{"id":1755526,"date":"2022-11-29T06:01:13","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T11:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1755526"},"modified":"2022-11-29T14:48:53","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T19:48:53","slug":"bahamas-ag-says-ftx-implosion-not-their-fault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bahamas-ag-says-ftx-implosion-not-their-fault\/","title":{"rendered":"Bahamas AG Says FTX Implosion Not Their Fault"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbahamas-ag-says-ftx-implosion-not-their-fault%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1755526&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Bahamas Attorney General Ryan Pinder took to the podium Sunday night to defend his country\u2019s securities regulators against \u201cinaccurate allegations\u201d by the U.S.-based legal team, led by veteran work-out attorney John Ray III, that has taken over management of FTX in bankruptcy, following the cryptocurrency exchange\u2019s abrupt collapse in early November.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is possible that the prospect of multimillion-dollar legal and consultancy fees is driving both their legal strategy and their intemperate statements,\u201d Pinder alleged, adding that \u201cany attempt to lay the entirety of this debacle at the feet of the Bahamas because FTX is headquartered here would be a gross oversimplification of reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ray is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/business\/2022\/11\/21\/new-ftx-ceo-paid-1300-an-hour-court-filings-show\/\">reportedly earning<\/a> $1,300 per hour, with a $200,000 retainer, to lead the work-out effort. Other attorneys are reported to earn $975 per hour, with other technical and investigative consultants earning $50,000 per month. In addition, many of the original 350 FTX employees are being kept on the payroll in order to try to preserve for investors whatever value of the company remains, but according to Ray, even figuring out who all these employees are has been challenging.<\/p>\n<p>Ray states in his bankruptcy declaration of Nov. 17 that because of poor record keeping by the company\u2019s human resources department, bankruptcy attorneys \u201chave been unable to prepare a complete list of who worked for the FTX Group as of the petition date or the terms of their employment. Repeated attempts to locate certain presumed employees to confirm their status have been unsuccessful to date.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4890371\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2022\/11\/28\/Ryan-Pinder-Bahamas-1200x616.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy wp-image-4890371 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/themes\/eet\/images\/white.png\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Ryan-Pinder-Bahamas.png\" alt=\"Epoch Times Photo\" width=\"1714\" height=\"880\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4890371 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Ryan-Pinder-Bahamas.png\" alt=\"Epoch Times Photo\" width=\"1714\" height=\"880\" \/><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> Bahamas Attorney General Ryan Pinder addresses the nation regarding the FTX collapse on Nov. 27, 2022. (The Office of the Prime Minister, the Bahamas \/ screenshot via The Epoch Times)<\/figure>\n<p>Founded by Sam Bankman-Fried in 2019, FTX was valued at $32 billion by 2021 and was the third-largest exchange for cryptocurrency in the world, with more than a million investors trading its version of digital currency, known as FTT. Bankman-Fried\u2019s net worth at the height of the crypto market was believed to be $16 billion.<\/p>\n<p>The crypto market has had a difficult year across the board, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coingecko.com\/en\/global-charts\">falling<\/a> from a total global market capitalization of $3 trillion a year ago to around $800 billion today, with other crypto companies facing bankruptcy. But FTX had specific problems beyond the general market decline.<\/p>\n<p>On Nov. 6, Binance, a rival exchange to FTX, abruptly sold off its $2 trillion holdings of FTT, which it acquired in connection with a prior stake in FTX. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao noted in a tweet: \u201cDue to recent revelations that have came to light, we have decided to liquidate any remaining FTT on our books.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Caroline Ellison, CEO of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-alameda-research\">Alameda Research<\/a> at the time, responded by tweet to Binance: \u201cIf you\u2019re looking to minimize the market impact of your FTT sales, Alameda will happily buy it all from you today at $22!\u201d But Alameda was unable to make good on this pledge, and the massive unloading of FTT sparked other investors to rush to sell the digital coin as its value collapsed, sparking a liquidity crisis at FTX.<\/p>\n<p>According to Pinder, \u201cFTX was experiencing the equivalent of a run on a bank, when customers are all rushing to withdraw all of their assets simultaneously.\u201d Binance then offered to step in and acquire FTX, but quickly withdrew its offer once it got a look at FTX\u2019s books, which Ray subsequently described as \u201ca complete failure of corporate controls and a complete absence of trustworthy financial information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Liquidity issues, it now appears, were only the tip of the iceberg. To date, the investigation of FTX\u2019s books indicates that money that investors put up to buy FTT crypto on the exchange was being passed from their exchange accounts to an affiliated hedge fund called Alameda Research. It was also being lent out to owners, used to buy houses in the Bahamas and elsewhere, donated to various progressive causes that Bankman-Fried supported, or paid out as political donations.<\/p>\n<p>But the blame for regulators failing to notice any of this should not be placed solely on the Bahamas, Pinder said. Of the more than 100 subsidiaries and affiliates of FTX\u2019s crypto empire, FTX Digital Markets is the only entity regulated in the Bahamas, according to Pinder. Alameda Research, the hedge fund affiliate of FTX, is registered in Delaware. According to Ray\u2019s bankruptcy filing, however, other Alameda affiliate companies are registered in the Bahamas, as well as in Korea, Japan, the British Virgin Islands, Antigua, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Seychelles, the Cayman Islands, Australia, Panama, Turkey, and Nigeria.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Next Warren Buffet\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Numerous FTX subsidiaries are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with some operating with licenses from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)\u2014both U.S. regulators who were established to protect small investors and appear to have had no concerns about illicit activity at FTX prior to the bankruptcy filing. At the height of his success, Bankman-Fried was <a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/2022\/11\/how-sbf-sweet-talked-the-media.html\">lauded<\/a> on the cover of <em>Forbes<\/em> and <em>Fortune<\/em> Magazine, which referred to him as the \u201cnext Warren Buffet.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4890346\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2022\/11\/28\/FTX-arena-Miami-1200x800.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy size-full wp-image-4890346\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/themes\/eet\/images\/white.png\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/FTX-arena-Miami-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Epoch Times Photo\" width=\"3000\" height=\"2000\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4890346\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/FTX-arena-Miami-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Epoch Times Photo\" width=\"3000\" height=\"2000\" \/><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> In an aerial view, the FTX Arena, which the Miami Heat call home, on Nov. 18, 2022, in Miami, Florida. Miami-Dade County and the Miami Heat are ending their arena naming rights deal with the company. (Joe Raedle\/Getty Images)<\/figure>\n<p>He was praised for his support of progressive causes, which ranged from climate change to pandemic policy. Sam\u2019s brother, Gabe Bankman-Fried, ran the advocacy group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/the-covid-crypto-connection-the-grim-saga-of-ftx-and-sam-bankman-fried_4873860.html\">Guarding Against Pandemics<\/a>, which sought to increase government efforts for pandemic prevention and to which Bankman-Fried donated millions.<\/p>\n<p>Bankman-Fried had relationships and took meetings with prominent politicians and regulators, including SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who seemingly also failed to notice anything amiss at FTX during a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-11438875\/Questions-SEC-chair-Gary-Gensler-agency-miss-signs-FTX-collapse.html\">45-minute phone call<\/a> with Bankman-Fried. Bankman-Fried was the second-largest donor to the Democratic Party, after billionaire hedge-fund manager George Soros, and <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/11\/14\/sam-bankman-fried-broke-crypto-bank-for-dems\/\">donated $10 million<\/a> to Joe Biden\u2019s presidential campaign. Of the tens of millions of dollars Bankman-Fried\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/politics\/ftx-founder-sam-bankman-fried-prolific-donor-republicans\">donated to political campaigns<\/a>, $262,200 went to Republican candidates, while $40 million went to Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>Pinder took no questions after his speech and did not address other open issues, including whether FTX founder and ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried would be extradited to the United States to face criminal charges or whether the global assets of the FTX empire would be consolidated from the various jurisdictions around the globe into the United States, as the bankruptcy team is attempting to do.<\/p>\n<p>Bankman-Fried remains a headline speaker at the upcoming New York Times\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/events\/dealbook-summit#speakers\">DealBook Summit<\/a>, which also features BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, actor Ben Affleck, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, among others. BlackRock was reportedly one of the investors in FTX.<\/p>\n<p>A recent <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SBF_FTX\/status\/1595512579417378837\">tweet<\/a> from Bankman-Fried stated, \u201cI\u2019ll be speaking with [New York Times business columnist] Andrew Sorkin at the dealbook summit next Wednesday (11\/30).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Times\u2019 summit, billed as a gathering of \u201ctoday\u2019s most vital minds on a single stage,\u201d identifies Bankman-Fried as \u201ca 29-year-old American investor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt this time, we expect Mr. Bankman-Fried will be participating in the interview from the Bahamas,\u201d a spokesperson for the New York Times told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>Bankman-Fried\u2019s parents, both professors at Stanford University, are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/bankman-fried-pushed-for-crypto-regulation-in-weeks-leading-up-to-ftx-bankruptcy_4881892.html\">prominent supporters<\/a> of the Democratic Party. His mother, Barbara Fried, is the founder of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/recode\/2020\/1\/6\/21046631\/mind-the-gap-silicon-valley-democratic-donors-stanford\">Mind the Gap<\/a>,\u201d a secretive Silicon Valley fundraising organization for Democrat candidates. Mind the Gap has reportedly raised approximately $20 million from tech investors to support left-wing political campaigns.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018A Very Complex Investigation\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>In defense of Bahamian regulators, Pinder said that authorities in the Bahamas were the first in the world to act when trouble at FTX became apparent, and that there were \u201ca number of protective measures\u201d that were taken by the Bahamian Securities Commission on Nov. 10, including freezing FTX\u2019s accounts, seizing FTX\u2019s assets and putting FTX into provisional liquidation the day after rival crypto exchange Binance abruptly pulled out of a deal to acquire FTX.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo other jurisdiction in the world moved or could have moved this quickly,\u201d Pinder said. FTX filed for Bankruptcy protection in the United States on Nov. 11.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding possible criminal activity by FTX\u2019s former management team, Pinder stated that \u201cit is a very complex investigation\u201d and that he would give no further details \u201cuntil we are confident that doing so will not jeopardize any aspect of the ongoing investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Pinder said that in the wake of the FTX bankruptcy, there was \u201clittle contagion beyond the digital assets sphere, both here in the Bahamas and around the world,\u201d and he predicted that \u201cthe turbulence currently being experienced by the digital assets sector will pass.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, shortly after Pinder\u2019s speech, crypto lender BlockFi filed for bankruptcy in New Jersey. Mark Renzi, BlockFi\u2019s financial advisor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesswire.com\/news\/home\/20221128005451\/en\/BlockFi-Commences-Restructuring-Proceeding-to-Stabilize-Business-and-Maximize-Value-for-all-Clients-and-Stakeholders\">stated<\/a>: \u201cWith the collapse of FTX, the BlockFi management team and board of directors immediately took action to protect clients and the Company.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Bahamas was one of the first jurisdictions in the world to establish a national regulatory regime for cryptocurrency. Earlier this year, the Bahamas enacted the Digital Assets Registered Exchanges Act (DARE), which established legal lines of authority for crypto regulation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have been shocked at the ignorance of those who asserted that FTX came to the Bahamas because they did not want to submit to regulatory scrutiny,\u201d Pinder said, adding that ultimately the world \u201cwill see that the Bahamas is a place of laws \u2026 and they will have found yet another reason why it\u2019s better in the Bahamas.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-kevin-stocklin\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Kevin-Stocklin.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin Stocklin\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Kevin Stocklin is a writer, film producer, and former investment banker. He wrote and produced &#8220;We All Fall Down: The American Mortgage Crisis,&#8221; a 2008 documentary on the collapse of the U.S. mortgage finance system.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bahamas Attorney General Ryan Pinder took to the podium Sunday night to defend his country\u2019s securities regulators against \u201cinaccurate allegations\u201d by the U.S.-based legal team, led by veteran work-out attorney<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1755529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1755526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1755526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1755529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1755526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1755526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1755526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}