Call Me Stormy

Bahamas Rounds Up FTX Execs

FTX former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder Gary Wang and director of engineering Nishad Singh are understood to be in the Bahamas, where they are now all “under supervision” by the local authorities. What’s not clear? The current location of Dan Friedberg, the company’s chief regulatory officer. Who’s Friedberg?

He was the guy responsible for a 2008 online betting scandal involving the theft of $50 million in bettors’ funds, using “god mode.” He installed a back door in the system and was caught on camera saying as much. He never went to jail and somehow ended up at FTX, where billions are now gone.

Here, he admits to how easy it is to create counterfeit money. This is an interview where he explains how FTX basically stole Nucoin, which is a NuGenesis blockchain currency. Nugenesis is a blockchain run by AI. Very smart. The AI caught FTX stealing Nucoins’ value, so the company’s executives confronted Friedberg about it. More from NuGenesis.

Here is an interview conducted between Hedgeye TV CEO Keith McCullough and veteran investor Marc Cohodes, who was among the first to blow the whistle and expose the shenanigans surrounding FTX. Cohodes clearly delineates SBF as a crook and says the CEO, along with his lieutenants, ran a “massive, money laundering, ponzi scheme fraud with a crypto wrapper.”

Cohodes says he presented these facts to Bloomberg News in July, but they passed on covering the story, saying it would take too long to research. No doubt, they also would have had to run loggerheads with their leftist political allies!

Here, Cohodes calls for Friedberg to be brought in for questioning, saying he could well be the mastermind behind what’s happened at FTX. Cohodes also discusses Silvergate Bank, the La Jolla, California-based bank that held the reserves of FTX. The bank saw its stock — SI — lose nearly 12 percent of its value Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange. Look for continuing losses for financial institutions, especially those that are closely tied to cryptocurrencies.

Cohodes is a legendary short-seller who got involved the hard way — he invested tons of his own money as well as convinced family and friends to invest in Data Access Systems, a fraudulent company that went belly-up. He says he’d love to run the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) — even just for a year or two — to “clean up lots of frauds that are out there.”

Following the collapse of FTX, several other cryptocurrency exchanges teetered on the brink and wrestled with financial instability and possible insolvency. BlockFi has declared bankruptcy and the largest cryptocurrency platform, the Gemini Exchange, run by the Winklevoss Twins, suffered a $563 million rush in outflows on Wednesday vs. $78 million in inflows over the same 24-hour period.

Gemini did not dissolve but took supposedly “temporary” steps to limit customers’ ability to withdraw their funds. You might remember the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, from their monumental battle with Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook.

Also on the chopping block: The Salt Lending platform. Again, it has not declared bankruptcy, but has halted withdrawals.”The collapse of FTX has impacted our business,” SALT CEO Shawn Owen said.”Until we are able to determine the extent of this impact with specific details that we feel confident are factually accurate, we have paused deposits and withdrawals on the SALT platform effective immediately.”

Here, Scott Shafer addresses the continuing financial fallout while also addressing rumors of drug-filled sexual romps and an explicit video that could be released later today.