One aspect of sentencing is deterrence, sub-divided into specific deterrence and general deterrence.
Specific deterrence is aimed at the individual accused, to deter them from re-offending. Arguments that Sam won’t ever be in a similar position may have some weight there.
General deterrence, as the name suggests, is to deter others from committing crimes. That’s what the US Attorney was getting at, when speaking to the media after the convictions:
“We will hunt you down if you commit this type of fraud. We will prosecute you. We will seek to imprison you if convicted. Don’t be a Sam.”
Well, if he decides to perform penance by taking physical representations of his magic digital coins, trekking across the landscape, and throwing them in a volcano, we can call him Sam Bankman Frodo.
Frank Abagnale was reasonably talented con man, though most of the more remarkable stories in the movie were almost certainly bullshit. (Not by the screenwriter, but Abagnale; he may have stopped conning - maybe - but he has never stopped lying.)
I am not convinced Bankman-Fried is talented at anything, even conning people. I think he might just have been really lucky top have been in the right place at the right time to fool people.
I recommend this video. I am a fan of Coffeezilla, I’m even one of his Patreon supporters and have interacted with him a tiny bit there. He was one of the people working to expose Sam Bankman-Fried, and SBF personally griped about Coffeezilla multiple times.
Coffeezilla went to observe the trial in-person and made a video explaining what he saw. It’s pretty entertaining. It’s a bit long, but it’s worth it in my opinion. Note that he was personally working to expose this guy and FTX, so seeing this happen had to have felt like a victory on his part.
For those who prefer reading, Nitish Pahwa with Slate also was a trial observer and did a near-daily dive into what happened that day. For me, he really hits the sweet spot of reporting and analysis, at a detailed but understandable level. And he’s pretty funny too.
His first post on the trial is October 3, so you’ll have to go to page 2 of the list below.
Not directly related, but it looks like Do Kwan from TerraUSD and Luna fame is about to face the consequences of similar actions after fleeing to Montenegro.
Somewhere on the east coast, maybe Florida, a man embroiled in several criminal cases in several criminal courts, is saying (hopefully) “Hold my beer!”
This little typo reminds me that the first time I heard Bankman-Fried’s initialism I wondered if Grumman ever designed a dive bomber for the Navy.
Though, to be a little more on-subject, I would point out that the lawyer is doing some post-trial damage control so that future clients don’t hold the fate of SBF against him.
I just finished Michael Lewis’s “Going Infinite,” his story of Bankman-Fried and FTX. It is a VERY weird book.
I’ll make 4 points, and try to make this flow together:
It is clear Lewis started the book before FTX collapsed. The book is 85% the story before the collapse, and up to the point it happens tyhere is almost no part of the book suggesting the problems that led to collapse.
It is clear Lewis doesn’t think Bankman-Fried is guilty, or is very doubtful of it. He is very critical of John Ray.
The story is basically about Bankman-Fried, and he is if anything a WEIRDER person, as described by Lewis, than the media have suggested. The usual word on him is that he’s autistic, but that is the popular diagnosis for everyone now. My read of it is that he is a sociopath.
Much of Lewis’s very ample descriptions of Bankman-Fried revolve around his inability to communicate to other humans. To hear Lewis tell it, the man was so bad at talking to others that it is hard to imagine how he could have gotten a girlfriend or, hell, done something like rent a car or order dinner in a restaurant. He seems to have held absolutely no regard for other people at all. The fact he failed so spectacularly in court in unsurprising.
What Lewis really wanted to write about were the market errors and inefficiencies that led to FTX and how Bankman-Fried was brilliant at exploiting them. That is the focus of most Lewis work. Moneyball is about market failures, Blind Side is about market failures, The Big Short is about market failures, and on and on. The FTX failure stops the narrative cold.
