The FTX “Naked Short” – Follow the Money

Let’s introduce the players.

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is the beloved offsprong of Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried.

Joseph Bankman is an American lawyer, currently the Ralph M. Parsons Professor of Law and Business at Stanford Law School. In 2004, he and his colleagues developed a proposal for a California program called ReadyReturn, whereby citizens’ tax returns were filled out in advance, requiring only that the users make corrections. The program failed to pass the California legislature by one vote, reportedly after lobbying efforts from tax software preparation company Intuit.

Bankman is married to fellow Stanford law professor Barbara Fried, who is a co-founder of the political fundraising organization Mind the Gap (MTG), which advocates for progressive political candidates and funds get-out-the-vote groups.

Both were involved in FTX, including raising funds for the firm before its bankruptcy.

As reported by VOX (https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/6/21046631/mind-the-gap-silicon-valley-democratic-donors-stanford), MTG has been the second largest single donor to the DNC to the tune of some $20 million in bundled donations.

Just behind George Soros

Influence Watch (https://www.influencewatch.org/political-party/mind-the-gap/) lists their larger donors.

And, there’s also OpenSecrets: https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/mind-the-gap/C00683649/summary/2022

Then, there’s this interesting chain of events.

🔸April 25, 2019: Biden announces his presidential campaign.
🔸 13 days later, Sam Bankman-Fried, son of Barbara Fried (co-founder of political fundraising organizations), launches #FTX crypto exchange.
🔸 The exchange is an overnight success. SBF becomes biggest donor to Biden. pic.twitter.com/Jj4HnGUlLD
— Mr. Whale 🐳 whalechart.org (@WhaleChart) November 11, 2022

Which explains why Fortune has this little piece (https://fortune.com/2022/11/10/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-joe-biden-democratic-party-second-biggest-donor/)

Close to the Biden Regime? You bet (sorry for the pun) – see https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/beleaguered-crypto-billionaire-was-hobnobbing-at-white-house-just-six-months-ago/

A cryptocurrency billionaire facing federal investigation for mishandling customer funds had high-level White House meetings just months ago, as Congress was debating how to regulate his company—and just weeks before he pledged to donate up to $1 billion to Democrats ahead of the midterm campaign.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the owner of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, met on April 22 and May 12 with top Biden adviser Steve Ricchetti, according to White House visitor logs reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. At the time, FTX was lobbying Congress and federal agencies to shape regulation of the crypto industry.
…
[Bankman-Fried] gave more than $5 million to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, and has given millions more this cycle to the Democratic Party. In early May, between his first two visits to the White House, Bankman-Fried doled out $865,000 to the DNC, according to Federal Election Commission records. Earlier, in March, he cut three checks totaling $66,500 to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and later in June he sent $250,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

He said in June, weeks after his most recent White House meeting, that he might give up to $1 billion to support Democrats in the midterms, though he backed away from that pledge in September.

Amid the political spending, Bankman-Fried has led an aggressive lobbying campaign in Washington related to cryptocurrency regulation. He met with Ricchetti, the White House counselor, on April 22 and May 12, according to visitor logs. He met on May 13 with Charlotte Butash, a policy adviser to the White House deputy chief of staff.

Bankman-Fried was accompanied in some of the meetings by Mark Wetjen, the head of policy and regulatory strategy at FTX, who served as commissioner on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under former president Barack Obama. Eliora Katz, FTX’s chief lobbyist, also attended the meetings but did not mention lobbying the White House in disclosures filed with Congress.

Bankman-Fried’s meetings came weeks after White House officials met with his brother, who directs the billionaire’s political operations. Gabe Bankman-Fried visited the White House on March 7 along with Jenna Narayanan, a Democratic strategist who once worked for Tom Steyer and the Democracy Alliance, a network of wealthy liberal donors who fund left-wing causes. Gabe also attended the May 13 meeting with his brother and FTX’s lobbyists.
…
Bankman-Fried has lobbied for a bill proposed by Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) that would put the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in charge of crypto regulation. Bankman-Fried donated $5,800 to Stabenow’s campaign in February, and $20,800 to her joint fundraising committee in January. Bankman-Fried contributed to other Democratic members of the committee amid his lobbying campaign. He sent a combined $31,000 to campaigns and joint fundraising committees tied to Sens. Cory Booker (D., N.J.), Tina Smith (D., Minn.), Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) from October 2021 through June. Bankman-Fried also contributed to top Republicans on the Senate Agriculture Committee. The crypto billionaire gave $5,800 each to ranking member John Boozman (R., Ark.) and Sen. John Hoeven (R., N.D.) in January and June, respectively.

BTW, here’s Tom Brady and his now-ex pitching the scam:

And, some scam background

First the summary:

Here’s the Al from Boston Show (always a favorite)

If you watch the video, you would see this perp.

Great quote: “We use very little math. … We tend not to have things like stop-losses these tend not to be very good risk management tools.”

LOL

Caroline Ellison, another 28-year-old SBF protégé, Sam’s girlfriend, and already appears to be out of a job besides facing a criminal investigation.

Reportedly a Harry Potter fan.

Ellison was CEO of Alameda Research, which is being wound down as of this afternoon. Alameda was a crypto market maker with a reputation for aggressive trading strategies.

Here’s a softball interview: https://blog.liquid.com/women-in-crypto-caroline-ellison

She doesn’t seem to have had a huge amount of experience prior to running a firm with an alleged $10bn of money sloshing around.

If the name “Ellison” sounds familiar, maybe you’re thinking of the Glenn Ellison, Gregory K. Palm Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an Elected Fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory and American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

And if that name sounds familiar, you may recall he was the boss of Gary Genslar before he joined the Biden Regime as Chairman of the CFTC.

Who is “allegedly” behind the entire enterprise?