Former Obama economist and Harvard College President Lawrence Summers says that the FTX meltdown whiffs on an Enron-like scandal.
“Lots of people have in contrast this to Lehman. I might examine it to Enron,” Summers advised Bloomberg Tv’s “Wall Road Week” with David Westin. “The neatest guys within the room. Not simply monetary error however — actually from the stories — whiffs of fraud. Stadium namings very early in an organization’s historical past. Huge explosion of wealth that no one fairly understands the place it comes from.”
Lehman, Enron? How about Solyndra, one of many greatest political boondoggles in US historical past.
About two years after the Obama administration co-signed $535 million loans to Solyndra, the corporate filed for chapter on September 1, 2011. A 2015 report from the Division of Power discovered main flaws in Solyndra’s enterprise practices and claimed the corporate made “inaccurate and deceptive” statements to acquire the mortgage ensures, and likewise discovered fault with Division of Power oversight.
Which brings us to FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried (the son of Stanford legislation professor Barbara Fried and co-founder of the political fundraising group Thoughts the Hole, which advocates for progressive political candidates and funds get-out-the-vote teams). Sam Bankman-Fried was a giant Biden donor. What are the percentages that The Federal authorities will impartially examine SBF and the FTX fiasco? ZERO!
Why did FTX run into bother?
FTX has a local cryptocurrency token known as FTT, which merchants use for operations like paying transaction charges. Final yr, Mr. Zhao bought his stake in FTX again to Mr. Bankman-Fried, who paid for it partially with FTT tokens.
On Nov. 2, the crypto publication CoinDesk reported on a leaked doc that appeared to point out that Alameda Analysis, a hedge fund run by Mr. Bankman-Fried, held an unusually great amount of FTT tokens. FTX and Alameda are supposed to be separate companies, however the report claimed that they’d shut monetary ties.
Binance introduced on Nov. 6 that it could promote its FTT tokens “on account of latest revelations.” In response, FTT’s worth plummeted and merchants rushed to drag out of FTX, fearful that it could be one more fallen crypto firm.
FTX scrambled to course of requests for withdrawals, which amounted to an estimated $6 billion over three days. It appeared to enter a liquidity crunch, that means it lacked the cash to meet requests.
How did Binance intervene?
On Tuesday, Binance stated it had reached an settlement to bail out FTX by shopping for the corporate. However, Mr. Zhao added within the announcement, “Binance has the discretion to drag out from the deal at any time.”
In a concurrent announcement, Mr. Bankman-Fried stated the deal would shield clients and permit FTX to complete processing their withdrawals. He tried to dispel rumors of battle between FTX and Binance, including, “we’re in one of the best of palms.”
His final quote made me giggle.
Bitcoin plunged one other -6% at this time as gold (gold line) and the S&P 500 (yellow line) rose. Ethical to the story? Nothing has been the identical since The Fed began tightening.
All cryptos are down at this time (besides Litecoin). The three greatest, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Binance Coin are all down over 5%.
Why does Sam Bankman-Fried remind me of the late John Belushi?
Right here is Sam Bankman-Fried defending his actions to his legislation professor Mother.
