Crypto Currency
Funds vanish at bankrupt crypto exchange FTX; probe underway
FILE - The FTX logo appears on a home plate umpire's jacket at a baseball game with the Minnesota Twins on Sept. 27, 2022, in Minneapolis. Collapsed cryptocurrency trading firm FTX confirmed there was “unauthorized access” to its accounts, hours after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Friday, Nov. 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
CATHY BUSSEWITZ
Sat, November 12, 2022 at 4:35 PM
NEW YORK (AP) — Collapsed cryptocurrency trading firm FTX confirmed there was “unauthorized access” to its accounts, hours after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Friday.
The embattled company’s new CEO John Ray III said Saturday that FTX is switching off the ability to trade or withdraw funds and taking steps to secure customers’ assets, according to a tweet by FTX’s general counsel Ryne Miller. FTX is also coordinating with law enforcement and regulators, the company said.
Exactly how much money is involved is unclear, but analytics firm Elliptic estimated Saturday that $477 million was missing from the exchange. Another $186 million was moved out of FTX’s accounts, but that may have been FTX moving assets to storage, said Elliptic’s co-founder and chief scientist Tom Robinson.
A debate formed on social media about whether the exchange was hacked or a company insider had stolen funds, a possibility that cryptocurrency analysts couldn’t rule out.
Until recently, FTX was one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. It was already short billions of dollars when it sought bankruptcy protection Friday and its former CEO and founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, resigned.
The company had valued its assets between $10 billion to $50 billion, and listed more than 130 affiliated companies around the world, according to its bankruptcy filing.
The unraveling of the once-giant exchange is sending shockwaves through the industry, with companies that backed FTX writing down investments and the prices of bitcoin and other digital currencies falling. Politicians and regulators are calling for stricter oversight of the unwieldy industry. Experts say the saga is still unfolding.
“We’ll have to wait and see what the fallout is, but I think we are going to see more dominoes falling and an awful lot of people stand to lose their money and their savings,” said Frances Coppola, an independent financial and economic commentator. “And that is just tragic, really.”
The timing and the extent of access that the assumed hacker appeared to achieve, siphoning money from multiple parts of the company, led Coppola and other analysts to theorize that it could have been an inside job.
FTX said Saturday that it’s moving as many digital assets as can be identified to a new “cold wallet custodian,” which is essentially a way of storing assets offline without allowing remote control.
“It does look as if the liquidators didn’t act fast enough to stop some kind of siphoning off of funds from FTX after it filed for bankruptcy, and that’s bad, but it just shows how complex this thing is,” Coppola said.
Initially, some people were hoping that perhaps all the missing funds were liquidators or bankruptcy administrators trying to move assets to a more secure spot. But it would be unusual for that to happen on a Friday night, said Molly White, cryptocurrency researcher and fellow with the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard University.
“It looked very different from what a liquidator might do if they were trying to secure the funds,” she said.
White also said there are signs of possible insider involvement. “It seems unlikely that someone who is not an insider could have pulled off such a massive hack with so much access to FTX systems.”
The collapse of FTX highlights the need for cryptocurrency to be regulated more like traditional finance, Coppola said.
“Cyrpto isn’t in the very early stages anymore,” she said. “We’ve got ordinary people putting their life savings into it.”
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I bet the big guy got his 10%
I do feel for all the investors I have my own theories, but I am no where near. even knowing enough about the whole issue to make a good guess
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Hmmmm...the Dickens you say....
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My VERY conservative views about money so far have been a blessing to me. I have stuck with a local brick & mortar bank all my life and may have complained in the past about their P... poor paid out interest rates but at least so far anyway still feel my money is at least safe in the bank.
My late dad RIP thought I was liberal using the bank believe it or not. He was a working adult during the great depression and what money he had would be hidden around his house. Found a stash of his in a sock inside a dresser drawer when he passed! I guess that a lot of his distrust was passed onto me as the older I get, I get worse about things like online banking, crypto currency, wire transfers, and such modern money exchanges.
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A very appropriate saying from long ago: "Fools and their money are soon parted."
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It appears investing in crypto currency is like investing in gold on paper. You may think you own gold, but in reality you only own a piece of paper.
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The guy running this mess looks and sounds like a jerk but he gave millions to the dems so he was their guy. I heard there were some big-name investors who lost a lot of money. Good. If they were dumb enough to give this idiot their cash for some pie in the sky, then they should learn a lesson. It is too bad some regular folks will be hurt but stupid hurts.
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Front man for dem dark money
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If you can not hold it in your hand it is not real.
The kid running FTX will end up in prison where his roomie will show him some love. His hideous girl friend should also spend decades in the general population where she can meet many new lady friends.
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Genesis World trading Bank is freezing up on crypto Coins trading.
serf
The lending arm of crypto investment bank Genesis Global Trading is temporarily suspending redemptions and new loan originations in the wake of FTX’s collapse, Interim CEO Derar Islim told customers on a call Wednesday. Genesis owner Digital Currency Group is also the parent company of CoinDesk.
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It's all crumbling🕳️
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Houses made of toilet paper do not do well when it rains.
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Best news I have heard in awhile. Monopoly money
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mac10: 30422896338331/comments/30422886491803
Front man for dem dark money
Yepp..why couldn't we be Democrat Politicians...we would be Billionaires...
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The punk azz kid will end up dead, to many dims got a carload of cash for their campaigns.
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I have not and will never have anything to do with NFT Money, but do not see how this fiasco has anything to do with the underlying product.
Had he established a fraudulent toaster exchange, would we be bemoaning the death of toasters as a viable item?
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The liberals lined their pockets. Nothing to see here folks move along.
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I've done a fair bit of research when it comes to crypto to try to gain a better understanding of it, and I've dabbled in it a bit, granted I've never invested more than $200-300 due to the volatility of it. I feel bad for the people that have gotten wiped out, but at the same time they should've known that it's extremely volatile and it's not really regulated at all. Honestly investing all and or a majority if your hard earned money into crypto always seemed really really stupid to me.. As that old saying goes, never invest money that you can't afford to lose..
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DerBarbarian: 30422896338331/comments/30422867563163
I've done a fair bit of research when it comes to crypto to try to gain a better understanding of it, and I've dabbled in it a bit, granted I've never invested more than $200-300 due to the volatility of it. I feel bad for the people that have gotten wiped out, but at the same time they should've known that it's extremely volatile and it's not really regulated at all. Honestly investing all and or a majority if your hard earned money into crypto always seemed really really stupid to me.. As that old saying goes, never invest money that you can't afford to lose..
Basically, if you consider yourself an investor, it's senseless to not have at least some small amount in Crypto, and to learn the ropes of it.
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I'd rather invest in chinchillas.
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If I had bought 1,000,000 primers five years ago @ $30/1000 , well, do the math.
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Crypto - P.T. Barnum had a saying that seems appropriate. Bob
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jimdeere: 30422896338331/comments/30422874469787
If I had bought 1,000,000 primers five years ago @ $30/1000 , well, do the math.
1,000,000/1000 *30 = $30,000
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Heck! If I'd of bought a truck load of EGGS just a month or two ago.......I'd be swim'in in golden yolks and drying off with spun soft forbidden "whites" 😂
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Mr. Perfect: 30422896338331/comments/30422825997083
https://forums.gunbroker.com/discussion/comment/11372375#Comment_11372375
Basically, if you consider yourself an investor, it's senseless to not have at least some small amount in Crypto, and to learn the ropes of it.
Yeah, which I have, I've invested $2-300 but beyond that I don't trust Crypto enough to dump large amounts of $$ into it. I would much rather do a little dabbling than put my life savings into it, especially with it being so volatile. Looking back, my only regret is not buying Bitcoin when it was only a few cents per coin, I remember reading about it at that time but I thought it was going to be one of those dumb fads so I didn't bother putting any $$ into it. Had I put $300 into it back then, that investment at it's peak would've been worth like 25 million haha, but it's one of those woulda, shoulda, coulda type scenarios.
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People invest in something with absolutely no backing or regulation, and lose their money with no recourse? Gee, welcome to the new America.
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