Former Federal Deposit Insurance coverage Company (FDIC) Chair Sheila Bair likens the autumn of crypto alternate FTX and its former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to the notorious Ponzi Scheme of Bernie Madoff. “It felt very Bernie Madoff-like in that method,” she mentioned.
Former FDIC Chair Compares FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried to Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme
Sheila Bair, a high U.S. regulator through the 2008 monetary disaster, defined in an interview with CNN Monday that there are eerie similarities between the rise and fall of FTX and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and that of Bernie Madoff.
Bair chaired the Federal Deposit Insurance coverage Company (FDIC) from 2006 to 2011. She now sits on the board of administrators at blockchain infrastructure agency Paxos.
She defined that each Bankman-Fried and Madoff proved adept at seducing refined buyers and regulators into ignoring crimson flags hiding in plain sight. FTX filed for Chapter 11 chapter final week and Bankman-Fried stepped down because the CEO.
“Charming regulators and buyers can distract [them] from digging in and seeing what’s actually occurring,” Bair described, elaborating:
It felt very Bernie Madoff-like in that method.
Madoff ran the most important Ponzi scheme in historical past, value about $64.8 billion. He promised buyers excessive returns however moderately than investing, he deposited their cash right into a checking account and paid, upon request, from present and new buyers’ funds. Convicted of fraud, cash laundering, and different associated crimes, he was sentenced to 150 years in federal jail. Madoff died in jail on April 14, final 12 months, on the age of 82.
Bankman-Fried secretly transferred about $10 billion of buyer funds from FTX to his different buying and selling agency Alameda Analysis and reportedly used a “backdoor” to keep away from triggering accounting crimson flags.
FTX garnered its $32 billion valuation with investments from main firms and enterprise capital companies, together with Blackrock, Softbank, and Sequoia. Bair commented:
You get this herd mentality the place if all of your friends and marquee names in enterprise capital are investing, you’ve obtained to, too. And that provides credibility with Washington policymakers. All of it feeds on itself.
The previous FDIC chair isn’t anxious concerning the FTX implosion threatening your entire monetary system the way in which Lehman Brothers did in 2008, noting that crypto remains to be a comparatively small a part of the broader economic system and monetary market.
Nonetheless, the crypto market stays largely unregulated, leaving buyers susceptible if one thing breaks. Bair confused:
It’s time to choose a regulatory regime for crypto and kind out who’s regulating what as a result of individuals are getting harm.
The previous regulator additional urged buyers to make use of warning and be skeptical. “If it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is,” she mentioned.
Do you agree with the previous FDIC chair concerning the similarities between the autumn of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried and the Ponzi Scheme run by Bernie Madoff? Tell us within the feedback part beneath.
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