Could it be beneficial for the prosecution to let Sam Bankman-Fried stay online and talking? Yes, but it’s also a detriment to society.
As FTX collapsed around him, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) took to Twitter in an attempt to ease the disparate and panicked cries from traders, investors, and employees. Everything was fine, he uvjereni the Twitterverse; the company was simply experiencing a liquidity crunch.
Soon after, SBF took to Twitter again, this time a shell of the confident, altruistic billionaire he’d been before, to najaviti that Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, would be buying FTX.
Then, after Binance chief Changpeng Zhao (CZ) passed on the opportunity to buy the smoking crater of illiquid assets and debts that was FTX, SBF took to Twitter to announce the bankruptcy of FTX and Alameda Research.
Onda je došao interview tour, direct messages turned articles, late-night phone poziva with citizen journalists, and, of course, inevitably, a Podstack.
Čitaj više: Kako je bitka između Binancea i FTX-a išla od loše do gore
SBF is in the midst of becoming America’s most-hated billionaire and alleged perpetrator of one of the largest frauds in 20 years. That said, he’s been lapping up the attention.
He manipulated anyone he could, all the time being an arrogant prick about it. It was all things SBF, all the time. Even when headlines read “SBF lies again” or “nothing he says makes sense,” it somehow felt like he was controlling the narrative.
Then, about a month ago, there was resounding (and very welcome) silence.
Frauds learn to shut up
An ongoing theme in the crypto industry is for people who commit fraud to reappear online and spin up new prevara projects. This can be despite ongoing likvidacije, udruženja with exit scams, or even literal Interpol Red Notices.
During the bull market, this was more or less an effective way to operate. There was always a pool of supporters who believed a scammer starting a project could be memetic enough to go up in price.
But with the crypto downturn and a noticeable tightening of liquidity starting to bite, the vilification of those that brought bad fortune has begun — and it seems to be having an effect.
Do Kwon, the usually loud and obnoxious founder of the LUNA Ponzi scheme, has thumbed his nose at authorities online for years. However, so far in 2023, he’s taken two month-long breaks from Twitter.
Likewise, Alex Mashinsky, the founder of lending Ponzi Celsius Network, has taken his account private and stopped tweeting. Lastly, and most importantly, SBF hasn’t tweeted or written a blog since January 20.
Of course, it could be a coincidence that all of these individuals have stopped communicating publicly around the same time — Kwon has repeatedly had his location doxxed, Mashinsky will be going to civil court relatively soon, and it appears that SBF has internet restrictions of some kind and is maybe heeding the advice of his attorney — but it’s eerie and necessary, regardless.
Source: https://protos.com/opinion-its-a-blessing-that-sbf-has-taken-a-break-from-twitter/