Good day everyone,
I hope you are all well and had an excellent day, welcome to CryptoGod-1's blog on all things crypto. Today I am going to be writing a piece on a very very interesting article I found online, and add my own take to the events that could be about to unfold from it all.
The Big Short
One of the most interesting films released regarding the financial crisis of 2007–08, the "Big Short" focuses on three groups who manage to profit off one of the biggest financial crashes in modern history. It makes use of unconventional techniques to explain high-frequency trading in the US financial market and how the stock market transformed from the world's most public and democratic financial market into nothing more than a rigged market. It was originally a book written by Michael Lewis and released in 2010, with the film released on December 11th, 2015 in the United States, and a worldwide release on the 23rd of December 2015. Michael Lewis was also the author of the book "Moneyball" which detailed how Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane used analytics to assemble a roster which challenged for the biggest prize in baseball.
Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and Friends
According to reports by the New York Post, Sam Bankman-Friend was visited for several hours by Michael Lewis last week. Currently SBF in under house arrest at his parents mansion in Palo Alto following the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange FTX. This meeting took place soon after SBF returned to the U.S. after being extradited from the Bahamas and released from a New York federal court on the 22nd of December 2022 under the conditions of a $250 million bail. While that amount was not paid, it was secured by his parents home in Palo Alto along with other types of collateral. It was also reported by Deadline last month that Apple was in the process of closing in on a deal for any rights to Lewis' eventual book on the fall of FTX and Bankman-Fried, with plans to turn it into a film.
This begs the question, should we be sensationalising this story? Should it be turned into a book in while SBF will earn money from the sales, or a film which will also see more money go back to the man who is accused of defrauding billions of dollars from customers? Many could argue this is the opposite of what should be happening, as it will being more wealth to a man who has seemingly done little to deserve it. While many publications were portraying SBF as a billionaire who made a mistake and deeply regretted it, the more information that comes to light on his actions makes it clearer he is not what he seemed.
One interesting meme which was going around online over the past month or so showed not just SBF, but Terra Luna creator Do Kwon, Michael Saylor, and even CZ from Binance in a parody of the Big Short 2, as shown in the image below. Seemingly, this might be closer to an actual movie than a viral meme after all. A more interesting note to consider is whether or not the fallout out crypto winter and exchanges crashing is over or not. With Celsius, Voyager, BlockFi, Alameda, Three Arrows, and FTX all falling on the crypto winter sword so far, questions will surround which if any CEX's will follow suit in 2023. Perhaps the overall cast of players in this move is not quite complete just yet. You can find the Reddit post of where I orginally found this image here: Reddit
Back to their Old Tricks?
Meanwhile, data has shown that Alameda Research, the bankrupt crypto trading firm originally set up by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), has seen activity on its wallets recently. These wallets have been seen on the Blockchain via Etherescan to be swapping Ethereum-based digital assets for Bitcoin. According to a tweet, as shown below, from on-chain analyst Miles Deutscher, these wallets have become active again since the disgraced FTX boss, SBF, returned home to living under house arrest with his parents.
Delving further in the transactions, the transactions have revolved around transferring the funds to “new fresh wallets” before then sending the funds onto two different crypto mixers, FixedFloat and ChangeNow. This allows for instant swaps of the tokens and attempts to hide the tracks of the transactions. The Data, as noted by data journalist at the on-chain data provider Nansen, shows the ERC-20 tokens being swapped for Bitcoin before being redistributed across four new wallet addresses. Roughly there have been around $800,000 worth of altcoins converted into 47.62882 BTC.
This comes off the back of the U.S. Treasury Department banning the popular crypto mixer, known as Tornado Cash, last month for being involved in the alleged use of the mixer by North Korean hackers who has so far mixed around $455 million worth of cryptocurrencies with the platform.
Interesting things are happening around SBF these days, that's for certain. Everyday he seems to be in the headlines, and it is unlikely that will end anytime soon. Does he deserve a book and potential movie made about his story? Will it be a warning to other, or just a sensationalised version of the truth. Either way it will bring SBF more money and even more fame, but as for now, he seems focused on getting as much funds out of Alameda wallets as possible. What, if any, repercussions will there be for these Alameda wallets suddenly becoming live once SBF got put under house arrest? Is this ethical or even legal? So many unanswered questions, and I am certain more will emerge in the weeks and moths, maybe even years, ahead.
On a closing note, this gave me a good laugh.
Peace. CryptoGod-1.
Referral links:
Publish0x - https://www.publish0x.com/?a=olejZqrzej
Binance - https://accounts.binance.com/en/register?ref=143611368
NFT Market Sales
OpenSea - https://opensea.io/RNabc
Follow Me :)
Twitter - @RNabc123
