completely nuts, he probably knows he will be toast for life in prison so no need for a ferrari or fancy clothes there, the state will provide him with his meals and clothes.

I hope the investigation and prosecutors see his current actions and terminate his bail. I mean if the average youtuber can follow his steps better than a cat follows a laser pointer then I would imagine the federal investigators should have no problem of tracing out what he is doing.
And frankly whoever relative or friend of his gets the money he transfers them now and doesn't immediately report it should also be prosecuted as an accomplice and for accepting stolen funds.

I hope the US justice system can deal all that is necessary to this spoiled brat "wunderkind" and all his accomplices.
Either way from SBF to countless youtubers and other jerks selling worthless NFT's for millions I just hope this whole crypto circus gets nailed properly and put in it's right place. Sure fools have to pay a price for their foolishness but thieves also have to pay the price for their fraud and theft.
 
  • #623
What I described above ocurred around 18 hours prior to my message, so it wasn't discussed in artis's video. SBF behaves as a criminal noob. If only his FTX had privacy related cryptocurrencies support, he could have done it better. Unfortunately for him, he chose transparent cryptos and we can all watch what he's doing in real time.
 
  • #624
The NPR article that was used to start this discussion mentions "the bitcoin community."

Community?
I thought many were using bitcoin (this word used generically here by me, so no capitalized) to get rich quick speculating with it, or because they do not trust any governments to impose on them the use of what they consider not just made-up, but also personally offensive fiat money minted and printed by governments. As well as governments in general.

One concern in all this I have about what is looking as an unraveling of the bitcoin dream, is precisely its speed and depth. I wonder, in this time with enough pressures on the world economy (a raging war in Europe with Russia closing heating gas in winter to much of it, the economic problems in China and elsewhere due to the lingering effects of the Covid 19 pandemic that is still going around -- and so on and so forth) where and when this bitcoin disaster is going to end, if it ends?
Because misplaced faith sometimes tends to be enduring.

(Asks someone that never had and shall never have anything to do with bitcoin, but follows the news.)
With many thanks to those who have contributed to this worrisome, but informative thread.
 
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  • #625
fluidistic said:
What I described above ocurred around 18 hours prior to my message, so it wasn't discussed in artis's video. SBF behaves as a criminal noob. If only his FTX had privacy related cryptocurrencies support, he could have done it better. Unfortunately for him, he chose transparent cryptos and we can all watch what he's doing in real time.
Yup, it seems every other youtuber is following him now like that guy that followed Elon Musk's private jet on twitter, it is kind of funny truth be told.

OscarCP said:
I thought many were using bitcoin (this word used generically here by me, so no capitalized) to get rich quick speculating with it,
It seems like a major portion of all related to crypto indeed.
I would say so far crypto has been a way to hide your assets if your a criminal and to lose your assets if your and average person, and to gain assets if your a scam artist with a social media following and can spread the word around about your "new cool NFT" or your "super safe" crypto exchange etc etc
 
  • #626
OscarCP said:
The NPR article that was used to start this discussion mentions "the bitcoin community."

Community?
I thought many were using bitcoin (this word used generically here by me, so no capitalized) to get rich quick speculating with it, or because they do not trust any governments to impose on them the use of what they consider not just made-up, but also personally offensive fiat money minted and printed by governments. As well as governments in general.

One concern in all this I have about what is looking as an unraveling of the bitcoin dream, is precisely its speed and depth. I wonder, in this time with enough pressures on the world economy (a raging war in Europe with Russia closing heating gas in winter to much of it, the economic problems in China and elsewhere due to the lingering effects of the Covid 19 pandemic that is still going around -- and so on and so forth) where and when this bitcoin disaster is going to end, if it ends?
Because misplaced faith sometimes tends to be enduring.

(Asks someone that never had and shall never have anything to do with bitcoin, but follows the news.)
With many thanks to those who have contributed to this worrisome, but informative thread.
The usual convention is to use the capitalized version when referring to the cryptocurrency (and lower case when referring to the token).

Not sure what you mean by Bitcoin's speed: it takes roughly 10 min to get a new block into the blockchain, so a few minutes to get a few "validators", regardless of whatever happens (this would hold true even if only a raspberry pi would be maintaining the network). Bitcoin itself is not threatened in the slightest way by what happens in the world currently, unlike Ukraine's banking system for instance. Ukrainians were very happy to receive donations in cryptocurrencies, they could even use bitcoins without having to turn to fiat currencies, to buy military stuff.

There are several threats I can think of, to Bitcoin: a governments attack, where several countries (US and China included) decide a heavy track on miners, and they themselves implement their own miners, to produce a 51% attack and mess up with the transactions, so that it would become useless for everyone (but very costly, I suppose, to run permanently). Someone cracking Bitcoin in some way(s). A slow death by disinterest.
 
  • #627
fluidistic said:
The usual convention is to use the capitalized version when referring to the cryptocurrency (and lower case when referring to the token).

Not sure what you mean by Bitcoin's speed: it takes roughly 10 min to get a new block into the blockchain, ...
I was referring to the speed and the depth of the current unravelling of bitcoin (*) , at least as it seems to be happening these days. I was expressing concern on what this, if true, could do to some national economies.

(*) Not capitalized: thanks for your observation, but it is my privilege to write it in this way as a generic name I give all the many, many, many cryptocurrencies in circulation (until recently ... ), as already explained in my previous comment.
Unusual? Well, yes, sure: I am unusual too.
 
  • #628
OscarCP said:
I was referring to the speed and the depth of the current unravelling of bitcoin (*) , at least as it seems to be happening these days. I was expressing concern on what this, if true, could do to some national economies.
Hmm, I don't see what you're referring to... is it the fact that a bitcoin has a price much lower than a year before? And that countries like El Salvador had some amount of money pegged to it? Or the fact that GPU prices went down (thanks to Ethereum too), perturbing the economy in some way?...
 
  • #629
fluidistic said:
Hmm, I don't see what you're referring to... is it the fact that a bitcoin has a price much lower than a year before? And that countries like El Salvador had some amount of money pegged to it? Or the fact that GPU prices went down (thanks to Ethereum too), perturbing the economy in some way?...

All that and more, most of it happening fast and it seems as if almost all at once now, after some years of wild fluctuations in bitcoin value that are unlike anything that has been seen since the end of WW I in Germany, when it comes to how significant currencies perform.
It's been also in the news for a while.
I believe the two comments I wrote above, plus what numerous others have posted in this thread, already cover what needs to be explained here.
So I am moving on.
 
  • #630
fluidistic said:
A slow death by disinterest
If scandal doesn't subside and more new crimes are unveiled it might happen, at least for a while.