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Posted:

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
to financial system instability from hacks and user error alone. In fact, top PhDs and entire teams with cybersecurity pros get hacked for millions of dollars almost every single day. Yet, this deeply flawed, experimental tech is being aggressively marketed to unsuspecting users across exchanges similar to FTX, grossly underplaying the technical pitfalls and pervasive fraud in the industry. I urge the court to seriously consider what happens when millions of unsophisticated new entrants to crypto - including the elderly and young children - get hacked for and or lose billions of dollars, or their funds are gambled by the next SBF, after being marketed these products as "better" than the banking system. This may soon be the reality within 12-36 months. This is precisely what happened with FTX and other exchanges whose marketing were slogans akin to "Unbank Yourself" and "Banks are not your friends," and continues to happen with hacks every single day. When has society allowed private issuers of currency and outright ponzi schemes to prey on the masses in the name of unregulated financial "innovation"? It is time to end the crypto chicanery before the societal price truly becomes too big to bear. A serious discussion of reparative justice just as in any prior large scale financial fraud is in order - from crypto criminals like SBF who have used stolen customer funds for their own gain, to the industry PR machine supporting crypto predators. These incidents severely undermine trust in our institutions and entire financial system. Regards,
Posted:

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

Posted:

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

YouTube thumbnail: "Sam Bankman-Fried's sentencing" overlaid on a photo of Sam Bankman-Fried with a blue filter, and a photo of Molly White
Posted:

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.
Sam felt deeply for every living being, farm animals included -- so much so that he adhered to a vegan diet and convinced several others in our living group to become vegan, too. He took every actionable step he could to reduce suffering. Sam has been portrayed as being motivated by greed. This is completely inconsistent with the Sam I knew. He never showed any interest in material possessions or personal wealth; he was far more interested in promoting animal welfare. I believe that if Sam is given a lenient sentence, he will be an asset to society. If the fact that I still limit my meat consumption on ethical grounds is any indication, Sam will continue inspiring others to be a little bit kinder and gentler.

Another two are from parents of autistic children, and one of them suggests that perhaps "he did not fully understand the scope of what was going on and did not have malicious intent".

Dear Judge Kaplan, As the sentencing of Sam Bankman-Fried approaches I am writing to you as a mother of a 34-year-old son who is on the Autism spectrum (known for purposes of this letter as Aspergers) as is Sam, which I understand you are aware of. I have no opinion as to his guilt or innocence under the law, but do want to share with you my experiences with my son that hopefully might give you some pause to reflect on Sam’s behavior and mental state leading up to and during the trial. I was not familiar with Sam and his story until I watched a 60 Minutes interview with Michael Lewis, the author of his biography, in Oct, 2023. As he described Sam I saw my son and kept wondering why Aspergers never came up in the segment, because those of us knowledgeable about it, could see his behavior, his mannerisms ... and his brilliance... as huge indicators of him being on the spectrum. I did not follow the trial closely but did look for some kind of public acknowledgement of his condition. However, with his conviction and the way he was being described at trial, I felt compelled to reach out to his lawyer to ask if Sam had been diagnosed. I never heard back but one of my other sons found Joe Bankman’s email and I sent a note to him in November asking him the same question because I felt so strongly that there but for the grace of God goes my son. I told him that his son sounds very much like my own – his mannerisms, thinks in numbers (my son is discovering Pi patterns at the moment), brilliant, very good at making money (has his own business), same dress style, or lack thereof, obsessive, socially awkward... I could go on. In fact, it freaked me out. I bring this forward because my son has had a couple of brushes with the law - all very stupid and innocent in that either his actions were misinterpreted or he was clueless and didn't understand what was going on. This is not unusual for those with Aspergers. Fortunately, all were rectified but all left a traumatic mark on him, too. Mr. Bankman did respond recently to my email and let me know that Sam had been diagnosed as on the Autism spectrum and that you and the Prosecutor were made aware as well. I have no idea how familiar you are with Aspergers, particularly those
who are out working and supporting themselves, but I can speak from experience that the mind of those on the spectrum works differently. Though I have never met Sam, I firmly believe that while he may be an MIT grad - he did not fully understand the scope of what was going on and did not have malicious intent. Truthful to a fault, these wonderful people are the outliers of our world (not a disability) who make all the great discoveries (Einstein) but most have difficulty with executive functioning, especially when it gets chaotic. They tend to shut down then and I can only imagine how chaotic Sam’s world was both when running a business with what sounds like little controls in place, and during the trial. I know his altruistic pursuits could only have been heartfelt because my son believes he has found the cure for cancer through his work with numbers and wants to save the world. I am just thankful that his brushes with the law did not involve him having to take the stand because that would have been a disaster. He would have talked and talked and driven everyone crazy while thinking he is explaining it all so well. My husband and I did not know our son was on the spectrum untill he was around 31, about three years ago, and had a traumatic event that caused him what is called "Autism burnout." We always knew he was smart, quirky, odd, became obsessive about an area of interest, and socially awkward but did not realize he was on the spectrum until then. Thank you for your consideration of what I have said as you ponder this young man’s future. There is every reason to believe he could contribute so much more to society if given the chance... and understanding. Sincerely
Posted:

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.

(the token in question had already tanked well before FTX collapsed)

Price chart of $BOBA, showing an early spike to nearly $8 in November 2021, followed by rapid collapse to <$1 by May 2022.
Posted:

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.

Screenshot of a CourtListener docket entry with a main document and seven attachments. A green "Download all PDFs" has been added to the bottom, and is highlighted with a pink arrow overlaid on the screenshot.

It also renames the files all nicely so you don't end up with that whole pile of files with names like "gov.uscourts.nysd.590939.407.26.pdf"

Screenshot of Zotero entry with more than 40 files attached. They're named things like "Attach­ment 1 - Exhibit A - Index of Letters in Support of Samuel Bankman-Fried's Sentencin.pdf" and "Main Document - Sentencing Submission.pdf"

I also just added support so it will work on PACER pages (iff you have the RECAP extension installed, and you should!)

Screenshot of PACER docket entry with multiple attachments, with an arrow pointing to a "Download all PDFs from CourtListener" button

If you use PACER and you don't use RECAP, you should rectify that immediately.

Read:
There are many legitimate criticisms of LLMs. The copyright issues involved in their training, their enormous power consumption and the risks of people trusting them when they shouldn’t (considering both accuracy and bias) are three that I think about a lot. The one criticism I wont accept is that they aren’t useful.
Posted:

I had to say goodbye to my Max this week after an unexpected and rapid decline. I'm heartbroken, but more than anything, I'm so grateful for the 6½ years we got to spend together. He was my first pet, and he taught me so much. He never, ever stopped purring. I miss him terribly.

He had an incredibly hard first half to his life, during which he was abandoned and endured some horrific things. He was eventually rescued by a feral cat rescue organization in Boston, and then he came to me for foster. Despite all he went through, he loved everyone he met.

He was the greatest older brother to Ruthie (even though she scared him at first) and he raised her ever since she joined us at only a few weeks old. I think it's wonderful that she grew up to look like his mini-me.

He was probably about fifteen, although it's guesswork with adult strays. Give your pets a big hug today.