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wow. one of the new victim impact statements filed tonight is from someone who lost almost six figures to a hack in 2021, had assets stuck on voyager after its july 2022 collapse, and then lost assets to FTX

he went from working in the industry to vocally advocating against it

Hello, As an FTX creditor, incoming prospective MBA candidate at a top US program, University of Florida graduate, immigrant, and new US citizen, I wish to convey the profound and harrowing impact of the FTX fallout on my mental health, career, and view of the cryptocurrency industry. Having served as a crypto industry analyst across various sell-side research firms for two years, my deep understanding of this space only compounds my disillusionment following not just the collapse of FTX, but also my status as a Voyager creditor and victim of a nearly sixfigure hack in stablecoins a year prior—incidents unconnected but emblematic of the pervasive recklessness in the industry. These events precipitated severe mental health challenges, incurring over $12,000 in related expenses, tens of thousands more in lost income, and derailed my educational and professional advancement by two years. My shift from an ex-industry advocate to a vocal critic is a testament to the industry’s systemic failings and moral bankruptcy. My hope, post-graduate school, is to champion ethical business leadership—a stark contrast to what I've witnessed firsthand. I've since undertaken grassroots efforts, written to 3 Congressional committees urging for regulation, and applied for industry grants for education efforts to prevent more victims of fraud in crypto. In addition to personal setbacks, I am compelled to underscore the broader societal risks posed by the unchecked behaviors of the industry. Echoed by a recent European Central Bank report, the industry’s trajectory now threatens immense societal collateral damage including civil unrest. The human toll of these crimes, including suicides among FTX victims, signals a crisis that demands immediate, substantive action given the inevitability of larger FTX, a larger Luna collapse, and far worse next time. Disturbingly, entities including FTX blatantly positioned themselves as legitimate replacements to the regulated banking system. They received notices from the FDIC for egregiously flouting decades of financial regulation. 94% of all crypto users are financially vulnerable Gen Z and millennial retail, middle class users like myself - this is a generational regulatory failure and crisis. Despite this, US crypto companies are now running new ads to children claiming crypto assets are legitimate alternatives to the banking system, urging them to invest in crypto in lieu of going to university, or building a career or any real value for society. Recall that SFB described DeFi and the industry at large as a ponzi scheme in a Bloomberg interview. It's hard to imagine a more pernicious message for society's next generation - it would be one thing if any of this "tech" worked without catastrophic risks, but it's so deeply flawed for mass market use that if even 10% of Americans adopted it for use beyond speculation, it would lead

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tags: #crypto #ftx #law #sam-bankman-fried
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Posted Mar 27, 2024, 9:33 pm

prosecutors have filed another 150 pages of victim impact statements in SBF's case today. seems unlikely Judge Kaplan will have the time to read them before sentencing tomorrow morning, but it's good that they're in the record

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Posted Mar 27, 2024, 3:52 pm

I'll be doing a livestream tonight at 6pm Eastern to go deep into the arguments that will be presented in Sam Bankman-Fried's sentencing tomorrow and answer any questions you might have

YouTube

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Posted Mar 26, 2024, 7:55 pm

Sam Bankman-Fried has filed five more letters of support, and from reading them it seems that somehow Mukasey Young is worried they hadn't emphasized enough that Bankman-Fried is vegan

Doing good for the world: Sam was consistently vegan in the time I lived with him, because he wanted to reduce farm animals' suffering. He was happy to discuss this (but not pushy, unlike stereotypical vegans), and by 2014 had converted about half of ET to vegetarianism or veganism. I did not become vegetarian or vegan, but I respected his efforts. Sam also took action on causes other than reducing animal suffering: he ran an event in which he gave MIT students $1 to donate to one of three charities (the Against Malaria Foundation, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and a third I don't remember) with descriptions of what they could accomplish with how much money, hoping to get MIT students to think about effectively doing good for the world.

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tags: #law #neurodiversity #sam-bankman-fried #veganism
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Published Mar 26, 2024

Citation Needed

Sam Bankman-Fried wants only six years for his "victimless" crime

Sam Bankman-Fried maintains that his crimes were victimless and resulted in zero losses, and therefore warrant only six years of imprisonment. Prosecutors argue that 40–50 years are justified.

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in: Citation Needed
tags: #ftx #law #sam-bankman-fried
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Posted Mar 24, 2024, 2:28 pm

most of the Sam Bankman-Fried/FTX victim impact statements are really heartbreaking. some of them are... not so much

"your honor, i got wrecked by buying a shitcoin"

Victim impact statement: I got wrecked by buying a shitcoin($BOBA), which I highly suspect SBF(who clearly has connections in Stanford) is in cahoot with the team of BOBA token (CEO of enya labs who launched BOBA tokens are from stanford university, and many of the team's members are from Stanford) to pump and dump on the token which goes to $7.49 dollar to less than $0.12. The token is now trading around $0.5~$0.6. This amount of fall is clearly manipulated, in hindsight this is obviously price manipulation to extract money from retail. I lost $50k usd from their shenanigans. This money was supposed to be used for my further education. Now I have to start from the bottom again and I feel strongly that I should be compensated for the fraud and manipulation they pulled on retail users like me. I hope Justice prevails and laws should be used to uphold the integrity, stability and trust of society. Some white collar crimes are obvious, others are very good at hiding their maneuvers, lie with no conscience and covered their tracks carefully not to be caught, both types of criminals should belong in jail and kept away from the public or common people in general.

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Posted Mar 23, 2024, 8:05 pm

In case it might be useful to anyone else, I just wrote a quick Chrome extension to download all PDFs on CourtListener when there are multiple attachments to one docket entry.