It is an unspoken rule in Internet publishing that the quality of reader comments is inversely related to the quality of the article they are underneath. Post something good and the reaction is mostly praise and sniping. Post something shitty and there’s a stack that’s both factually corrective and horribly fun to watch.
FT Alphaville is an oddity in this respect. Although we try not to post bullshit, reader comments are reliably the best. Beneath most posts is a camarilla of pundits, polymaths, wits, nerds, and braggarts who add immeasurably to any theme. We appreciate their efforts, even when they don’t appreciate ours.
Below are some recent highlights from the comment box. We’ll post one of these comments on a semi-regular basis so you see something particularly good or insightful, email alphaville@ft.com with “comment or” in the subject line. (And yes, you can name yours. We won’t check.)
CZ wants to see your crypto cards.
Ballachulish:
We always have to be careful with the F-word.
If a five-year-old child pulled a $1,000,000 bill from you and asked you to give him candy for it, you wouldn’t call it fraud.
If you then find someone who takes away the lovingly written note from you in exchange for an apartment in Brooklyn – that’s this fraud?
The note was drawn in pencil. They didn’t care.
Magic: The Slathering
NizahmH
Hasbro is clearly missing a trick here – should call those magic tokens – list them on a reputable exchange, print millions and keep them on their balance sheet, borrow against this valuable asset, then invest the money in something truly valuable. …like bitcoin. Isn’t that how the new finance is supposed to work?
How the hell did the Jane Street alums end up creating FTX?
Nickname
The guy is a US intelligence agent. The exchange is an asset of the American intelligence services. With the NYT conference confirmed, it’s very clear.
It was about creating the the exchange for retail and then blow it up, ushering in a global digital central bank using the FTX architecture under the guise of “protecting customers” with absolute control over global finance as the true goal.
SBF is not afraid of any consequences of this fraud and theft as they were intentional. There will be no consequences.
Stabbed Mack
Batman
Mack…ha…I will never forget being promoted to MD at Morgan Stanley, the black tie dinner was at the Temple of Dendor museum in New York under Mack. He stood in front of us and with a straight face said ‘we want you to have a good family life. Be good people”. The next day, in a Times Square auditorium, he spoke of the need to take risk, much more risk “we need you all to take $100 million in V@R daily”, just like Goldman does. This was just as the non-US balance sheet grew 48x with a funding leg of 3 million. Mack was a bad manager who ran a company with a culture that celebrated promoting people like Colm Kelleher. He was plagued by sexism, racism and totally lacking in moral character. The fact that the idiocy of this company has been socialized and guaranteed is still amazing to me more than a dozen years later.
Toil and trouble on the selling side
WayneJ
I feel like a lot of buyers like to complain about sellside search BUT:
(1) will send a new/graduate analyst to meet with sales people to get training on an industry
(2) very few buyside stores actually do quality research in-house
(3) a large number of buy-side “patterns” and market context rely on the sell-side
Indeed, I have seen “buyside” models that literally involved tweaking some of the numbers in a sellside model.
And buy-side notes that literally copy and paste from the sell-side.
There is significant cognitive dissonance between what buy-side analysts claim to do and what they actually do.
In the end, it comes down to greed. Before Mifid2, buyers could consume whatever they wanted. Now they have to pay for it out of their own pocket and they claim it brings no value.
There is also a misunderstanding about most research – people focus too much on ‘recommendations’ and ‘target price’ rather than the actual depth/extent of deep dive coins.
The World According to Sam Bankman-Fried
HookahBoy
One thing to note in Crypto Ponzi schemes compared to traditional Ponzi schemes is that the recoveries are often substantial in the latter (Madoff victims eventually recovered quite a bit), much like the high recoveries of IG credits in the event of default. . Crypto Ponzi are the junk bonds of the Ponzi schemes it resembles.
If you are a Ponzi investor, this is something to keep in mind for future reference.
FTX balance sheet revealed
To the periscope!
It’s not a statement, it’s proof.
#Gold #FTAV #Commentary