It really looks a bit less clear cut than you’re saying. First I’m not sure he’s subject to American financial laws at all since ftx was offshore. Second he has some sort of explanation of alameda just taking a margin loan and he had no idea that the collateral was worthless. Would that fly in the us? Probably not. In the Bahamas? Who knows.
Let's not be silly. The criminal himself admitted he stole the money. It's not rocket science. If your banker tells you he used your savings for his holiday it's not ambiguous
The problem is both his parents are Stanford professes and lawyer. He business partner father is a MIT professor. NYT and WSJ are trying to coving up the stolen money. This is what makes it complicated and why he might not be charged
It's not rocket science, but it involves banking and property law. I'm not sure which one is more complicated.
> If your banker tells you he used your savings for his holiday it's not ambiguous
In fact, your banker does routinely use your savings for his holiday. This is called "fractional-reserve banking", where the bank doesn't put your money in a metaphorical "safe", but rather they use it for whatever. Most of the money is loaned to other parties, but the money can also be used to pay employees' salaries (which can get used on a holiday).
I'm not saying FTX didn't do anything criminal. Most likely they did. It's just that laws are sometimes more complex than they seem. (And that you probably have the wrong impression of what your bank can do with your money?)
Even during a bank run, employees are supposed to get paid. When the banker takes your money and uses it to pay salary, it's not banking theft. Theft happens when the exchange (not banker) promises you to hold your assets in escrow and then uses it to pay themselves. There's a legal difference between bankers and exchanges in which one borrows your money, and the other holds your assets on your behalf.
The fact that you don't (want to) understand the point doesn't make it non-existent.
>I’m not sure he’s subject to American financial laws at all since ftx was offshore.
He almost certainly is. Under US law, it doesn't actually matter where you're based. If you are engaging in substantial activity in the US, and have a presence in the US, then you are within the jurisdiction of the US, at least for that portion.
I have no idea what the deal with FTX.us is, but the main exchange can plausibly say they had no customers in the US and did no business there. American IPs couldn't enter the site.
According to some, supposedly cryptocurrencies was the solution to get around financial and banking regulations, and the only truth was written on the blockchain ledger. "Smart" contracts will make traditional contracts based on the legal system obsolete. At least for those cases, it can be argued that those people waived their rights to recovering economic loss via the legal system by using cryptocurrencies.
That said, I don't buy it. But maybe a desperate lawyer could try to argue that...
No. What happened at the company FTX has nothing to do with blockchain and smart contracts. It could have been an online exchange for euros or dollars or Pokemon cards. Violating the ToS and stealing users' funds is a crime.
There's plenty of people in here who think that the investors "deserved it" because they traded cryptocurrency. They have such a hatred for it that they would be glad to let these criminals get off scot-free, just to spite those who invested in crypto and lost it in a scam. There's no discussion to be had there. It should be obvious that FTX operated as a traditional centralized financial institution that happened to trade primarily crypto and therefore should have been subject to regulations, but no. Crypto bad, therefore props to the scammers.