• Commentary,  Cryptocurrencies,  People

    :( , of, oof – don’t think I have anything particular?

    The banality of Bankman-Fried and his FTX/Alameda cozeners

    Political philosopher Hannah Arendt’s 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil became a classic in part by introducing the concept in noted its subtitle. She argued that the full context of Eichmann’s actions in helping organize and carry out the Holocaust weren’t fully elucidated by his trial, which thus obscured, “the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us—the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil”. Not to say that what FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is currently on trial for rises to the level of evil, but I’ve been struck over and over by the banality and seemingly utter disregard for…

  • Bitcoin,  Ethereum

    On Eve of SBF Trial, Stolen FTX Funds On the Move

    FTX hacker transfers funds for first time since weeks after the November 2022 exploit

    As Sam Bankman-Fried, disgraced founder of crypto exchange FTX, sits in a jail cell in Brooklyn’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center awaiting the start of his trial on Tuesday for seven counts of fraud and conspiracy, funds that were stolen from FTX in a hack hours after the firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last November have moved for the first time in more than 9 months. Not only was the FTX collapse already one of the most stunning debacles in the long history of financial disasters, the siphoning of $600 million in funds from the company’s crypto wallets added insult to injury and led to speculation that company insiders were absconding…

  • Keeping crypto in a piggy bank is still safer than many exchanges (via Shutterstock).
    Cryptocurrencies

    Crypto firms may not remain banking pariahs forever

    Senate, Federal Reserve express interest in crypto banking regulations; financial institutions’ patents say they are also interested

    When it comes to getting a bank account, cryptocurrency and blockchain firms are being treated like marijuana sellers. That may not be a bad thing.