The tale of Bitcoin has surely had its fair proportion of nefarious characters, criminality, dangerous haircuts and worse wardrobes, and but our anti-hero du jour has appeared to outdo all of them. Sam Bankman-Fried, higher recognized by means of the 3 letter acronym SBF, burst onto the scene on the top of the 2017 bubble, founding Alameda Analysis that September, simply 4 years after graduating from an internship right into a full-time place at one of the most global’s greatest marketplace makers, Jane Boulevard Capital.
SBF is the son of Stanford Regulation professor and founding father of left-wing tremendous PAC Thoughts The Hole, Barbara Fried, and Stanford professor Joseph Bankman, a professional on tax safe haven regulations and authorities legislation. At first of 2018, SBF had struck electronic gold whilst profiting from the arbitrage alternative presenting itself between the next call for for bitcoin within the Asian marketplace, colloquially referred to as the “kimchi top rate”. Via the tip of the yr, and after gathering a substantial fortune from this high-volume bitcoin/greenback unfold, he formally moved to Hong Kong, officially founding the derivatives change FTX within the following spring.
The Bitcoin community that SBF rode from rags to riches and again once more used to be in part introduced in direct reaction to the fiat cash experiment rearing its unsightly head within the subprime loan, actual property and eurodollar crises that culminated into what is referred to now because the Nice Monetary Disaster of 2007 to 2009.
“??EThe Instances 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on breaking point of moment bailout for banks%”
– Satoshi Nakamoto, January 3, 2009
This now notorious inscription within the genesis block made transparent the beside the point fractional reserve banking and predatory mortgage fiascos of our regulated banking business used to be to be put to relaxation as soon as and for all by means of this emergent financial protocol; an absolutely clear and decentralized ledger would de-incentivize fraud and save you obfuscation of illicit task. A brand new competitor to the greenback arose from the ashes of the meltdown, and with it, a brand new usual for economic equity, whole with predictable issuance, managed as soon as and for all by means of the folks for the folks. But in any machine made with just right intentions, criminals like SBF and his bought-and-paid-for political and media allies arrange to give you the chance to harm blameless folks for the good thing about an unknown few. Like maximum intriguing tales of fraudulent economic crimes, this one begins within the Bahamas, and ends with a tidal wave of asset liquidations and damaged properties.
“Should you assume the Bahamas has ruined your international tax machine, you will have a sexy horrible international tax machine.”
– Steven Dean, Summer season 2020 [1]
Launching The Stablecoin, CBDC Race To The Backside
The Bahamas turns out harmless sufficient, and but there’s a lengthy historical past of U.S. tax avoidance, whole with rum-running bootleggers all through the prohibition technology. Proceeding this custom, the Caribbean banking facilities, together with the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands, as of August 2022, have been the fourth-largest overseas holders of treasury securities, in the back of simplest Japan, China and the U.Okay. In a while after the time of its founding, FTX used to be absolutely profiting from the loose cash technology that started with the 2008 crash and used to be sustained by means of low-to-zero rates of interest introduced upon by means of the Trump management.
Those fee cuts have been began by means of the Trump-nominated and Biden-renominated Jerome Powell and have been additional exacerbated by means of either one of their administrations’ COVID responses. An remarkable pumping of all issues greenback denominated befell, with actual property, inventory indexes, bitcoin and an entire bunch of unregistered securities referred to as altcoins attaining new highs around the board. In June 2019, one month after the founding of FTX, Fb’s Mark Zuckerberg introduced Libra, a electronic forex according to a basket of foreign currencies; a unique tackle stablecoins. This introduced the stablecoin and CBDC race in earnest, and coincidentally sufficient, the Central Financial institution of the Bahamas turned the primary such establishment to announce its personal CBDC, the sand greenback, in October 2020. The sand greenback itself used to be pegged to the Bahamian greenback, which is itself pegged to the US greenback, and thus with its government-sanctioned release, the delivery of the primary central bank-issued stablecoin greenback got here to be at the sandy seashores of SBF’s new house.
“What’s the reserve forex of the crypto economic system going to be? At the moment it is unambiguously the USD. And apparently it is USD whether or not or now not you are looking on the American crypto economic system.”
– Sam Bankman-Fried, November 5, 2021
Whilst the U.S. authorities feigned concern of systemic chance on the time, the Chinese language authorities understood the Libra undertaking to be a backdoor dollarization of the G7 currencies rumored to be integrated in its basket. A Metaverse-held take at the 1985 Plaza Accord, this plan of coordinated central banking would unfold USD community customers around the web’s largest community, accelerated by means of the excessive pace out there in centralized electronic bills and globalized by means of the without boundaries nature of the Fb person base.
The electronic yuan used to be trialed in April 2021 with super haste in response to this construction, and by means of the Wintry weather Olympics 2022, had introduced for overseas attendees in Beijing. To not be outdone by means of those new-look, same-shit fiat cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin made its personal economic historical past when President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador took to the degree at Bitcoin 2021 to announce the criminal soft aspirations of his small however dollarized country. On March 9, 2022 President Joe Biden signed Government Order #14067–”Making sure Accountable Building of Virtual Belongings”, which integrated aspirations for mitigation of monetary dangers in electronic asset markets, in addition to a clause pointing out that inside of 210 days, the lawyer common, in session with the secretary of the treasury and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, will have to supply a proper proposal for a government-issued CBDC.
Via this level, the Bitcoin economic machine were completely and correctly dollar-ified, with billions of greenbacks in liquidity of dollar-denominated buying and selling pairs making up the lion’s proportion of marketplace task. The similar can also be mentioned for the Ethereum community, which has observed its compliance-driven perversion by means of non-native sources taking the wheel from its token Ether, as stablecoin and different greenback derivatives now uphold nearly all of financial weight of the machine. Each stablecoin giants Circle, issuer of USDC, and Tether got here out in help of the merge, additional ossifying their stake within the now-nearly-70%-OFAC-compliant blockchain. [2] As of this text’s writing, over 15.5 million ether are these days staked with out energetic withdrawals within the Ethereum 2.0 beacon chain, value practically $18 billion bucks.[3] Thankfully for Bitcoin, the consensus weight of its machine isn’t manipulated by means of person stake, and thus the Bitcoin marketplace has been reputedly unaffected – negatively anyway – by means of this decade-long construction. A minimum of till scammer Do Kwon and his ponzi-scheme Luna wreaked havoc on traders firstly of Would possibly of 2022.
“[Crypto is] clearly severe…you wish to have to do proper by means of it within the regulatory house.”
– President Invoice Clinton, April 27, 2022 (Allegedly) [4]
Contagion Spreads
Only some weeks after SBF hosted a keynote with former U.Okay. Top Minister Tony Blair and President Invoice Clinton on the FTX-organized Crypto Bahamas convention, one of the most largest-ever over the counter bitcoin purchases used to be introduced by means of the LUNA workforce.
Terraform Labs and the non-profit Luna Basis Guard, two entities headed by means of Do Kwon, had begun a marketing campaign to acquire bitcoin as a reserve asset within the match that their algorithmic stablecoin, UST, deviated from its $1 peg. In a while sooner than their cave in, the plan had ballooned to the lofty function of stacking over $10 billion within the toughest recognized electronic commodity recognized to guy. This acquire used to be financed with 3 Arrows Capital, or 3AC, and used to be facilitated by means of cryptocurrency dealer Genesis.
“Terra’s exceptional enlargement has often reshaped crypto markets during the last two years”, mentioned Joshua Lim, head of derivatives at Genesis. “Genesis is worked up to be a liquidity spouse to the Terra ecosystem, connecting it to a broader target audience of institutional marketplace individuals.”
With the bitcoin reserves of Luna Basis Guard totalling 80,394 BTC, valued at over $3.1 billion on Would possibly 5, 2022, this acquire positioned LFG some of the top-10 bitcoin holders on the planet. [5] However just for a second, for whilst it could really feel like a life-time in the past, what came about subsequent must appearance awfully acquainted; the peg used to be attacked, the recently-purchased bitcoin fortune used to be liquidated, Binance, led by means of CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ), aptly halted all buying and selling on LUNA and UST pairs – with notable exceptions to their very own stablecoin BUSD – and Kwon reputedly fled to outdoor of U.S. jurisdiction to Asia. [6]
Thus starts our first of many repeatable issues of inquiry; the place precisely did this bitcoin move? Consistent with an audit launched in November 2022, over 33,000 bitcoin have been transferred to Binance on Would possibly 10, 2022, and offered at the side of different sources whilst failing to shield the peg. [7] The similar day the practically $1 billion bucks value of bitcoin hit Binance’s order books, bitcoin’s USD value broke underneath $30,000, falling from $40,000 only a week sooner than.
On Would possibly 13, SBF bought a 7.6% stake in Robinhood, the buying and selling platform that got here beneath scrutiny for halting buying and selling all through the GameStop fiasco in early 2021. Bloomberg had reported that round 40% of Robinhood’s income got here without delay from promoting shoppers orders to corporations comparable to Two Sigma Securities, and Fortress Securities. [8] Fortress were fined $700,000 in July 2020 for entrance working trades positioned by means of shoppers orders, and in September of that very same yr, Robinhood itself used to be wondered by means of the U.S. Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) for improperly informing purchasers of marketing inventory trades to recognized high-frequency buying and selling corporations.
Prior to now in December 2020, Robinhood had agreed to pay $65 million to settle fees of repeated misstatements for failure to expose their receipts of bills from mentioned buying and selling corporations. [9] When newly-nominated Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen briefed newly-elected President Joe Biden in this warfare of hobby in February 2021, she herself needed to achieve an ethics waiver because of having gained a minimum of $700,000 in speaker charges from Fortress LLC the yr prior. [10] SBF had disclosed this acquire by the use of a filed Time table 13-D shape with the SEC, costing $648.3 billion bucks and giving him 2.8% balloting energy of their dual-class proportion construction, beneath the entity Emergent Constancy Applied sciences; a reputation mentioned to be randomly generated. [11]
“On July 13, Coinbase Trade will probably be unifying USD and USDC order books. As a part of the unification procedure, USDC order books will probably be merged beneath USD order books to create a greater, extra seamless buying and selling enjoy with deeper liquidity for USD and USDC.”
– Coinbase Trade Twitter, June 29, 2022 [12]
Circle, the entity in the back of the an increasing number of applied USDC stablecoin, had prior to now expanded their foreign choices with a subsidiary operation founded in Bermuda with a statement made on July 22, 2019. [13] This entity, filed beneath the Virtual Belongings Industry Act of 2018 (“DABA”) intended that Circle used to be the primary main stablecoin issuer to obtain a Magnificence F (“Complete”) DABA license that lined their operation of custody, fee facilities, change, buying and selling and extra economic facilities throughout the electronic asset realm. Circle’s different banking companions, Signet, Signature Financial institution and Silvergate Capital had made USD loans to Celsius, Voyager, Block Fi, 3 Arrows Capital and Alameda Analysis. By the point this text used to be written, all had filed for financial disaster. Two in their different enterprise associates, Galaxy Virtual and Genesis, have additionally reported huge losses within the FTX cave in, with rumors of additional contagion results coming. Coinbase, a publicly-traded change beneath the ticker $COIN, introduced in its Q2 2022 shareholder letter that just about one 3rd of general income used to be derived from hobby on USD-denominated holdings, together with a big USDC place:
“Passion source of revenue used to be $33 million, up 211% in comparison to Q1. The rise used to be essentially pushed by means of our USDC task, in addition to upper rates of interest as we generate hobby on fiat buyer custodial price range… on the finish of Q2, we had $6.2 billion in general $USD sources. As well as, we had $428 million of crypto sources.” [14]
When the letter used to be launched in past due August 2022, hobby on USDC holdings for three hundred and sixty five days used to be as much as 4.7%, whilst one-month yields have been a fair 4%. Via November 16, 2022, USDC yields have been all the way down to 0% throughout all time frames.[15]
“1) Binance converts USDC –> BUSD, and we see the exchange in provides. Thus starts the 2nd Nice Stablecoin Warfare.”
– @SBF, October 23, 2022 [16]
On September 4, 2022, Binance introduced that it will be auto-converting all USDC, USDP and TUSD, 3 main greenback stablecoins, into its self-issued BUSD, efficient in simply 25 days. [17] This resulted in persevered issues about Binance’s solvency with the previous few months, particularly July 2022, seeing the biggest recognized outflows of bitcoin within the change’s historical past, eclipsing even March 2020’s black swan backside.
On October 11, 216 days after Biden’s govt order with the aforementioned 210-day clause, BNY Mellon, the sector’s greatest custodian financial institution with over $43 trillion at the books, and coincidentally, the custodian of Circle’s reserves backing USDC, introduced the release of its electronic asset custody program. [18] Concerned with greater than 20% of the sector’s investable sources, the financial institution based by means of the primary secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, used to be additionally indexed as a spouse within the FedNow pilot. [19]
Regardless of those institutional trends, a persevered undergo marketplace weighed closely at the now-plummeting bitcoin value. Satirically, increasingly Bitcoin hash fee poured onto the community. Those concurrent actions noticed Bitcoin’s hash value plummet to an rock bottom, spurring an enormous liquidation of bitcoin liabilities off mining operators books. On October 26, Core Clinical, then the biggest Bitcoin mining operation on the planet, filed for financial disaster with thousands and thousands of greenbacks in debt liabilities, 1000’s of ASICs, and but of their filings, held simplest 24 bitcoin general when the circus got here to the town. [20] The place precisely did all this bitcoin move? On that very same day, slightly two weeks sooner than the FTX cave in, Binance noticed its greatest unmarried day outflow, with 71,579 cash, totalling over $1.1 billion in greenback phrases. [21] This driven web outflows to almost 95,000 cash from the sector’s greatest change since simply that July. Once more, the place precisely did all this bitcoin move? The very subsequent day, October 27, 2022, SBF gave the impression on The Large Whale and introduced long term plans for FTX to release its very personal stablecoin. [22]
Extra Sand Than Greenbacks
“CIA and Mossad and pedo elite are working some roughly intercourse trafficking entrapment blackmail ring out of Puerto Rico and caribbean islands. They’re going to body me with a pc planted by means of my ex gf who used to be a undercover agent. They’re going to torture me to loss of life.”
– Nikolai Muchgian, October 28, 2022 [23]
On October 24, 2022, the MakerDAO licensed a neighborhood proposal to custody practically $1.6 billion USDC with Coinbase Top. [24] 4 days later, Nikolai Muchigan, the co-founder of MakerDAO and inventor of Rai, a DAI-fork stablecoin, tweeted that his lifestyles used to be at risk because of a Caribbean island blackmail ring, supposedly subsidized by means of Israeli and U.S. intelligence brokers. 3 days later, on Halloween, the 29-year-old coder Muchigan used to be discovered lifeless, having drowned within the sea off Condado Seashore in Puerto Rico. [25]
Two days later, on November 2, 2022, CoinDesk reporter Ian Allison launched findings that over a 3rd of all sources – round $5.8 billion of $14.6 billion – at the steadiness sheet of SBF’s Alameda Analysis used to be intrinsically, and shortly to be fatally, related to FTX’s change token FTT. A “financial institution” run commenced, and after 3 days of practically $6 billion in withdrawals, FTX used to be left with actually one unmarried bitcoin. The place precisely did all this bitcoin move? Tomorrow in an interview with Fortune, Coinbase founder and CEO Brian Armstrong made be aware that USDC will grow to be the de facto central financial institution electronic forex within the U.S. [26]
“The policymakers within the U.S. will set the framework that want to be adopted in order that the non-public marketplace will in fact create the answers, and USD coin has been on a truly fast upward thrust… the regulatory surroundings is likely one of the largest unlocks we’re going to have in the case of rising this business and even perhaps getting the costs to return up in the proper course”
– Brian Armstrong, November 3, 2022
On November 6, CZ introduced Binance would liquidate a closing portion of FTT it had bought from exiting FTX’s fairness, having gained round $2.1 billion in BUSD and FTT. Mins after his announcement, Caroline Ellison, SBF’s spouse and the CEO of Alameda Analysis, presented to buy the tokens at $22 each and every, in an over the counter style. [27] Via November 8, CZ and SBF had a telephone name and reputedly got here to a tentative deal for acquisition, booking the proper to again out of the deal at any time, whilst apparently additionally leaving each U.S.-based proprietary exchanges, Binance.us and FTX.us, outdoor the scope of the deal.
“Issues have come complete circle, and FTX.com’s first, and closing, traders are the similar: we’ve got come to an settlement on a strategic transaction with Binance for FTX.com (pending DD and many others)”, SBF tweeted. [28]
Later that night, FTX formally suspended all asset withdrawals. As a part of the prerequisites of the purchase, SBF used to be compelled to open the FTX books and display the ground of his wallet; seeing extra sand than bucks, CZ subsidized out of the deal. A couple of essential statements have been made within the 48 hours or in order that led as much as this surprising cataclysm, together with from the awfully-quiet U.S. Securities and Trade Fee itself.
“Liquidating our FTT is solely post-exit chance control, finding out from LUNA. We gave help sooner than, however we would possibly not faux to make love after divorce. We aren’t in opposition to any person. However we would possibly not help individuals who foyer in opposition to different business avid gamers in the back of their backs. Onwards.”
– CZ, November 6, 2022 [29]
On November 7, 2022, the SEC formally deemed LBRY, or Library Coin, an unregistered safety providing, surroundings a devastating precedent during the prolonged cryptocurrency marketplace. [30] In the US District Courtroom for the District of New Hampshire, the memorandum and order learn, “The Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) contends that LBRY, Inc. presented and offered unregistered securities in violation of Phase 5 of the Securities Act of 1933”, the act colloquially referred to as The Howey Take a look at.
Because of LBRY booking a pre-mine of practically 400 million LBC tokens, and the information that the corporate to this point had spent roughly part of its pre-mined LBC, the SEC decided commonplace endeavor whole with a loss of disclosure and right kind submitting of its now alleged safety providing thru required channels within the Gary Gensler-chaired SEC. The consequences of this submitting despatched shockwaves around the pre-mined token business, together with exchanges record those tokens in addition to the entities in the back of their issuance. Comfortably, the following day used to be November 8, the US’ midterm elections, with the steadiness of the senate and the home — and most likely the regulatory trail of the electronic asset business — as soon as once more at stake.
Looking for FTX on FEC.gov brings up 456 particular person marketing campaign contributions from SBF, CEO Ryan Salame, and others. [31] Salame’s contributions general over $14 million against GOP applicants, whilst SBF’s “efficient altruism” contributed over $20 million in donations to DNC politicians. Having been the second one main donor to the Biden marketing campaign, by the point the overall tallies from election evening rolled in, SBF’s bankroll had in the end stuck up along with his morals, and he discovered himself practically totally bankrupt.
Via November 9, the day after the elections, SBF had reportedly misplaced 94% of his web value, all the way down to $1 billion from greater than $15 billion, leaving him with the biggest single-day loss by means of an individual in line with the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. [32] Early within the morning of November 10, SBF took to Twitter to give an explanation for what came about, writing “I am sorry. That is the largest factor. I fucked up, and must have executed higher”, sooner than making a selected be aware that “THIS IS ALL ABOUT FTX INTERNATIONAL, THE NON-US EXCHANGE. FTX US USERS ARE FINE!” [33]
Bankruptcy 11
“The management […] has persistently maintained that with out right kind oversight, cryptocurrencies chance harming on a regular basis American citizens…The newest information additional underscores those issues and highlights why prudent legislation of cryptocurrencies is certainly obligatory.”
– White Space Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, November 10, 2022 [34]
At the 11th day of the 11th month, FTX and Alameda Analysis formally filed for Bankruptcy 11 financial disaster coverage, and SBF stepped down as CEO. As well as, 130 affiliated corporations attached or related to FTX additionally commenced voluntary complaints beneath Bankruptcy 11. [35] The tide had long gone out, and practically everybody concerned were given stuck swimming bare, as a near-endless tidal wave of dollar-denominated liquidations made fast paintings of SBF’s Caribbean empire.
Whilst the primary trickles of a greenback CBDC will have began within the Bahamas, the monsoon of coming legislation and contagion of the 2nd Nice Stablecoin Warfare is a ways from over. The greenback, having fallen 10% off 35-year DXY highs since September, seems to be for brand new techniques to innovate and additional dollarize markets around the globe.
On November 15, simply 4 days after the SBF tsunami crashed to shore, BNY Mellon, in addition to a dozen or so different banking establishments, introduced the beginning of a twelve-week electronic greenback pilot program with the Federal Reserve Financial institution of New York. [36] On the exact same day, BlockFi introduced plans for financial disaster filings, simplest 5 months after taking a $250 million mortgage from FTX, and Circle introduced customers would now be capable of settle bills by means of accepting Apple Pay. [37,38] With a vital 43% bargain now appearing at the highly-regulated Grayscale Bitcoin Agree with, additional neighborhood requests for evidence of reserves are rising round Genesis and Grayscale, each owned by means of the Virtual Forex Team, or even their custodian, Coinbase Custody. [39,40] As of this writing, those requests have thus far been denied for safety causes.
Whilst showing to be driving the wave of the booming electronic asset revolution, amassing celeb endorsements and political allies alike, it seems SBF used to be drowning in debt and capital misallocation among the loud, mainstream reward. Later that month, on November 30, SBF used to be set to look in particular person at a New York Instances match, subsidized by means of Accenture, along Secretary Yellen, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, TikTok CEO Shou Chunk, former Vice President Michael Pence, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings, New York Town Mayor Eric Adams, and others; tickets for the development have been indexed at $2,499 in line with attendee.[41] The interview between SBF and Andrew Ross Sorkin used to be streamed as marketed, albeit with each events taking pictures remotely.
Bitcoin has a tendency to be a ballast of fact, bringing all kinds of ballooning fraud dashing to the skin. FTX and Alameda Analysis will take their position among the reputedly too-big-to-sink avid gamers that ended up doing simply that. They’re going to in no way be the closing. Alternatively the next weeks, months, and years play out, it’s transparent that SBF used to be however a small fish in an ocean-sized, dollarized pond. And as he temporarily came upon, there may be all the time a larger fish.
“Sooner or later I may have extra to mention a couple of specific sparring spouse, to be able to talk. However you already know, glass homes. So for now, all I’ll say is: neatly performed; you gained.” [42]
– Sam Bankman-Fried, November 10, 2022
ENDNOTES:
[2]https://fortune.com/2022/08/09/stablecoins-circle-tether-support-ethereum-merge-proof-of-stake
[3]https://ethereumprice.org/eth-2-deposits/
[5]https://bitcoinmagazine.com/enterprise/luna-foundation-now-holds-more-bitcoin-than-tesla
[6]https://www.yahoo.com/leisure/binance-remove-trading-pairs-ftx-114338983.html
[9]https://www.sec.gov/information/press-release/2020-321
[11] https://www.axios.com/2022/05/13/what-does-sam-bankman-fried-want-with-robinhood
[12]https://twitter.com/CoinbaseExch/standing/1542270332299579396?s=20&t=3qAy3oJqtmMnLdfwk-JTJA
[13]https://www.circle.com/weblog/circle-expands-international-offerings-with-new-bermuda-operations-and-digital-assets-business-license
[14]https://s27.q4cdn.com/397450999/information/doc_financials/2022/q2/Q2-2022-Shareholder-Letter.pdf
[15]https://www.circle.com/en/usdc-yield#get started
[16]https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/standing/1584077423280521216?s=20&t=UB_GcB9mjBRJtNS8sS4RJQ
[21]https://bitcoinke.io/2022/11/largest-bitcoin-outflow-on-binance/
[22]https://finance.yahoo.com/information/sbf-ftx-stablecoin-second-great-055956820.html
[23]https://twitter.com/delete_shitcoin/standing/1585918718088970241
[24]https://www.coinbase.com/weblog/coinbase-launches-usdc-institutional-rewards-program-with-makerdao
[25]https://www.trustnodes.com/2022/10/31/etherean-nikolai-muchgian-dead-by-drowning
[26]https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/11/03/coinbase-ceo-says-usdc-will-become-de-facto-cbdc/
[27]https://twitter.com/carolinecapital/standing/1589287457975304193
[28]https://www.binance.com/en/information/flash/7268278
[29]https://twitter.com/cz_binance/standing/1589374530413215744
[30]https://odysee.com/@lbry:3f/secvslbrysummaryjudgementruling:a
[31]https://www.fec.gov/knowledge/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_employer=FTX
[32]https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/enterprise/sam-bankman-fried-wealth-ftx-ctrp/index.html
[33]https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/standing/1590709166515310593
[35]https://cryptopotato.com/ftx-and-alameda-file-for-bankruptcy-sbf-resigns-as-ceo/
[36]https://markets.businessinsider.com/information/currencies/digital-dollar-wall-street-banks-new-york-fed-ftx-crash-2022-11?miRedirects=1&op=1
[38]https://www.circle.com/weblog/apple-pay-is-now-available-on-circle
[39]https://information.yahoo.com/grayscale-bitcoin-trust-hits-record-132435240.html
[40]https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-11-18-2022/card/coinbase-vouches-for-grayscale-investments-products-yA5vzaPEIvaOr7Ffj2GE
[41]https://www.nytco.com/press/the-new-york-times-to-host-annual-dealbook-summit-on-nov-30/
[42]https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/standing/1590709197502812160
