Alameda Archives | Protos https://protos.com/tag/alameda/ Informed crypto news Wed, 20 Nov 2024 16:49:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.6 https://protos-media.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/30110137/cropped-protos-favicon-32x32.png Alameda Archives | Protos https://protos.com/tag/alameda/ 32 32 CHART: FTX and Alameda execs get a total of 34.5 years in prison https://protos.com/chart-ftx-and-alameda-execs-get-a-total-of-34-5-years-in-prison/ Wed, 20 Nov 2024 16:30:13 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=80369 Five FTX and Alameda Research executives have now been sentenced, with only three of them expected to serve any time in prison.

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Today’s news that FTX co-founder Gary Wang has been sentenced to time served and supervised release for his role in the multi-billion dollar FTX fraud scheme means that only three of the five executives involved will serve any time in prison for their part in the theft.

Wang pleaded guilty to four counts — wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, and conspiracy to commit securities fraud — and was sentenced on Wednesday to time served and three years of supervised release on each.

The longest sentence was reserved for the mastermind of the theft, FTX founder and majority owner of Alameda Research Sam Bankman-Fried. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The second-longest sentence was handed to FTX Digital Markets Chief Executive Ryan Salame, who was sentenced to seven and a half years for his role in using customer funds for influence-purchasing political donations. 

Click to enlarge.

Read more: FTX sues Binance and CZ for ‘fraudulent tweets’ and $1.8B clawback

Caroline Ellison, the co-chief executive of Alameda Research and on-again-off-again romantic partner to Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to two years for charges of fraud and conspiracy, receiving substantial leniency thanks to her cooperation with prosecutors and law enforcement.

Wang, along with FTX’s Director of Engineering Nishad Singh, avoided prison time in their sentences, reflecting both their cooperation with the prosecution and their somewhat more peripheral role in the massive fraud. 

In total, this inner circle of FTX and Alameda executives have been sentenced to a total of 34.5 years in prison.

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Nishad Singh hopes to avoid prison in FTX case https://protos.com/nishad-singh-hopes-to-avoid-prison-in-ftx-case/ Thu, 17 Oct 2024 16:53:25 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=77755 Nishad Singh's team has submitted his sentencing submission, arguing that he should avoid prison due to his extensive cooperation.

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Nishad Singh, the former Director of Engineering at FTX, has filed a sentencing submission in his criminal case arguing that he should avoid prison in light of his extensive cooperation and smaller role than many of the conspirators in the fraud.

The documents detail Singh’s roles at Alameda Research and FTX, from almost the beginning of Alameda up until the firms plunged into a chaotic bankruptcy. They detail Singh’s narrative about how he was unaware of the misappropriation of customer funds at FTX until just months before the collapse, though this underplays his role in creating the infamous ‘allow negative’ years before. 

Singh, like other executives, also emphasized that it was recommended to him that he take large, poorly documented loans from Alameda instead of liquidating his tokens to fund his activities. Among his activities described as “regrettable” was the purchase of a multi-million dollar vacation home after he was aware of the theft occurring at FTX. 

Additionally, the document emphasizes how Singh was responsible for providing much of the documentary evidence that prosecutors relied on, including “taking screenshots of Signal messages” that provided context to the prosecution and at trial of the final days of FTX and Alameda.

Read more: CHART: Everyone sentenced from FTX and Alameda

This level of cooperation was recognized by other executives of FTX. Indeed, Ryan Salame once tweeted that Singh “absolutely wrecked him” but that he still had to acknowledge that Singh was “one of the most genuinely nice human beings I’ve ever met.”

This cooperation extended beyond FTX and Alameda Research to “virtual interviews with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding separate inquiries (nor directly related to FTX’s downfall) on three separate occasions, and produced documents in his possession relevant to those inquiries.

Also, just this month, Singh sat for a virtual interview with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to assist them with a separate, nonpublic investigation.”

This document, meant to gain Singh whatever leniency it can, repeatedly emphasized the purity of his intentions and his many good works. There are letters included from friends, family, and former FTX colleagues, many with stories of Singh’s generosity. 

The document also detailed how Singh tried to dissuade Sam Bankman-Fried from some of his more exceptional spending activities, including reportedly balking at the K5 investment deal and encouraging FTX to end the irresponsible FTX Earn lending program.

Singh’s sentencing is currently scheduled for October 30. 

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CHART: Everyone sentenced from FTX and Alameda https://protos.com/chart-everyone-sentenced-from-ftx-and-alameda/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 16:33:25 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=75905 Caroline Ellison is the third individual related to the collapse of FTX to be sentenced. Two others will learn their fate later this year.

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The latest FTX-related sentencing saw Caroline Ellison, the former co-CEO of Alameda Research, handed two years behind bars for her role in the exchange’s spectacular collapse. Ellison is expected to be in prison by November 7.

Ellison’s sentence was so lenient thanks to her lending the investigation her full cooperation. Indeed, the judge presiding over the case noted that he hadn’t seen a cooperator “quite like Ms. Ellison.”

However, he also made it clear that due to the severity of the case, remorse and cooperation aren’t a complete “get out of jail free card.” 

She had pleaded guilty to seven counts of fraud and conspiracy and became the third individual involved in FTX’s crimes to be jailed. 

Here’s a chart of every indicted FTX and Alameda official sentenced, or waiting to be sentenced. 

Read more: Which FTX and Alameda executives are going to prison and when?

Collectively, Sam Bankman-Fried, Ryan Salame, and Ellison are serving 34.5 years or 414 months. Gary Wang and Nishad Singh are due to be sentenced in the coming months having both testified against Bankman-Fried.

Wang, a former CTO at FTX and close friend of Bankman-Fried, cooperated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to four charges including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

Singh was FTX’s director of engineering and also cooperated with prosecutors. He pleaded guilty to six charges, including conspiracy to commit money laundering and make unlawful political contributions.

Both have stated that they hope to avoid jail time for their crimes. A whole raft of other individuals, including Bankman-Fried’s parents, lawyers believed to have known about criminal activity, and other execs, have also not been indicted.

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Which FTX and Alameda executives are going to prison and when? https://protos.com/which-ftx-and-alameda-executives-are-going-to-prison-and-when/ Fri, 09 Aug 2024 11:50:12 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=72436 Two FTX and Alameda Research executives have been sentenced to prison, two have their sentencings scheduled, and one has pleaded guilty.

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FTX and Alameda Research’s antics devastated the cryptocurrency ecosystem nearly two years ago when it was revealed by CoinDesk reporting that Alameda execs had used FTX as a piggy bank for their trading activities. 

Over the last two years, several of those executives have been charged with various crimes, and some have already been sentenced to prison, among them former FTX CEO and Alameda founder, Sam Bankman-Fried. 

Sam Bankman-Fried

Bankman-Fried was found guilty by a jury of his peers of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. 

He had previously been charged with other counts that have been dismissed, including conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, conspiracy to defraud the Federal Election Commission (FEC), conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud related to derivatives, and other charges.

Bankman-Fried has been sentenced to 25 years in prison, and according to the Bureau of Prisons website, he is currently held at Brooklyn MDC. 

Read more: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao sentenced to 4 months in prison

Ryan Salame

Ryan Salame, the former CEO of FTX DM, the Bahamas-based entity, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmission business and conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions.

Salame was originally meant to surrender on August 29, but after his face was damaged by a dog attack, he was given a 45-day continuance, pushing his surrender to October 13. 

Salame has repeatedly taken to X (formerly Twitter) since his guilty plea to try to proclaim his innocence, the guilt of lawyers, and his intention to reveal new information against the advice of his lawyers; so far, he has yet to present the information he claims will exonerate him of the crimes he pleaded guilty to.

Caroline Ellison

Caroline Ellison was the co-CEO of Alameda Research and the on-again, off-again sexual and romantic partner of Bankman-Fried. She cooperated with the investigation into Bankman-Fried and has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

She’s also been cooperating in the ongoing bankruptcy case, providing messages and testimony that have contributed to the various lawsuits filed by the debtors-in-possession. 

Ellison’s testimony was some of the most important for the prosecution, helping provide evidence of Bankman-Fried’s knowledge, both of the problems and of the legal impropriety. 

Her sentencing has yet to be scheduled. 

Read more: Has CZ followed a Solana news account while in prison?

Gary Wang

Zixiao ‘Gary’ Wang was a close friend of Bankman-Fried as well as co-founder and CTO of FTX. 

He has been cooperating with the prosecution of Bankman-Fried and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, and conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

Wang testified that Alameda Research was given special privileges on FTX as early as 2019 and noted that these enabled it to end up with a negative balance on the exchange almost immediately.

His sentencing has been scheduled for November 20. 

Nishad Singh

Nishad Singh was a co-founder and director of engineering for FTX.

He’s been cooperating with Bankman-Fried’s prosecution and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions.

Singh testified about how various loans and donations were structured, including a loan that was nominally to him but never hit his bank account. 

His sentencing has been scheduled for October 30.

Not yet indicted

Several of the individuals and executives who were closely connected to FTX and Alameda have so far avoided prosecution.

These include Bankman-Fried’s parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, who have been implicated in various parts of the operation of the firms in testimony and in a lawsuit filed by the debtors-in-possession of FTX. They allegedly received large payments, luxury real estate, and meetings with celebrities.

Constance Wang, the former chief operating officer of FTX, agreed to cooperate in Bankman-Fried’s prosecution, according to Michael Lewis in his book Going Infinite. Messages from Wang show a willingness to try to keep FTX running, even after it became obvious that funds were missing, telling Ryne Miller that “I don’t want to stop trying yet” on November 9, 2022. Wang has since joined Sino Global Capital, a fund that FTX invested in, which has since rebranded as Ryze Labs. 

Claire Watanabe was romantically involved with Singh and was also an FTX senior executive working in business development. Watanabe and Singh lived in an apartment with Bankman-Fried, Wang, and Ellison and was one of the executives who made large political donations, maximizing her donation to financial fraudster and likely Ponzi schemer George Santos. 

Ramnik Arora was the former head of product for FTX. Arora was also one of the executives who made large political donations, joining Watanabe in making the largest possible donation to Santos. Arora has since founded venture capital fund Original Capital. 

Sam Trabucco, the former co-CEO of Alameda Research who resigned months before the collapse, has mostly maintained a low profile. He briefly popped his head above water to write a letter in support of his close friend Salame, but other than that, has kept mostly to himself. 

Former lawyers, including Daniel Friedberg and Can Sun, have been named by various executives and lawsuits as being possibly aware of or connected to some of the criminal activities in these entities. Friedberg has been the target of a lawsuit by FTX debtors in possession who have alleged he helped pay off whistleblowers, approved loans to executives, and helped create North Dimension and North Wireless Dimension.

Friedberg has maintained that he was not aware of the issues that led to the FTX collapse, and Law360 reported that he was cooperating with the prosecution of Bankman-Fried. 

Can Sun, an FTX lawyer who worked with Friedberg at Fenwick, testified that Bankman-Fried misrepresented FTX’s financials to him. Bankman-Fried supposedly asked Sun to provide “a legal justification” for why billions in customer funds were missing, and Sun responded by providing various theoretical explanations that could have, but did not actually, explain it.

Sun testified under a grant of immunity and allegedly worked with Justin Sun and Tron on the attempted acquisition of TrueUSD. 

His LinkedIn states that he now works on legal and compliance for Backpack, a wallet founded by former Alameda developer Armani Ferrante. 

Salame has focused some of his X ire on Backpack, alleging that “they chose a lawyer who was at the absolute core of causing an insane amount of customer funds being stolen” and wondering aloud “how many executives at Backpack are taking out inter-company loans because the lawyer advised them to do that instead of selling off their own crypto. Hypothetical question of course.”

Read more: Ryan Salame is whitewashing his role at FTX and Alameda

Adam Yedidia, a former FTX developer and friend of Bankman-Fried, testified in Bankman-Fried’s trial that he became aware of a many-billion-dollar shortfall several months before FTX declared bankruptcy. He testified under the protection of an immunity order.

Two executives have been sentenced to prison, two others have their sentencing scheduled, one other pleaded guilty, and many others are still looking for opportunities to salvage their careers and reputations.

Update 2024-08-09 14:20 UTC: Corrected Joseph Bankman’s name, he was previously incorrectly identified as Joshua.

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Creditors due $12.7B from FTX and Alameda 21 months after bankruptcy https://protos.com/creditors-due-12-7b-from-ftx-and-alameda-21-months-after-bankruptcy/ Thu, 08 Aug 2024 10:44:58 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=72316 FTX and Alameda both agreed in July to pay creditors. However, this agreement was subject to yesterday's court verdict.

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A judge has ordered both FTX and its sister trading firm Alameda Research to pay out $12.7 billion to creditors following the conclusion of a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) lawsuit.

In an August 7 filing, New York district judge Peter Castel ruled that both collapsed crypto firms should pay a disgorgement of $8.7 billion to the victims who lost out, and $4 billion to cover the profits they made during all of their violations. 

Defendants, including FTX, Alameda, Caroline Ellison, Sam Bankman-Fried, Gary Wang, and any of their affiliates, are, according to yesterday’s consent order, also prohibited from trading any digital asset commodities, including, bitcoin, ether, and tether. They are also banned from acting as market intermediaries.

Read more: FTX-claims broker embezzled millions to spend on jewelry, art, and luxury hotels

FTX and Alameda had both agreed with the CFTC back in July to pay the billion-dollar settlement. However, this agreement was subject to yesterday’s court verdict.

It marks the end of a 20-month-long lawsuit from the CFTC that was filed in December 2022.

FTX collapsed and declared bankruptcy in November of that year after it was discovered to have misappropriated billions of dollars of funds. Its former CEO, Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to 25 years in prison this year for charges including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, and money laundering conspiracy.

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Crypto investors say Bitfinex, like Alameda, had negative balance override https://protos.com/investors-say-bitfinex-like-alameda-had-negative-balance-override/ Fri, 19 Jul 2024 12:27:59 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=70855 Plaintiffs in a New York lawsuit allege that Bitfinex extended special override privileges to an account that traded a lot of BTC and USDT.

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Bitfinex, like Alameda Research, allegedly permitted special customers to trade with negative account balances, according to a second amended consolidated class action complaint in the Southern District of New York. 

However, before comparing the negative balance override features of Bitfinex and Alameda, it’s important to contextualize this allegation.

Details about Bitfinex’s negative balance override comes from a lawsuit alleging a scheme involving the use of tether (USDT) to persist a price premium of bitcoin (BTC) on Bitfinex. Specifically, a class of harmed investors residing in the US claim that Bitfinex and Tether executives fraudulently inflated the price of bitcoin and other crypto assets by billions of dollars on the Bitfinex exchange for two years.

Class members who bought bitcoin on Bitfinex at artificially inflated prices and later sold bitcoin at natural market prices “were injured by the amount of the difference,” according to their complaint. As a class, they are seeking “actual damages, treble damages, injunctive relief, interest, reasonable expenses, and attorneys’ fees.”

From 2017 to 2019, it’s widely known that the price of bitcoin was curiously and consistently higher on Bitfinex relative to other exchanges. The class action alleges that this price premium was purposeful, incentivizing the dissemination of USDT around the world.

BitMEX Research chronicled the persistent BTC price premium on Bitfinex in 2018.

Specifically, plaintiffs claim, “Defendants had motive to inflate cryptocommodity prices — it inflated the value of their cryptocommodity holding, encouraged more trades on their Bitfinex exchange, and promoted the widespread adoption of USDT as a dollar-pegged stablecoin.”

Negative balance override

Given this context, Bitfinex’s ability to grant special privileges to traders on its exchange makes more sense.

According to plaintiffs’ complaints, Tether and Bitfinex executives were orchestrating an elaborate scheme to advertise Bitfinex by persisting irrationally high prices of bitcoin on Bitfinex while simultaneously promoting the dissemination of USDT onto third-party exchanges.

To accomplish the discrete series of market incentives for these flows of funds, modifying a special Bitfinex account to allow negative balances might have been a necessary tool in executives’ toolkits.

If true, the feature would have been similar to the negative balance override feature granted to Alameda’s accounts on FTX. From July 2019 through its bankruptcy in November 2022, Alameda traders like Caroline Ellison enjoyed a unique privilege — software code ​​’allow_negative’ — granted to no other account holders.

Alameda availed itself of this privilege to the tune of billions of ‘negative’ dollars. Its losses, in addition to the money Alameda Research stole from customers, ultimately led to the collapse and bankruptcy of the entire FTX ecosystem.

Read more: US authorities charge Sam Bankman-Fried with ‘massive’ fraud

Plaintiffs in the New York class action lawsuit allege that Bitfinex similarly extended special override privileges to a special account that traded a lot of bitcoin and USDT.

According to the complaint, Bitfinex, like FTX, used other customers’ coins to facilitate credit. Moreover, Bitfinex allegedly “placed accounts that were allowed to trade on credit on ‘safe liquidation mode’ so that they would not be liquidated even when they incurred a negative balance.”

It’s possible that FTX’s ‘allow_negative’ software code had equal power to Bitfinex’s ‘safe liquidation mode.’

Bitfinex, Tether, and the presumption of innocence

Of course, these allegations are only complaints from investors who have lost money. No court in the Southern District of New York has issued a final ruling on this lawsuit.

Even though this lawsuit is merely a non-criminal complaint seeking money and injunctions, the US court system generally emphasizes the presumption of innocence.

The presumption of innocence is a basic requirement of fair trials. It forces jurors to assume defendants are innocent unless prosecutors prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendants violated the law.

Because anyone may file a lawsuit containing any complaint, it’s irresponsible to assume any complaint is true merely because it appears in a court filing. It’s responsible to wait for rulings by a judge or jury before accepting any allegations as true.

Protos reached out to Bitfinex for comment but had not received a response prior to publication time.

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Edit 14:00 UTC, Jul 19: Edited headline for clarity to specify ‘crypto investors.’

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‘Dead’ Solana DeFi platform still holds $43M of Alameda Research funds https://protos.com/dead-solana-defi-platform-still-holds-43m-of-alameda-research-funds/ Fri, 05 Jul 2024 12:55:26 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=69815 Solana’s third largest perps platform, 01 Exchange, is a ‘dead’ project but holds $43M mostly made of neglected Alameda Research funds.

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Over the past few weeks, Solana has been dominated by a series of quick celebrity-endorsed cash grabs, in a memecoin frenzy that refuses to run out of steam.

Kicked off by WIF, BONK, and a variety of political-themed tokens — which are generally down from their peaks in early spring — Solana’s meme coin launchpad pump.fun is still seeing plenty of action, raking in more fees than the entire Ethereum network earlier this week.

Read more: $10M accidentally burned as Solana memecoin craze continues

More recently, the focus has been on so-called ‘celebcoins,’ which may or may not be endorsed by their namesake. Caitlyn Jenner’s JENNER token began the trend before Iggy Azalea’s MOTHER reached a market cap of over $100 million. Other tokens were promoted via apparent hacks of celebrity social media accounts.

All this activity has eclipsed Solana’s once-promising offering of decentralized finance (DeFi) projects that include lending protocols, decentralized exchanges, and derivatives trading platforms.

Ignoring liquid staking platforms, which simply wrap staked SOL, the total value locked (TVL) of the top three in each of the above categories amounts to around $3.5 billion, according to data from DeFiLlama. The equivalent selection of protocols on Ethereum mainnet total over $25 billion in TVL.

Of the Solana-based examples, though, one protocol stands out in particular.

As noted by X (formerly Twitter) user YouAreMyYield, Solana’s third largest perps platform, 01 Exchange, is in fact a ‘dead’ project, despite still holding $43 million in TVL, mostly made up of neglected Alameda Research funds.

Read more: Solana ‘only’ down for 5 hours but that was plenty of time for memes

In a warning to users, the website’s banner reads ’01 Exchange was winded [sic.] down. Please withdraw your remaining assets. Try a few times if withdrawal doesn’t work first time.’

According to the pseudonymous investigator, the address still holds positions on 01 Exchange worth $38 million in staked mSOL, as well as 6.5 million USDC. YouAreMyYield explains, “The estate emptied the address in April ’23 by removing liquidity on stuff like Raydium and Atrix, but they forgot about the 01 balance.”

But it’s not just Alameda losing change down the back of the sofa.

Another of last cycle’s villains popped back into action when a three-year-old NFT bid from a Three Arrows Capital wallet was accepted earlier today.

Read more: 3AC founder Su Zhu says prison ‘good for you’ after four-month stay 

The bid of 20 ETH (approximately $59,000 at the time of writing), made in August 2021, looks to be a further 20 ETH that won’t make it back to creditors, after Su and Davies’ spectacularly blew up their fund the following year.

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Sam Trabucco returns to X for Ryan Salame https://protos.com/sam-trabucco-returns-to-x-for-ryan-salame/ Wed, 26 Jun 2024 17:11:35 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=69076 Sam Trabucco has resurfaced to write a three-page, single-space letter defending his 'best friend' Ryan Salame.

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Sam Trabucco, the former Co-CEO of Alameda Research, is back again after briefly resurfacing in May to write a three-page, single-space letter defending his ‘best friend’ Ryan Salame.

According to multiple users on X (formerly Twitter), Trabucco has been active since likes were taken private, mostly to like tweets from Salame.

It appears that Trabucco was unaware that others mentioned in tweets could see who was liking them. It’s unclear if he’ll will become active on any social media outside of liking his prior co-workers’ tweets, but he hasn’t publicly spoken to any media outlet or clarified why he hasn’t been sought out by the Department of Justice (DoJ).

Read more: Where in the world is Sam Trabucco? FTX victims launch manhunt

Mansions, Condos, and Yachts, oh my!

Protos previously broke the news that Trabucco had purchased a boat called ‘Soak my Deck,’ an $8.7 million condo in San Francisco, and a million dollar mansion in Maine. According to sales records from San Francisco, Trabucco hasn’t sold his condo — though it’s still possible it could have been transferred or otherwise moved outside the ownership of the Trabucco family.

Rumors have been swirling since the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research that Trabucco has either been working directly with the DoJ as a state’s witness or has left the US altogether.

Based on his reappearance on social media and his previous letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan, it’s safe to assume that one of the most important figures at Alameda Research — who worked hand-in-hand with Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison for years — isn’t on the run.

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FTX chasing $5M spent on ‘right-wing’ conference venue https://protos.com/ftx-chasing-5m-spent-on-right-wing-conference-venue/ Wed, 19 Jun 2024 15:48:16 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=68567 FTX wants $5 million back from a former hotel that hosts conferences with links to effective altruists and eugenicists.

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FTX is demanding the return of $5 million that it claims was used to bankroll the purchase of a former hotel that has since hosted events for various right-wing fringe groups. 

The property, formerly known as the Rose Garden Inn, is a bright pink manor that is now owned by the non-profit Lightcone Infrastructure in Berkeley, California. 

The charity hosts conferences in the former inn for supporters of ‘longtermism,’ ‘rationalism,’ and ‘effective altruism,’ all popular within Silicon Valley. 

However, The Guardian reports that supporters of eugenics, scientific racism, and other questionable right-wing movements have spoken at these conferences.

Picture of the Rose Garden Inn, now the Lighthaven property, taken from Tripadvisor.

Last weekend, the venue hosted $499-a-ticket prediction market-focused conference, Manifest 2024. Guests at the event included Jonathan Anomaly, the author of a paper defending eugenics, and Stephen Hsu, a former Michigan State University professor accused of promoting scientific racism.

Other guests included Brian Chau, an executive director of an effective accelerationist non-profit who reportedly has a long history of racist and sexist online commentary, and Malcolm and Simone Collins, a pair of pronatalists who agree with Elon Musk that people should have as many babies as possible to save humanity. 

Lightcone ignored attempts from FTX to recover funds

The Guardian reports that FTX is attempting to recover $4.9 million of fraudulent transfers from Alameda sent in 2022. Court filings show FTX sent CFAR, the owners of Lightcone Rose Garden — the specific LLC that owns the property — a $2 million grant in March. Then, up until October, FTX sent another 14 wire transfers totaling $2.9 million to CFAR

An additional $1 million was also sent as a deposit for the Rose Garden Inn, which filings say was a loan that was not repaid. FTX also approved a $1.5 million grant to Lightcone Infrastructure in October. 

A court filing on May 17 summoned CFAR and Lightcone to appear in court to answer the FTX complaint. The filings also say CFAR repeatedly ignored FTX trustees for months in 2023, and that CFAR only responded after a discovery motion was filed in October.

Read more: FTX-funded charity Effective Ventures agrees to return donations

Lightcone’s director, Oliver Habryka didn’t reply to The Guardian until after the article’s publication, saying, “No FTX funds were used in the purchase of Lighthaven.” Habryka told SFGate that the escrow company used to buy the property, “has been trying to get in contact with FTX and return the $1 million funds. My guess is the funds are still with the Escrow company, but I don’t know, we never had any of it.”

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Ryan Salame is whitewashing his role at FTX and Alameda https://protos.com/ryan-salame-is-whitewashing-his-role-at-ftx-and-alameda/ Wed, 05 Jun 2024 17:47:38 +0000 https://protos.com/?p=67759 Despite his guilty pleas, Ryan Salame is begging to be interviewed, giving political commentary, and says he’s ready to release a memoir.

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Despite Ryan Salame pleading guilty to conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter, you wouldn’t be able to tell from his presence on X (formerly Twitter).

The former co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets is begging to be interviewed, providing political commentary, stating he’s ready to release a memoir, and denying much of his role at FTX and Alameda (despite his guilty plea).

Salame insists that there’s much more to the FTX and Alameda sagas, but hasn’t clarified what new information he has to provide and no one has publicly stated that they’ll be interviewing him. Nor has any publisher offered to publish his memoirs. So why has Salame returned to X and why is he talking so much?

It’s impossible to know what’s going on in the mind of Salame, but it’s obvious that he’s desperately seeking attention and is completely unrepentant for the crimes he committed and the individuals he harmed with his actions. It’s also worth noting that Salame was sentenced to 90 months in federal prison, his one intelligent move being that he didn’t open his enormous mouth before his sentence was decided.

Read more: ‘Soak my Deck’ captain Sam Trabucco sails in for Ryan Salame

First Step Act

Most nonviolent, first-time federal offenders are now extended an offer of early release through a Donald Trump-passed law called the First Step Act. The act allows criminals to take off as much as half of their sentence so they can be released into a halfway house or the home of a relative. This means that if Salame changes his attitude and behavior and instead chooses to act like a decent human being while behind bars, his 90-month sentence will be reduced to 45 months.

It’s important that everyone remember what Salame is guilty of and why he’s going to be spending years in prison.

Salame helped name the FTX-related company North Dimension so that it obscured the ultimate beneficial owner, he lied to a bank so that customer funds could be sent to the account he opened, he falsely claimed he wasn’t running a money transmitter, and he directed others to move customer funds into and out of bank accounts. Put simply, he helped steal from hundreds of thousands of people.

And none of that even touches on the real reason he’s going to be spending so much time behind bars: his insane straw donations to numerous politicians.

Salame ‘conspired with [SBF] to make [political] contributions [under his name]’ and a ‘private message to a confidant’ explained that the ‘bipartisan donations would be to weed out anti crypto dems for pro-crypto dems and anti-crypto repubs for pro-crypto repubs, and that donations would likely be routed through Salame ‘to weed out that republican side.’

Salame knew he was breaking the law, he knew that he was helping FTX and Alameda executives move money in illegal ways, and he knew that customer funds were moving through a supposed corporate account.

Now, he’s desperate to have you believe his side of the story but it’s important to remember that, like his co-workers and friends at the top tier of the FTX criminal syndicate, Salame is a liar and has no reason to share the truth with you or anyone else.

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The post Ryan Salame is whitewashing his role at FTX and Alameda appeared first on Protos.

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