In this episode of UpOnly, Cobie & Ledger talk the rapid downfall of FTX and acquisition announcement by Binance. We’re joined by the CEO of Wintermute, Jim Talbot, Gainzy, Do Kwon, and Martin Shkreli.
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Show Notes
WTF is Happening
– Was FTX commingling funds with Alameda?
– SBF was on the cover of fortune
– Cobie: “How do you go bankrupt if you can see everyone else’s positions??”
Wintermute CEO (Evgeny Gaevoy.) Joins
– FTX just got smacked
– CEO: “Everyone was so mind blown by 3AC but this is like 5x that”
– Only way is that the co-mingled funds with Alameda and blew it up
– Alameda was a market maker for so many protocols, there are likely a lot of
contagions
*Jim Talbot Joins*
Jim
– Basically still just golfing Jim’s been saying for the last 3 months to watch, who they are bailing out seemed like patchwork
– Cobie: “Surely Sam Trabs knew about this”
– Ledger: “FTX bought US equities with customer funds – US equites dumped, now have a $3B hole”
– Wintermute CEO: “Nah.”
– Cobie: “What stocks do you think they were buying? Peloton and Impossible burger?”
What Do We Do Now?
– Where to trade now?
– Cobie: “I’m old enough to not be that comfortable trading on Binance… do we go to Bybit?”
– Ledger: “There’s Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, the Winklevi gotta come back from their rock vacation”
– Cobie: “l’d use Kraken but Kraken just wicked down like 90% a few times in the bull market”
– Sounds like SBF was looking for $1-3B to plug the hole
*Arthur Hayes looking to join the podcast in 8 hours*
New Exchanges?
– Is there room for a new exchange to capitalize on this?
– Bybit likely gets an uptick, although their playing the unregulated route
– Cobie: “Maybe we all go back to Bitmex and Bitmex wins, the redemption arc”
– Cobie: “How is Justin Sun immortal? He’s outlived everyone”
– Jim: “Maybe he just comes in and buys Binance”
Conspiracies
– Ledger: “CZ didn’t buy FTX. CZ & FTX bought time for the market to calm down and let a buyer come in to fill the hole for FTX”
*Do Kwon trying to join, Ledger not here to accept him*
Evgeny: “We finally get to rug Do Kwon”
LOL
Do Kwon
– Cobie: “So Do I hear that you’re like on the run or traveling around countries illegally – is it all false?”
– Do: “I mean I’m not on the run”
– Do’s take: “From a cursory scan of the twitter timeline, I don’t get how a hole was created if they don’t invest user funds… what people need to understand is that scale is hard, crisis management is not easy. Average users don’t understand the complexity of that”
Next Blowup
– Jim: “I’m 2/2”
– Cobie: “You got 3AC and FTX?”
– Jim: “No I got Do Kwon” LMFAO
– Ledger: “Do do you have any crisis management tips for Sam?”
– Do: “Well I don’t think I did it particularly well”
– This cannot be real life Ima00000o
– Do: “Well it seems like Sam’s gonna be fine” Ledger in disbelief
– Cobie: “What do you reckon he’ll do next? Would you invest in an SBF
startup?”
– Do: “Yeah – I mean I’m not particularly an investor”
– Ledger: “What do you do after the fact???”
– Do: “Right away its like 15 minute calls just politicking – calls with no agenda”
Terra LUNA Collapse
– Ledger: “There was a whole plug thing with Jump – if you could go back what
do you do and how do you manage it differently?”
– Do: “UST got up to like $20B – what’s the saying what goes up must come down, or what goes around comes around IDk” lol
– Ev: “On the list of villains for the year Do keeps moving down the list now”
– Jim: “I thought it was pretty evil to be perfectly blunt about it”
– Cobie: “Does anyone ever think like why did I choose this industry to spend time in?”
– Jim: “I love it”
– Ev: “It’s the most fun industry – I’d probably just go to gaming if it went to 0”
Any Other Gossip?
– FTX was in talks to buy West Ham
– FTX was seeking to raise $6B by mid day
*Martin Shkreli Joins* !?!?!?
Luke 🇵🇹, [09/11/2022 00:01]
Martin on FTX
– Martin: “I think the hole is a lot bigger
than people think”
– Martin: “Hey Do, just want to let you know that jail isn’t that bad”
– “You haven’t been to South Korea then”
– Ledger: “So how’d you get into crypto then?”
– Martin: “Well you can’t make too much noise when you’re in prison… I think crypto will change some things, won’t change some other things.”
– Martin: “JPMorgan say what you will, but at least their adults in the room when they do things”
– Cobie: “Do you think FTX and 3AC in general are actually bullish DeFi?”
– Martin: “Separate usage and value from usage perspective it’s good”
– Martin: “You can sort of trust Jamie Dimon cause he’s a store of capital, is CZ the best store of value? IDK”
– Martin: “Clearly there’s a lot of money grabbing, lies and deceit out there. The code is law thing is sort of like pseudo-legal stealing”
– Martin: “I think most cryptos will go to 0 but there will be a handful of winners just like the internet”
– Cobie: “Why do you think FTX was putting investor money into stuff?”
– Martin: “There’s just greed and desire to be successful and such – I mean they said it in their commercial right? Fortune favors the bold or whatever?”
– Ledger: “Well, evidently not”
Do and SBF
– Do: “OK this is getting depressing I gotta go guys”
– “On to his next destination” Imaoooo
– Cobie: “Hasn’t he been gone for months? Why did he join???”
– Martin: “It’s cause now SBF thing gonna be honest SBF likely going to jail here”
– Martin: “The rumor is they asked Elon Musk for money which is amazing”
– Started day looking for $1B, now the rumor is by mid day it was $6B
Crypto Criminals
– Martin: “If you guys wanna know about a couple more crypto criminals”
– Ledger: “What do you guys have a group chat?” lolll
– Martin: “Virgil is over in jail with a few buddies he’s doing fine”
– Martin: “I think a lot more of these crypto guys are going to jail
– Cobie: “There are a lot of these crypto people drowning now”
– The silk road guy stole 50,000 BTC and just let it sit in a shoe box under his bed!
Prison
– Martin: “I was in prison sitting on a contraband cellphone – the second biggest wallet is the Bitfinex hack. The largest holder of Bitcoin is now the US Government!”
– Ledger: “How do you get contraband
phone in prison?”
– Martin: “Mostly butts”
– Martin: “No just kidding, mostly corrupt guards”
– Ledger: “Do you ever think you went too farm on the drug prices?”
– Martin: “No – I think if there’s any industries we need to be well capitalized its pharmaceuticals”
State of the Market
– Ethereum was at $1600 this morning, now $1300
– Solana down to $24
– This will have additional consequence – what’s the next Contagion
– Every hedge fund that market FTX on their books at $32B is now $0
– Cobie: “Tiger Global is so bad at crypto investing – they bought all of these Sam Coins (e.g. SRM) at 10% discount in massive size”
*GAINZY JOINS*
Lenders
– Any lender to Alameda is smoked
– Martin: there has to be someone tradfi that got lied to, the $ is way too big for dinky crypto players
– Gainzy: “Why are you rubbing elbows with senators when you’re insolvent – clearly Sam didn’t see this coming”
– Martin: “The exit of the executives tells you something” Brett Harrison, Trabucco, etc
– Gainzy: “Who bets against Sam? The track record of anyone betting against Sam is awful! Well except for now” In February, Alameda’s total borrow was somewhere between $10-15B
*Jim heading out*
CZ and Binance
– CZ is subtly tweeting flexes
– Martin suggests CZ might just be posturing
– Gainzy: “I mean they did just throw $500M at Twitter so idk”
– Ledger: “The Bitcoin maxis are embracing this”
– Ledger and Cobie get messages that Kraken withdrawals are stopped
– Gainzy: “That implies someone has to be using Kraken and trying to withdraw so I’m calling FUD”
– Gainzy any questions for Martin?
– Gainzy: “Yeah. Can I get allo in whatever seed round you’re raising”
Miscellaneous
– Martin worked for Jim Cramer when he was 17 y/o
– Jim was actually one of the best traders on Wall Street
Luke 🇵🇹, [09/11/2022 00:01]
Stream over
– Arthur Hayes will be joining in about 7 hours
Music by GiovanniPickle