Crypto is absolutely stupid. It does not give you access to any market in the world and unregulated. The coupons in your Sunday newspaper have more stored value than any crypto currency. I’ve made this point a number of times but it’s important to say whenever crypto comes up, the real innovation is the digital wallet. The usefulness of having a way to store real currencies digitally, outside of banks, is very valuable.
Yup.. as I said above Charlie Munger has no love of crypto and "most likely recent events have not caused him to change his mind." Exhibit A below. Ruthless man, ruthless. Some entertainment value there too. “There are people who think they’ve got to be on every deal that’s hot. I think that’s totally crazy. They don’t care whether it’s child prostitution or bitcoin.” Charlie Munger says crypto is a bad combo of fraud and delusion — ‘good for kidnappers’ Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, a longtime cryptocurrency skeptic, said digital currencies are a malicious combination of fraud and delusion. “This is a very, very bad thing. The country did not need a currency that was good for kidnappers,” Munger said in an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick. “There are people who think they’ve got to be on every deal that’s hot. I think that’s totally crazy. They don’t care whether it’s child prostitution or bitcoin.” The 98-year-old investor’s comment came after a wild week for the industry. FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after concerns over the company’s financial health resulted in a run on the exchange and a plunge in the value of its native FTT token. Binance had backed out of a deal acquiring FTX after reports of mishandled customer funds and alleged U.S. government investigations into FTX. “You are seeing a lot of delusion. Partly fraud and partly delusion. That’s a bad combination,” Munger said. The price of bitcoin, the world’ largest cryptocurrency, has fallen more than 60% this year to trade below $17,000, according to Coin Metrics. “Good ideas, carried to wretched excess, become bad ideas,” Munger said. “Nobody’s gonna say I got some s*** that I want to sell you. They say – it’s blockchain!” https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/15/cha...f-fraud-and-delusion-good-for-kidnappers.html
Sam Bankman-Fried gave equally to both sides of the aisle. He is the third largest Republican donor this year. Bankman-Fried simply gave all of his GOP donations as dark money to avoid blow back from the media. Basically he was trying to use his donations to leverage elected officials to stop regulatory scrutiny. Sam Bankman-Fried says he's the Republicans' third-biggest donor, but used 'dark money' to avoid media criticism https://www.businessinsider.com/sam...s-the-republicans-third-biggest-donor-2022-11 Sam Bankman-Fried is the second-largest donor to Democrats after George Soros. But the FTX founder said he gave just as much to Republicans using "dark money." He said he did so to avoid media criticism from "liberal" reporters who would "freak the f*** out." Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, says he's the Republicans' third-biggest donor – but used "dark money" to avoid criticism. He revealed the information in a YouTube interview with journalist Tiffany Fong, amid reports that he donated $40 million to the Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. That made Bankman-Fried the party's number-two donor, behind only George Soros' $128 million, per OpenSecrets. Bankman-Fried did not specify which Republican causes he pumped "dark money" into. But the former CEO of the failed crypto exchange has now explained how he donated "about the same amount to both parties this year." "I've been their third-biggest Republican donor this year as well," he said. Bankman-Fried explained that this was "not generally known," because "all my Republican donations were dark." He also referred to the 2010 Citizens United case in the Supreme Court that let corporations and outside groups make unlimited political donations. This created financing loopholes because these groups did not have to disclose their donors, giving rise to "dark money" that are called "disturbingly common" by the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice. Bankman-Fried said he did so to avoid media criticism, rather than for regulatory reasons. "Reporters freak the f*** out if you donate to a Republican," he said. "They're all secretly liberal and I didn't want to have that fight, so I made all the Republican ones dark." "Despite Citizens United being the literally the highest-profile Supreme Court case of the decade and the thing everyone talks about with campaign finance, for some reason in practice no-one can possibly fathom the idea that someone actually gave dark." Bankman-Fried has been under the spotlight since FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11. Once valued at $32 billion, the exchange is now facing lawsuits for fraud while its top 50 creditors are owed more than $3 billion. Bankruptcy lawyers also revealed that FTX didn't have an accounting department. The Financial Times reported how employees enjoyed luxury benefits such as $200-a-day for food delivery and a private plane to fly Amazon packages from Miami to the Bahamas. Once the richest person under 30 with a net worth of $26 billion, Bankman-Fried told Axios on Monday that he's now down to his last $100,000.
In March, a bipartisan group of eight congressmembers came together in a rare display of unity to call on the SEC to stop looking into FTX and similar crypto ventures, so let's Find Time to eXamine their campaign donors. Congressmembers Tried to Stop the SEC’s Inquiry Into FTX The ‘Blockchain Eight’ wrote a bipartisan letter in March attempting to chill the SEC’s information requests to crypto firms. FTX was one of those firms. https://prospect.org/power/congressmembers-tried-to-stop-secs-inquiry-into-ftx/
Heh, Sam Bankfraud's girlfriend just threw him under the bus. She looks like a real cream puff. I want her. Not to worry Sam. You will find plenty of new "girlfriends" where you are going. FTX Execs Plead Guilty While Throwing Sam Bankman-Fried Under the Bus https://gizmodo.com/ftx-execs-plead-guilty-crypto-bitcoin-sbf-under-bus-btc-1849921972