[HN Gopher] FTX Future Fund
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FTX Future Fund
Author : tmychow
Score : 67 points
Date : 2022-02-28 17:52 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ftxfuturefund.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (ftxfuturefund.org)
| wmf wrote:
| You want to reduce risk? Stop letting people gamble with 20x
| leverage.
| y0ssar1an wrote:
| textbook greenwashing. if they want to make the world a better
| place, shut down FTX and stop enabling the insane, planet
| incinerating, fraud enabling, money laundering, rogue regime
| financing, fake tech breakthrough called "crypto". crypto
| companies like FTX should be viewed with the same disdain as Big
| Oil and Big Tobacco. this is like investing with ExxonMobil to
| stop climate change. don't fall for it.
|
| https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Sustainability/Environmenta...
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60281129
| SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
| It's hard to look at this founder and say he isn't extremely
| well intentioned.
|
| For a very young guy in this scene you'd expect expensive
| watches and cars, but instead he drives a budget car, is giving
| away a great majority of his wealth, and seems to truly care.
|
| The reason he's keeping FTX open is to earn more money to give
| away to environmental, socioeconomic, and health organizations
| and research. His track record speaks for itself.
| floodyberry- wrote:
| > The reason he's keeping FTX open is to earn more money to
| give away to environmental, socioeconomic, and health
| organizations and research.
|
| There is no way you posted that with a straight face.
| rattlesnakedave wrote:
| Very little on the site has to do with environmentalism.
| htlion wrote:
| I would add the fact that the company is based in Antigua. So
| the overall picture is a very profitable company, in a domain
| which, as of now, mostly enables fraud at an insane energy
| cost, based in a tax haven. But somehow, this is for the
| greater good. With the challenges ahead, we, all of us, will
| have to decrease our consumption of most if not all resources.
| This can not be achieved by just pouring money from the
| penthouse of a skyscraper of a capital city.
| seibelj wrote:
| spir wrote:
| Mostly True: "planet incinerating, fraud enabling, money
| laundering, rogue regime financing"
|
| Totally False: "fake tech breakthrough called "crypto""
| [deleted]
| exdsq wrote:
| If people are interested in where these ideas come from, please
| look at these links:
|
| https://www.givingwhatwecan.org
|
| https://80000hours.org
|
| https://www.effectivealtruism.org
|
| If you're thinking about how you can contribute more than you
| currently are but don't want to leave a comfy FAANG job, I highly
| recommend reading a little about giving what we can. Disclaimer:
| I pledged with GWWC and am involved in some EA groups.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| If you're in the New York City, this is the philosophy the
| Robinhood Foundation [1] pursues.
|
| [1] https://www.robinhood.org
| Shindi wrote:
| I'm actually curious what makes you say the philosophies are
| similar? I see that the robinhood foundation site says "Last
| year, we invested $172 million in over 900 of the most
| impactful nonprofits across New York City, including over $80
| million for COVID-19 relief."
|
| One idea I see expressed in Effective Altruism circles a lot
| is that a life overseas in some poor country is worth as much
| as a life here (in NYC where I live). Wondering how giving in
| NYC is more impactful than giving to unsexy causes like
| malaria nets abroad, given how expensive everything is in
| NYC.
|
| I'm always skeptical of company's philanthropic arms because
| it's so easy to give to causes that make the company looks
| good instead of giving to causes based the most good you can
| do.
|
| Although, I thank my direct parent for sharing that link,
| don't mean to come across as argumentative.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| Anyone else oddly skeptical of FTX? They seemingly came out of no
| where with ungodly amounts of money, and began slapping their
| name on anything and everything.
| bena wrote:
| I first heard about them when they began to sponsor a Magic:
| the Gathering related podcast and about a month(?) later,
| they're everywhere.
|
| But I'm wary of the crypto space in general. A lot of bad faith
| actors.
| exdsq wrote:
| No. I have some mutual acquaintances with the owner through
| effective altruism and I've heard good things. It's pretty
| insane that he left Jane Street to try make more money to give
| to effective charities and now at 29 is worth $22.5 Billion! So
| they have the money to spend on these things and the fact he's
| running a future fund makes total sense based on what his
| original goals were.
| wmf wrote:
| Where did that money come from, though? People getting margin
| called on their life savings?
|
| Update: I assume the majority of SBF's net worth is from FTX
| not Alameda, so my question is where does FTX's money come
| from. I assume it's from wrecking retail traders.
| delaaxe wrote:
| Liquidation fees are an very small portion of FTX's
| revenue.
| vmception wrote:
| Crypto exchanges make a lot of money. Just from trading
| fees. Margin calls don't typically have their own special
| fees, although the perpetuals products (that one can get
| margin called on to begin with) typically have daily fees.
|
| Coinbase did a direct listing of its shares at a $100bn
| valuation, with extremely low revenue numbers, which are
| still great numbers.
|
| Anyone that:
|
| A) Has similar volume
|
| B) Has similar growth
|
| C) Offers more ways of accruing value - such as perpetuals
|
| D) Retains greater ownership of their own company
|
| is simply going to have a lot of money. Its not that
| mysterious. Keeping a few $billion in crypto provides many
| opportunities for the same price appreciation as everyone
| else.
|
| Alameda is also known as being quite a shark when it comes
| to deal making, if you don't get something in writing they
| are going to do the most profitable thing at you/your
| community's expense as soon as the opportunity arises.
|
| Their OTC desk also _likely_ has more volume than their lit
| exchange exchange, and OTC desks enjoy wider spreads in the
| trades.
|
| And remember, they have nonstop trading sessions, 24/7, so
| more than 3x as many sessions as a stock or options
| exchange, and slightly more than futures and currency
| exchanges.
| tootie wrote:
| When I see a crypto exchange with tens of billions of
| daily volume and almost no marketing, I assume they are
| dealing with institutions, governments and probably
| organized crime.
| vmception wrote:
| Yes all are on crypto exchanges, alongside retail. They
| grow fast because they provide an immediate service.
|
| Basically what happens is that they grow soooo fast that
| they arent able to handle customer support, cant list new
| assets that customers want fast enough, that even
| institutions want.
|
| So then the next startup crypto exchange lists the newly
| desired assets and attracts the whole network and people
| fearing missing out.
|
| And it keeps going. Thats the primary way they compete.
| There is a bunch of stuff behind the scenes for market
| depth and liquidity, but it reduces the need for
| exchanges to compete with each other on liquidity so its
| not really a factor just like trading commissions are
| really how they compete.
|
| Boom town.
| arcticbull wrote:
| They did name it "Alameda _Research_ " because they wanted
| to trick banks into servicing them.
| metacritic12 wrote:
| Is the assumption that just because SBF made money, it must
| have been through "some evil"? What's the basis for that
| assumption (versus anything else, like ICOing a new token).
| arcticbull wrote:
| Nah the assumption that they made money _in crypto_ which
| is just a cesspool of fraud, grift and crime - is what
| gives some folks the assumption that it could have been
| through fraud, grift or crime.
|
| You hang out in the muck, folks are going to assume you
| have some on you.
|
| I'm not saying they do necessarily, just that that's
| where the assumption more than likely comes from.
| putlake wrote:
| exdsq is right in the sibling comment. Alameda also made a
| lot of money (probably still does) with arbitrage. BTC in
| Korea costs more than BTC in the US. It's not easy to
| convert KRW to USD freely but they seemed to have found a
| way around it.
|
| [Edit: Typo]
| exdsq wrote:
| Crypto trading with his own money and then his own fund. I
| believe it was Alameda Research which is still going.
| Basically a bunch of young Jane Street/MIT/Stanford
| mathematicians who've made a killing. You can read a little
| more about it here: https://80000hours.org/stories/sam-
| bankman-fried/
| fezzez wrote:
| The story is that their founder made billions of a crypto trade
| a couple years ago so I think they might have the funding to do
| stuff like this.
| robbiep wrote:
| To extend on that, he's done a couple ho hour interview with
| Sam Harris on 'earning to do good'
| dkasper wrote:
| There's incredible amounts of capital going into the crypto
| industry and FTX is one of the biggest players. There may be
| some froth but they seem like one of the least shady players in
| the space to me.
| wmf wrote:
| The question is how and why FTX became big given that BitMEX
| already existed.
| solean wrote:
| Bitmex is very much a niche exchange, it only offers a
| handful of perps. FTX will let you trade pretty much any
| thing you can think of (crypto perps/spot, stocks,
| political elections, etc.)
| swader999 wrote:
| Bitmex and its liquidation engine is why.
| dkersten wrote:
| BitMEX was engulfed in controversy (lawsuits and
| investigation) around the time FTX launched.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Well that is a low bar. I am curious why their US destination
| wires arrive from "West Realm Shires Services Inc" instead
| of, like FTX.
| babyshake wrote:
| The "Project Ideas" section has next to nothing regarding energy.
| Surprising given the focus on "humanity's long-term prospects".
| exdsq wrote:
| Energy is a very important problem but also one that is heavily
| funded and researched. It makes more sense to focus on
| underfunded issues that offer a high reward. I argue that
| energy should be more funded for what it's worth, but climate
| change and renewable energy sources aren't that popular in
| effective altruism circles.
| coldpie wrote:
| > but climate change and renewable energy sources aren't that
| popular in effective altruism circles
|
| What.
| exdsq wrote:
| Check out some of the fund breakdowns and look at how much
| is spent on climate change and renewable energy
|
| https://funds.effectivealtruism.org
|
| https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund
|
| The common argument is that the best way to try and make an
| impact on climate change is to fund lobbyists to make
| change at governmental levels https://www.theatlantic.com/n
| ewsletters/archive/2021/12/most...
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(page generated 2022-02-28 23:00 UTC)