Until its implosion last month, Alameda Research was the sister company of FTX. Both were founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, and Alameda was the company that borrowed customer deposits from FTX using inflated crypto tokens as "collateral." The money was used partly to fund risky investments and partly to make loans to SBF and his CTO, Gary Wang.
A couple of weeks ago the former CEO of Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison, was spotted in New York City:
PLEASE CONFIRM: A user claims that they spotted Caroline Ellison at Ground Support Coffee on West Broad in SoHo Manhattan at 8:15 AM. This would mean she is not in Hong Kong and is in NY not in custody. pic.twitter.com/QUduYO9GfZ
— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) December 4, 2022
Sure enough, it turns out she's been spilling the beans on Sam Bankman-Fried the whole time. So has Wang. The Wall Street Journal has the story:
Ms. Ellison, 28 years old, pleaded guilty to seven counts, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud, according to her plea agreement, which was signed Monday. Mr. Wang, 29, pleaded guilty to four counts, including wire fraud.
....According to their plea agreements, Ms. Ellison and Mr. Wang are expected to truthfully disclose information to investigators, provide requested evidence and appear in front of a grand jury or court proceeding if asked. In exchange, the government will inform the judge of the defendants’ assistance and request lesser sentences.
This might explain why SBF agreed to be extradited and is now in custody in New York. He knew the jig was up and there was little point in fighting any longer.
It’s more likely that he agreed because of the horrible conditions of the Bahamian prison
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/17/sbf-prison-bahamas/
The ABC story makes it sound like these pleas were concealed from SBF until after he had left the Bahamas.
They were and then weren’t. The paperwork for the pleas wasn’t released but the somewhat unfortunate photo of Caroline Ellison to which Kevin links was a dead giveaway. Plus, my assumption is that his lawyers might have made a good educated guess because both cooperators left the Bahamas and probably refused to speak with the lawyers (who would’ve been constantly feeling them out on whether they’d flipped).
Somewhat unfortunate?
Alameda was the company that borrowed customer deposits from FTX using inflated crypto tokens as "collateral."
"Hey Bob, can you lend me a million dollars? I'll put up my whole Beanie Baby collection as collateral!"
"Sure, but only if I can then use them to sell Beanie Baby-backed securities!"
"Awesome idea! Can I buy some? What could go wrong? They're accepted as collateral by financial institutions, after all!"
Apropos of nothing, there's some weirdness with gasoline prices today. A few days ago, one of the stations on the same corner shot up from $2.49 to $2.99 (Chevron has remained at $2.99 for awhile). Then this morning, the perpetually low-ball station was $2.47 when we first drove by, and an hour late, became $2.97.
And no, I wasn't misreading the "4" digit as a "9". A real change in gasoline prices from the suppliers, or just opportunistic Christmas travel gouging?
Drove 25 miles from my rural hometown in N. Cal to the freeway where I bought gas for $3.09. Drove back home where gas was $4.79. Last Sat. price near freeway dropped like a buck overnight. Our local gas is usually a little cheaper. Strange indeed.
Kudos to Ellison and Wang for realizing that if they didn't move quickly, SBF would throw them both under the bus.
Ah yes, who will be first to drive over the other. "Friends" ?
All three of them (and perhaps more) will be fitted for orange jumpsuits in the near future, and every dime they have and every asset they own should be used to reimburse the customers who lost their "assets" due to embezzlement of customers accounts.
So, does that cafe take BitCoin?
Poor Sammie. He seems to have committed the cardinal grifter sin - he started to believe his own bullshit.
One way you know this is true is that he apparently didn't expect them to turn on him, else he'd have played differently. You don't work that closely with people for that long (put aside sleeping with them) without developing a pretty good idea of how they will react to things. I worked with two partners for around six years and could predict what they were going to wear on a given day pretty well.
He was lying to himself to soothe his ego. And because of that, it looks like he'll have a very long time to work on, uh, self-actualization.
gmta
Or maybe he took his own Effective Altruism philosophy to heart and decided, what is right is right. And then decided to pay for the damage he's done...
I'll be here all week folks, don't forget to tip your servers.
No honour among thieves.