4397

I’d be surprised if they have any kind of immunity agreement or similar. They probably don’t even have a specific plea deal recommended sentence. It’s not that uncommon for super guilty white collar criminals to rush to cooperate hoping that the judge will give them a lot of sentencing credit. Can save them a lot of time in jail.

4398

Yes, that’s probably right.

4399

Everyone who cooperates gets tennis prison. Everyone who doesn’t gets Leavenworth.

4400

If this is right, that’s a number of years, so I could see why someone might want to mitigate it somewhat if they could. Bonus points for throwing your X-boyfriend under the bus.

4401

To be fair, SBF tried to peg it all on Alameda as the bad actor at the outset - attempting to throw Caroline Ellison under the bus. She was practically in the US days after the bankruptcy filng in the vicinity of the offices of whatever agencies are bringing charges.

To the extent she was involved in FTX’s fraud, she sure as hell noped the fuck out of there in a hurry to spill what she knows in order to avoid beng THE fall person.

4402

All the dirty secrets are out.

4403

I’d be interested to hear more from experts about this bit:

4404

As an aside, everyone involved in discussing crypto needs to think of a better metaphor than “magic beans.” While the magic beans in the story didn’t make Jack instantly rich, it turns out they were actually magic and they did make Jack rich eventually. This does not fit the reality of crypto (and needlessly smears the magic beans of the story, which did nothing wrong, with crypto’s stink.)

As an alternative, I suggest “useless crap.”

4405

All cryptocurrencies are securities, really. Just in most cases (like bitcoin) the SEC doesn’t have anyone to go after. They declared XRP a security a couple years ago, because it is controlled by a single entity. FTT is the same. Not sure why it wasn’t declared a security years ago.

4406

Securities and Exchange Commission has entered the chat.

4407

Able to afford bail of $250 million. Still has to move in with his parents. Man, the Bay Area is expensive.

4408

How does this work? I don’t know much about bail, but some googling suggests bondsmen will post your bond in exchange for 10% up front which you do not get back (that’s where their profit comes from), along with some collateral in case you skip town.

It seems like that can’t be the case here, right? I’m sure his parents are well-off, but not “light $25 million on fire” well-off?

4409

It’s almost like he did in fact steal a huge quantity of cash.

4410

I always thought that but I’ve also seen otherwise, interested to know.

4411

Maybe they (or he) are $250 million rich? In which case my understanding is that they just have to deposit it with the court and you get it back when trial is done.

4412

Seems like it works like we think, if you use a bail bondsman they keep the money, usually 10 percent.

4413

On paper he definitely is. Though how anyone would trust that is another question.

4414

It certainly seems like he did.

Again, I don’t know much about bail, but I assume that if I try to pay my bail with the dye-pack stained bills from the bank heist I just pulled, that’s not bail, that’s evidence.

4415

Of course you and we know it, the word for today is “illiquid.” The ponzi tree has collapsed, so paper worth is just that. Musk is better to an extent, but his ridiculous theoretical wealth was based on the ridiculous overvaluation of TSLA. Now that he’s going to to well and has stuck a knife in the future outlook, it all comes apart. He could never divest totally at the number, the Bitcoin crowd is even worse because there is no underlying product at all.

4416

I’m stuck in the airport with limited connectivity, but an article I read last night said that he was released on some sort of personal recognizance bond. The only thing his parents put up was their house (worth an estimated $4m), and the house serves as his bond with no pesky bondsman taking 10-15%. Just bizarre.