What’s new with Sam Bankman-Fried?

by philg

It’s been two months since Sam Bankman-Fried returned to the U.S. (BBC). How is my prediction that Joe Biden will appoint him as U.S. Treasury Secretary and that he will be confirmed by Senate Democrats looking? Any other news from this cryptocurrency trailblazer?

Most of the $121 million in real estate that Mr. Bankman-Fried and his Stanford professor parents owned is within gated communities, according to my friends in Nassau, but they did drive me, in January, to see the police station and courthouse:

The locals say that the prison where our future Treasury Secretary was held is not worth the 20-minute drive for a photo. “All that you can see is a wall with a sign.”

7 thoughts on “What’s new with Sam Bankman-Fried?”

  1. The same way Frank Abagnale became a security advisor for the government, he’ll probably become the treasury secretary because of the need for creative financing. The government’s quest for a digital dollar to replace its devalued currency dropped out of the news last year but isn’t forgotten.

  2. I’m not surprised by the hush-hush and rapid squelching of his saga and his recent endeavors. However, I am a little surprised that more of his victims have not made more public statements. Perhaps they are being cautious so as not to damage the proceedings – but still – it was a *lot* of people and a *lot* of money. Nobody is blabbing more? Or is that just an artifact of the general condition of embargo that seems to surround everything that has or will happen.

    I guess Bill Clinton probably doesn’t want his name in print or on the tube in connection with SBF. But how much “pull” does he have among journalists? Heh.

  3. To answer the question, two interesting pieces of news:
    – The identities of his anonymous bail guarantors (besides his parents) were revealed as two Stanford professors.
    – He got in trouble with the judge for contacting one of the government witnesses (his former employee) to ask if they could “vet things with each other.” But so far this has led to little more than a stern talking to, we’ll see if it turns into any tightening of his extremely generous bail conditions, I’d guess not.

    • I am still puzzled by the virtual $250M bail collateral, Even with the disclosure of the two hush-hush sponsors, the collateral does not add up to $250M, perhaps an order of magnitude less, but not the full amount. Is the judge an innumerate idiot or just corrupt or both ?

      I see barely any news about FTX any more, seem public lost interest in it.

    • I don’t quite understand it either. It is pretty absurd to get bail without posting actual collateral; the average defendant is certainly not afforded such a privilege. If this is due to his white-and-democrat-mega-donor privilege then I’d be forced to conclude the judge is corrupt. But maybe this is normal in white collar crime and I’ve just never heard of it before?

      The only reason I can think of for having an amount ($250M) that is much more than the combined assets of all the guarantors is that it means the guarantors are on the hook for everything they have if he skips. But then might as well have made it $1 Trillion bail, it’d be the same thing. It definitely feels like trying to give the impression he is being punished without making his life actually difficult.

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