Centralized Exchanges...The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Enemy

Good morning...

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving weekend.  Max is home tonight with his pal Luc and we will go to the Lakers/Suns game to see Lebron and play a few rounds of golf with friends. Rachel is staying out east with friends so will be missed.  She went up to Toronto to see all the family which is a nice perk for her living in New York.

I have been on edge the last two weeks because of the Sam Bankman/FTX fraud.  Twitter has helped as I search for some truth, but you won't find some truth on Twitter for free as you get riled up reading a lot of idiocy. As I wrote on my blog when the news unfolded, it brings back horrific memories.  Sam is fine.  He is a sociopath.  He's probably relieved.  I've stared a sociopath down now twice now in my life (meaning once I knew they were) and it's gut wrenching.  

From my experience, you don't know until you know. Once you know...it's easy to look back and see all the signs which makes it extra painful.  Sadly, I also know from experience, that once you know the pain is just starting because the system works in  favor of the fraudster.

For the victims I can understand the pain as the mainstream media still glosses over Sam and the fraud and the financial pain he has caused.  By victims, I don't mean Sequoia who has already fired at least one person on the FTX deal and used the biggest single investment write-off in their history to brag about their returns and Bain Capital/Consulting who Tiger Global pays $100 million for their due diligence (LOL) who whiffed yet again.  

This one person Andonis, who I stumbled upon on Twitter, called out the FTX fallout back in March...

Has the New York Times, Wall Street Journal or Washington Post called him yet? 

Of course not, but they have each written ridiculous puff pieces.  Here are two from Forbes and Washington Post...

What have I learned re crypto?

I pushed off my personal crypto exposure to a few funds (mostly Multicoin) other than a little bit of Bitcoin and Ethereum at Coinbase.  I took some profits last year (thank goodness and of course not enough) and this year I think the rest is mostly gone.  

If Bitcoin, Solana, Ethereum fell another 90 percent it would not affect my interest in the power of the blockchain and NFT's.  They are fascinating and will get easier to use.

If I were to buy more crypto personally it would be through a wallet I controlled with a private key.  

As for the exchanges, god bless the people that use and trust them.  I won't.

Binance is already dancing on the grave of every exchange with their first TV commercial...

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