SBF, FTX, WEF: CEX Scams of the Highest Order
(TIN) - We will kick off a few articles on cryptocurrency "Ecosystems" - more accurately, "Egosystems" with a quick look into the SBF=FTX=Alameda affair.
Sam Bankman-Fried, known as “SBF”, told the world he’d donate $10 billion USD to charity… instead, he stole $10 billion from non-US citizens around the world, turning himself from the darling of his friends in the US media and government, and his World Economic Forum cryptocurrency exchange FTX, (removed today from the WEF website, more on this later!) into the most hated man in the cryptocurrency space, literally overnight.
TIN will shed some more light on this affair in this article to kick off a series around the theme of cryptocurrency ecosystems egosystems.
We actually believe that this affair, set in motion by a Tweet from “CZ” the head of the second biggest - now biggest - centralized exchange (CEX) Binance, is actually a GOOD thing, and here is why…
The type of young nerds you see at the computers in the above image, are perhaps the same (generally amoral) generation-Z types you’ll find in any cryptocurrency project. That’s not to say that all the newer generation are “amoral” (do not care about morals, not necessarily immoral as SBF), but this is an important factor and it is due to a general lack of emotional intelligence.
The general trend is to worship technology and rely on it as a “perfect, secure system” and to place the “blockchain” on the high altar of worship. This is why the same groups will call for decentralized exchanges (DEX) so that the human factor (SBF et al) does not come into play, at least in technical theory.
However, DEX are still far from developed, and most people who wish to exchange one currency for another via P2P (person to person aka peer to peer) exchanges, or to gamble trade on the spot, derivates, futures exchanges will still need to do this on the CEXs, such as FTX, OKX, Cryptobot etc.
We actually believe that the FTX collapse is a good thing for crypto, here is why: it presents an opportunity for the cryptocurrency decentralized blockchain ecosystems to examine their values and priorities, learn from this fiasco, and start caring more about values and principles before profit.
Here an analysis by Genady M:
The sad story of the FTX-Alameda is overgrown with new heartbreaking details. FTX-linked crypto trading company Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and other senior FTX officials knew the crypto exchange had provided Alameda with funds from its clients to help pay off liabilities, Reuters reported. This is also reported by The Wall Street Journal. Reuters reported that FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried secretly transferred $10 billion of client funds from FTX to Alameda. In turn, Caroline Ellison told staff via video link that she, Bankman-Fried and two other executives, Nishad Singh and Gary Wang, were aware of the decision to move client funds to Alameda, the magazine reported, citing people familiar with the matter. FTX filed for US bankruptcy protection early Friday, and Bankman-Fried resigned as chief executive officer.
Well, for the story to be even more fun, after all these events, the exchange was hacked on Saturday night and stole about $600 million. [Ed: possibly by SBF or a friend of his? We’ll may eventually find out, read on!] Moreover, funds were transferred from FTX wallets to unknown wallets, after which they immediately began to be exchanged for DAI stablecoin, which cannot be blocked. The exchange itself posted this message:
“FTX has been hacked. FTX applications are infected. Delete them. Do not go to the FTX website, otherwise you may catch a Trojan."
That is, we scammed you, but you urgently delete the application, otherwise you will lose everything, and forget your funds on FTX.
Moreover, the unfortunate hacker himself could not transfer the stolen money without replenishing the wallet with some small amount of TRX, since the operation needed “gas”, which he did not have enough. And he did not come up with anything better than to replenish the wallet from his own account on the Kraken exchange, where, naturally, he had passed the KYC procedure and the exchange had all his passport data. 20 years in prison might change his perspective on anonymity in cryptocurrencies.
Other details of the story I'm about to record are not only boring facts about all the deceit and greed of the participants in the tragicomedy, there is sex, drugs and true love high. And, of course, there was no politics (NOT!). It may turn out that the ultimate beneficiaries of the money stolen from FTX customers are people from the elective headquarters of the current president and the US Democratic Party, who staged the dirtiest elections in American history with dumpsters and the dead.
The just recently transferred from FTX to Alameda $ 10 billion could go directly to the headquarters of the US President. Judging by the latest reports, Sam Bankman-Freed is now in the Bahamas, where a couple of years ago, at one of the drunken parties under drugs, he woke up one day with a stoned girl Caroline Allison, now CEO of FTX, who, as it turned out, is the daughter of the former boss of the current SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. And even that's not the whole story. In general, the well-known film “The Big Short” about the big scam with housing bonds and the global crisis since 2008. It may seem like a boring melodrama compared to the new action movie "The Big Short 2", the script of which is being written right now and not in Hollywood, but in real life.
World Economic Forum
Now a quick word on the World Economic Forum and the recent calamities which have affected almost every person on the planet in recent years, from pandemics to wars, economic collapses to the greatest plunder of the planet’s wealth: you will always find the WEF hand in all of these governments and organizations, and as always, the worst atrocities against humankind are being carried out in the name of peace, progress, health and charity.
With a nice sounding name, and a logo which rejoices in having “666” in plain sight, the WEF is anything but nice, no matter how nice and harmless or ignorant some of its younger participants may be, and SBF is a prime example.
WEF, which hosts the “Davos Summits” each year at its leader Karl Schwab’s home in Switzerland, is the club of all billionaires, big companies and politicians the world over. They have as their agenda a “fourth industrial revolution” which, as you can imagine, won’t go any better than the previous three for the rest of us, but this time, it has to backfire on its architects.
If it does not, humankind likely has no future. This article won’t go into the details, you will need to “DYOR” (Do Your Own Research) into this cabal.
What is interesting though, is SBF was one of the young darlings of the WEF, nurtured and mentored, and until yesterday listed on the WEF websites as one of its many organizations. Now, quietly removed, and this speaks volumes.
It tells us that WEF is worried about repercussions: the stupid masses must not find out about the connections, so let’s quickly delete it. Note that the WEF absolutely think of the masses as stupid, and they are not necessarily wrong. Being able to get individuals the world over to behave like soldiers, and follow commands on their own without supervision is the ultimate definition of power and control through fear:
Enter the restaurant, pull up your muzzle, sit at the table. When the food comes, drop the muzzle, eat the food, then pull it back up as you walk to the toilet. On returning to the table drop the muzzle between sips of your drink, and pull it up again as you get up to leave the restaurant. Even the most disciplined armies in the world would be envious of such order following!
Readers may or may not know, the WEF’s Karl Schwab, who relishes in dressing like Doctor Evil and speaking with a “Nazi German accent”, famously told the masses that the solution to hunger and food, which they want to monopolize with genetically modified organisms and patents, is “to eat ze bugs” and synthetic meat.
The WEF also infamously had an advertisement on its website, which was also removed after it went viral, which told generation-Z that “you’ll be happy because you own nothing” (and we’ll own everything).
What about TON?
Indeed, TIN (Ton Info News, rebranded) is indeed about “The Open Network”, touted a year ago by the founder of the great Telegram messenger app which has brought so much freedom to communication in the world, Pavel Durov, as a great hope for a better, more fairer world.
In covering TON, TIN will always be honest and share the thoughts of our editors in analysis. There are those that worry, not without reason, about the world of “cryptocurrency” and the increased freedom it promises, although we should remember that we had much more freedom in the past than today.
Regular readers will have noticed that we have not been posting updates on a regular basis recently. This is a volunteer effort, and lacks sufficient resources however, we will now be embarking on a joint marketing effort with the TonSafe wallet, which we will disclose more details about very soon.
The same concerns voiced about other projects and the same buzzwords “ecosystem” and “decentralization” are bandied about freely without the masses having any clue as to what is actually meant, and whether this is just nice sounding rhetoric.
There are some very critical thoughts around TON on Telegram, let this not put you off, the reality, we believe, is this:
Just like with the World Wide Web (“2.0”) which could also be called the “World Wild West”, there is both good and bad on the web, but, it is not easy to control or switch off the web. This is why, we contend, “honeypots” such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc were founded: to centralize control once again and cause everyone to be dependent and inside a controlled space.
Similarly we could hypothesize that the “Web 3.0” of “blockchain” and “cryptocurrency” is very much a “World Wild West” and again that there are efforts to centralize everything while speaking of decentralization, and selfish pursuits of profit in an “egosystem” while talking about an “ecosystem”.
And similarly, there will thus be good and bad on the blockchain “web 3” — and as Apple has (at least in the past) done on Web 2, creating a safe and secure “ecosystem-egosytem”, so it would be possible for good projects to do so on Web 3, and this is why we love the TonSafe project and are happy to team up in joint marketing efforts for the benefit of all.
Stay tuned and be sure to check toninfo.substack.com for latest versions of our articles, which are sometimes edited and corrected post-publication.
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