I have been following SBF trials for a month and finally the jury reached a verdict after just 4 hours of deliberation. SBF was found guilty on all seven charges including
Wire fraud on FTX customers
Conspiracy to commit wire fraud on FTX customers
Wire fraud on Alameda Research lenders
Conspiracy to commit wire fraud on Alameda lenders
Conspiracy to commit securities fraud on FTX investors
Conspiracy to commit commodities fraud on FTX customers
Conspiracy to commit money laundering
I kinda expected the result because it feels like an open-and-shut case after all the testimonies and cross-examinations. He clearly rationalized his own behavior and thought he could gamble customer assets successfully without causing any harm. But then he f**ked up. It was not his intention to defraud customers, SBF said. Money is fungible. He was simply leveraging the assets at hand at the time to create more wealth so he could donate this money to save the world. It’s all for effective altruism. Therefore, he is not guilty. I am so glad the jury didn’t accept this twisted logic and quickly reached the verdict unanimously.
One new thing I learned from following this trial is that SBF could have built a legitimate crypto exchange business out of FTX because FTX alone made almost a billion dollars in 2021. But he chose to dip into customer assets to make illiquid startup investments, to pay back Binance and lenders for Alameda Research and to spend lavishly on real estate, sponsorships and political donations. Taking risks on customer assets for these activities seemed absurd. He already had like $1B to spend on these things but apparently that was not enough. My hypothesis is that he was addicted to being a king and made these choices to wield power and influence. If he had properly segregated customer assets according to the company's ToS, Alameda Research might have gone bankrupt but his reputation and FTX would have survived. His lack of respect for FTX customers is appalling. SBF dug his own grave and he only has himself to blame.
I wrote extensively about SBF’s moral deficiencies and intellectual naivete. I am so glad that this trial is over and I probably won’t write about him any more. I regained some faith in humanity and our justice system after the trial. But his ascent to the top was a cautionary tale. We need to ask ourselves why so many smart people got duped by this guy, how SBF became SBF given his privileged upbringing and why the main stream media seemed very protective of him even after FTX lost billions of customer assets.
The following is a collection of SBF posts I wrote in the past year. I think it’s a good representation of SBF’s moral and intellectual flaws and why I believe the utilitarian idea of making a lot of money through any means to save the world is a myth.