Search the Community

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried diverted customer funds from the start of his cryptocurrency exchange to support his hedge fund, Alameda Research, and to make venture investments, real-estate purchases and political donations, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. "Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto," said SEC Chair Gary Gensler in a statement. Mr. Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday in the Bahamas. The arrest was made based on a sealed indictment filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office Southern District of New York, the U.S. attorney said. The charges in the indictment include wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and money laundering The SEC lawsuit and the arrest are the latest bombshells in a case that has transfixed Wall Street and Washington. FTX, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, filed for bankruptcy last month after it ran out of cash and rival Binance walked away from a shotgun merger. https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/sam-bankman-fried-arrested-ftx-congress

I give it six months before Bitcoin is just a thing of the past. Several exchange nodes have been hit via cyberattacks. This is the most damaging attack on the currency system. I had predicted this to my friends, and looks like the prediction is coming true. I had a feeling if the currency was to fail or encounter major problems, it is not with the currency itself but the infrastructure and systems on which it is built is vulnerable to cyber attacks. If you understand fiat money is based on nothing, bitcoin is based on even less. Now about 750,000 bitcoins could potentially be lost. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/mt-gox-shutdown-a-major-blow-for-bitcoin-1.2550256 This is the equivalent of a 'bank holiday'. A run on the exchanges would crash the value of the currency, so to prevent that, deny people access to their money. The attack on bitcoin has been global. China shut down exchanges operating out of China associated with Bitcoin. Leaving the Silk Road aside, people flocked to Bitcoin because it circumnavigates all main stream banks. No or very small fees, anonymity in exchange, no tax. I see this as a systematic attack from the banks on the Bitcoin exchanges as they have the most to lose with people moving to cryptocurrencies. Governments hate it because they cannot control it or tax it. Once they do they have to start treating it like a legitimate form of currency. The banks do NOT want this kind of thing to happen. So anyways, Bitcoin will die, but as a result I still consider it a success.