26 Burst results for "John J Ray"
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL: Inside Sam Bankman-Fried's Trial Defense Episode 2
"The most important thing is, you know, just because a lawyer tells you something is okay, that's not a defense. Geez, he said it. He seemed to think everything was okay. Yeah. That's not an advice of counsel defense that negates criminal intent, that's an excuse. In part two of our series digging into SPF's defense, we dissect Sam Bankman -freed's claims that his lawyers played a larger role in FTX's collapse than he did. It might sound like a stretch, but there is legal precedent behind it. SPF also says he was pressured by counsel into turning FTX over to their hand -picked successor. In this episode, we sit down with Mark Litt, the prosecutor who took down Bernie Madoff, Travis Kling, a fund manager who still has millions of dollars tied up in FTX, and Mr. Purple, a pseudonymous crypto investor and fellow FTX victim, to see if there's any legitimacy to SPF's claims that lawyers who were there for FTX's rise are now primed to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees. Money that SPF says should be used to pay back depositors. I'm Zach Ousman, you're listening to the SPF Defense Podcast, a coinage investigation. SPF's position is that FTX would have made it through the crisis if not for his lawyers, which conspired to steal the company out from under him, cover up their role in its operation, and siphon hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees from the bankrupt estate. SPF even names one lawyer in particular, Ryan Miller, who joined FTX US from the law firm's Sullivan and Cromwell, and planned on returning there after his time at the exchange, according to an affidavit from FTX's top lawyer. SPF says Miller conspired to hand the company over to Solcrom and their chosen agent, John J. Ray III, who also handled Enron's bankruptcy. And whether you come to believe Sam's claims or not, Solcrom and Ray clearly won. If FTX's bankruptcy process takes the two years like Enron's did, it's on track to cost over $800 million. And Solcrom's relationship has already been called out by more than just Sam. It's even been raised as an issue by senators and 18 state regulators. But could SPF be right about Ryan Miller and Solcrom's nefarious motives? And even if they did do some evil lawyer shit, will it be enough to get SPF off the hook? To fully understand this defense strategy, it helps to start with SPF's story behind his attempt to plug the now notorious multi -billion dollar hole at FTX back in November's collapse. As the story goes, he was preparing to handle the liquidity crisis by courting Nomura, Japan's largest investment group, and the crypto company Tron, who had pledged billions of dollars in liquidity to FTX, while other investors were still deliberating. SPF had said he planned on giving away most of his equity in the company, and therefore most of his wealth, in an attempt to make customers of FTX International whole. SPF has always maintained that FTX US remained completely solvent right up to the end. But SPF says his rescue plan failed because Ryan Miller and Solcrom agents at his company, including Tim Wilson, another FTX lawyer with a past at Solcrom, pressed him repeatedly to sign the company's over to John Ray in bankruptcy, and even implied that if he refused, they could have him arrested and quote, change control in order to authorize a proper insolvency process. SPF said he changed his mind within 10 minutes of signing, but it was already too late. And he says his lawyers reneged on their promises to let him select a board share, blocking him out of his accounts and refusing to communicate further. As soon as John Ray was installed, he chose Sullivan and Cromwell as FTX's primary counsel. To be fair, SPF actually has a point when it comes to the sketchiness of that process. Even outside legal observers have taken issue with Solcrom being tapped as the firm to manage FTX's bankruptcy. In fact, a bipartisan group of two Republican and two Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter to the judge overseeing the case, urging him to appoint an independent examiner rather than Solcrom, which worked with FTX and Alameda before the collapse, bringing in $8 .5 million in legal fees. The senators argued, quote, given their longstanding legal work for FTX, they may well bear a measure of responsibility for the damage wrecked on the company's victims. Regulators from 18 states echoed that issue, saying appointing an independent examiner wasn't just right, it was also legally required. But back in February, the judge in the case threw out those requests, saying it would cost too much money, though we should note FTX's lawyers also charged the bankruptcy estate $21 ,000 over 20 days just for meals, which apparently isn't too much to spend. And if you ask the victims in FTX's collapse, this is all pretty important, considering it's their deposits and claims at stake. And if their money is being drained in broad daylight by a law firm who also helped FTX pre -collapse, that might not sit any better than Sam spending it. We talked to Travis Kling, who lost his crypto investment fund in FTX's collapse, and asked him to weigh in. If you ask me at the very beginning, do you think this is going to be one of the most expensive bankruptcies in U .S. history, I would say yes. Yes. You know, it's enormous. There's a ton of fraud, and it's magic internet money. Trying to kind of Monday morning quarterback this and say, oh, Sam would have been better off not filing for bankruptcy. That's not something that I feel very strongly about. And Solkrom's outrageous fees aren't the only reason for concern. SPF also claims Solkrom gave a clean bill of health to Alameda's trading accounts on FTX in a report with the CFTC just months before the collapse. Furthermore, in his affidavit, Dan Friedberg, who was both FTX's chief compliance officer and Alameda's general counsel until he stepped down following the crisis, says Miller only included FTX U .S. in the bankruptcy proceedings precisely because Miller knew it had the funds to pay Solkrom for its work, which backs up what SPF said about how FTX U .S. was never insolvent. So this may be a case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Solkrom denies any of this, of course. The firm's top bankruptcy lawyer, Andrew Dietrich, who told other lawyers FTX was rock solid in an email just days before the bankruptcy, said he only spoke with SPF twice. The FTX debtors also countersued Friedberg to seek damages, alleging he breached his fiduciary duties. We can't say much more beyond that because Solkrom never got back to us when we asked for a comment. But one thing is clear, what guidance Sam's lawyers gave him, and particularly what they knew about the business, will become integral to SPF's defense at trial. Even if you asked Ryan Miller before the collapse, the laws are pretty simple for any business, crypto or otherwise. Here he is explaining that concept at an MIT Bitcoin meetup in July 2022. Don't do fraud, don't lie, don't release materially incomplete statements. That then creates a basis for liability, liability from a criminal authority, be it a Department of Justice or liability in a civil context. Yet according to Caroline Allison's guilty plea, they had trouble following even those rules. In her sworn testimony, she said, quote, I agreed with Mr. Bankman, Fried and others to provide materially misleading financial statements to Alameda's lenders. Could Miller or any of SPF's lawyers, for that matter, be one of those others? Sam's other allegation that Miller contacted the DOJ to turn over documents that led to his indictment days before SPF linked, which controlled the company, makes Miller start to look even sketchier. But even if Solkrom really does have a true conflict of interest, could SPF really use their role in everything that happened to get an acquittal? Given that I'm not a lawyer, we pose that defense to Mark Litt, the prosecutor who took down Bernie Madoff. Can a lawyer be a criminal? Sure. Yeah. Can a lawyer be part of a criminal enterprise? Yes. Do they often go down? I don't know a lot of reputable lawyers who are going to bless lying to investors, lying to banks, intermingling funds, lying to auditors. If he happened to find one who knew all that was going on and blessed it, then maybe as a defense. But I tend to doubt it. You can't think of it as, well, oh, well, you know, Sullivan and Cromwell was involved or a former Sullivan and Cromwell lawyer was involved and, geez, he said he seemed to think everything was okay. That's not an advice of counsel defense that negates criminal intent. That's an excuse masquerading as an advice of counsel defense. Advice of counsel defense is very specific and narrow. You need competent counsel and they'll stipulate that any lawyer at Sullivan and Cromwell is competent in the subject area that they're being asked about. Second, every material fact has to be disclosed to them. Third, you have to seek their legal opinion on a subject. And fourth, you have to follow the advice. So if the defense can make out those elements, I would think they'd be able to present the defense and it might have a shot of winning. So Sol Cromwell might not be saints, but as we covered last time in episode one, SPF isn't exactly facing a trial over FTX's collapse. He's charged with a lot of things that led up to FTX's collapse. Arguably, what's alleged to have happened post -collapse matters more for FTX's victims. And if you ask them, the reviews are mixed on exactly what's played out thus far. If I'm going to judge Sullivan and Cromwell and John J. Wray from my purview of being someone who's seen these things in bankruptcy, I would give them a very low grade because you can say, oh, this is crypto, it's difficult, but it's not that difficult. And sometimes the devil you know is better than the one you don't. I will say that these debtors are extremely bad in my professional experience. That was Mr. Purple, a pseudonymous crypto investor who has experience following bankruptcy proceedings. For former FTX customers like him, Sam's spat with Sol Cromwell matters very little, as long as the firm can help achieve a meaningful recovery of their funds. And despite the fact that legal fees are stacking up, the bidding market for FTX customer claims is showing a growing hope they might not be stuck with pennies on the dollar. Another way to frame it is, you know, there's a claims market for FTX claims, trade claims, trade actively. There's a little niche of traditional finance that all they do is go around to different bankruptcies in all industries and they buy claims. This is this is a, you know, a subsector of of investing. And this is a huge bankruptcy. So this has been a very big liquid market. Right. And the first, you know, we're a very big creditor in this. So, you know, I'm in active conversations in this claims market. First, first bid we saw was in Thanksgiving and it was like six cents. That was the first bid. Six cents on the dollar, six cents on the dollar. And now now it's like 40 cents. And so it's gone from six to 40 cents. So then I'm like, OK, well, that feels quite good. Yeah. And OK, these guys are charging a load of money for that, but they have taken us from six cents to 40 cents. With both FTX's bankruptcy case and SPF's criminal case unfolding in real time, one may very well impact the other. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the CFTC to share the report. Sam says Solkrom filed to support that FTX's structure was above board. The agency denied our request, saying it's unable to share documents that, quote, could interfere with the conduct of federal agency law enforcement activities. And of course, as long as Solkrom selected John Ray is running the show at FTX, it's unexpected anything comes out to support SPF's case. FTX, too, didn't get back for comment. So unless SPF has direct evidence of lawyers being aware of FTX's shaky financials and helping for years to cover it up, it's hard to judge SPF's advice of counsel defense or the idea that he thought he was in the clear leading up to the collapse just because his lawyers said it was fine. As Litt said, that sounds more like an excuse than a defense. As a community owned Web3 media outlet, Coinage will be breaking down everything we've learned together through this series and curating still unanswered questions at Coinage .Media. I'm Zach Guzman. This was the second part of Coinage's investigative series covering SPF's defense. Stay tuned for episode three, where we'll explore another pillar. Of SPF's defense. You've been listening to the SPF Defense on the Coindesk Podcast Network. Follow the Coindesk Podcast Network to get all the Coindesk shows in one place and head over to Coindesk .com for all the Sam Bankman freed coverage. Thanks for listening.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
Fresh update on "john j ray" discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"The most important thing is, you know, just because a lawyer tells you something is okay, that's not a defense. Geez, he said it. He seemed to think everything was okay. Yeah. That's not an advice of counsel defense that negates criminal intent, that's an excuse. In part two of our series digging into SPF's defense, we dissect Sam Bankman-freed's claims that his lawyers played a larger role in FTX's collapse than he did. It might sound like a stretch, but there is legal precedent behind it. SPF also says he was pressured by counsel into turning FTX over to their hand-picked successor. In this episode, we sit down with Mark Litt, the prosecutor who took down Bernie Madoff, Travis Kling, a fund manager who still has millions of dollars tied up in FTX, and Mr. Purple, a pseudonymous crypto investor and fellow FTX victim, to see if there's any legitimacy to SPF's claims that lawyers who were there for FTX's rise are now primed to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees. Money that SPF says should be used to pay back depositors. I'm Zach Ousman, you're listening to the SPF Defense Podcast, a coinage investigation. SPF's position is that FTX would have made it through the crisis if not for his lawyers, which conspired to steal the company out from under him, cover up their role in its operation, and siphon hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees from the bankrupt estate. SPF even names one lawyer in particular, Ryan Miller, who joined FTX US from the law firm's Sullivan and Cromwell, and planned on returning there after his time at the exchange, according to an affidavit from FTX's top lawyer. SPF says Miller conspired to hand the company over to Solcrom and their chosen agent, John J. Ray III, who also handled Enron's bankruptcy. And whether you come to believe Sam's claims or not, Solcrom and Ray clearly won. If FTX's bankruptcy process takes the two years like Enron's did, it's on track to cost over $800 million. And Solcrom's relationship has already been called out by more than just Sam. It's even been raised as an issue by senators and 18 state regulators. But could SPF be right about Ryan Miller and Solcrom's nefarious motives? And even if they did do some evil lawyer shit, will it be enough to get SPF off the hook? To fully understand this defense strategy, it helps to start with SPF's story behind his attempt to plug the now notorious multi-billion dollar hole at FTX back in November's collapse. As the story goes, he was preparing to handle the liquidity crisis by courting Nomura, Japan's largest investment group, and the crypto company Tron, who had pledged billions of dollars in liquidity to FTX, while other investors were still deliberating. SPF had said he planned on giving away most of his equity in the company, and therefore most of his wealth, in an attempt to make customers of FTX International whole. SPF has always maintained that FTX US remained completely solvent right up to the end. But SPF says his rescue plan failed because Ryan Miller and Solcrom agents at his company, including Tim Wilson, another FTX lawyer with a past at Solcrom, pressed him repeatedly to sign the company's over to John Ray in bankruptcy, and even implied that if he refused, they could have him arrested and quote, change control in order to authorize a proper insolvency process. SPF said he changed his mind within 10 minutes of signing, but it was already too late. And he says his lawyers reneged on their promises to let him select a board share, blocking him out of his accounts and refusing to communicate further. As soon as John Ray was installed, he chose Sullivan and Cromwell as FTX's primary counsel. To be fair, SPF actually has a point when it comes to the sketchiness of that process. Even outside legal observers have taken issue with Solcrom being tapped as the firm to manage FTX's bankruptcy. In fact, a bipartisan group of two Republican and two Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter to the judge overseeing the case, urging him to appoint an independent examiner rather than Solcrom, which worked with FTX and Alameda before the collapse, bringing in $8.5 million in legal fees. The senators argued, quote, given their longstanding legal work for FTX, they may well bear a measure of responsibility for the damage wrecked on the company's victims. Regulators from 18 states echoed that issue, saying appointing an independent examiner wasn't just right, it was also legally required. But back in February, the judge in the case threw out those requests, saying it would cost too much money, though we should note FTX's lawyers also charged the bankruptcy estate $21,000 over 20 days just for meals, which apparently isn't too much to spend. And if you ask the victims in FTX's collapse, this is all pretty important, considering it's their deposits and claims at stake. And if their money is being drained in broad daylight by a law firm who also helped FTX pre-collapse, that might not sit any better than Sam spending it. We talked to Travis Kling, who lost his crypto investment fund in FTX's collapse, and asked him to weigh in. If you ask me at the very beginning, do you think this is going to be one of the most expensive bankruptcies in U.S. history, I would say yes. Yes. You know, it's enormous. There's a ton of fraud, and it's magic internet money. Trying to kind of Monday morning quarterback this and say, oh, Sam would have been better off not filing for bankruptcy. That's not something that I feel very strongly about. And Solkrom's outrageous fees aren't the only reason for concern. SPF also claims Solkrom gave a clean bill of health to Alameda's trading accounts on FTX in a report with the CFTC just months before the collapse. Furthermore, in his affidavit, Dan Friedberg, who was both FTX's chief compliance officer and Alameda's general counsel until he stepped down following the crisis, says Miller only included FTX U.S. in the bankruptcy proceedings precisely because Miller knew it had the funds to pay Solkrom for its work, which backs up what SPF said about how FTX U.S. was never insolvent. So this may be a case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Solkrom denies any of this, of course. The firm's top bankruptcy lawyer, Andrew Dietrich, who told other lawyers FTX was rock solid in an email just days before the bankruptcy, said he only spoke with SPF twice. The FTX debtors also countersued Friedberg to seek damages, alleging he breached his fiduciary duties. We can't say much more beyond that because Solkrom never got back to us when we asked for a comment. But one thing is clear, what guidance Sam's lawyers gave him, and particularly what they knew about the business, will become integral to SPF's defense at trial. Even if you asked Ryan Miller before the collapse, the laws are pretty simple for any business, crypto or otherwise. Here he is explaining that concept at an MIT Bitcoin meetup in July 2022. Don't do fraud, don't lie, don't release materially incomplete statements. That then creates a basis for liability, liability from a criminal authority, be it a Department of Justice or liability in a civil context. Yet according to Caroline Allison's guilty plea, they had trouble following even those rules. In her sworn testimony, she said, quote, I agreed with Mr. Bankman, Fried and others to provide materially misleading financial statements to Alameda's lenders. Could Miller or any of SPF's lawyers, for that matter, be one of those others? Sam's other allegation that Miller contacted the DOJ to turn over documents that led to his indictment days before SPF linked, which controlled the company, makes Miller start to look even sketchier. But even if Solkrom really does have a true conflict of interest, could SPF really use their role in everything that happened to get an acquittal? Given that I'm not a lawyer, we pose that defense to Mark Litt, the prosecutor who took down Bernie Madoff. Can a lawyer be a criminal? Sure. Yeah. Can a lawyer be part of a criminal enterprise? Yes. Do they often go down? I don't know a lot of reputable lawyers who are going to bless lying to investors, lying to banks, intermingling funds, lying to auditors. If he happened to find one who knew all that was going on and blessed it, then maybe as a defense. But I tend to doubt it. You can't think of it as, well, oh, well, you know, Sullivan and Cromwell was involved or a former Sullivan and Cromwell lawyer was involved and, geez, he said he seemed to think everything was okay. That's not an advice of counsel defense that negates criminal intent. That's an excuse masquerading as an advice of counsel defense. Advice of counsel defense is very specific and narrow. You need competent counsel and they'll stipulate that any lawyer at Sullivan and Cromwell is competent in the subject area that they're being asked about. Second, every material fact has to be disclosed to them. Third, you have to seek their legal opinion on a subject. And fourth, you have to follow the advice. So if the defense can make out those elements, I would think they'd be able to present the defense and it might have a shot of winning. So Sol Cromwell might not be saints, but as we covered last time in episode one, SPF isn't exactly facing a trial over FTX's collapse. He's charged with a lot of things that led up to FTX's collapse. Arguably, what's alleged to have happened post-collapse matters more for FTX's victims. And if you ask them, the reviews are mixed on exactly what's played out thus far. If I'm going to judge Sullivan and Cromwell and John J. Wray from my purview of being someone who's seen these things in bankruptcy, I would give them a very low grade because you can say, oh, this is crypto, it's difficult, but it's not that difficult. And sometimes the devil you know is better than the one you don't. I will say that these debtors are extremely bad in my professional experience. That was Mr. Purple, a pseudonymous crypto investor who has experience following bankruptcy proceedings. For former FTX customers like him, Sam's spat with Sol Cromwell matters very little, as long as the firm can help achieve a meaningful recovery of their funds. And despite the fact that legal fees are stacking up, the bidding market for FTX customer claims is showing a growing hope they might not be stuck with pennies on the dollar. Another way to frame it is, you know, there's a claims market for FTX claims, trade claims, trade actively. There's a little niche of traditional finance that all they do is go around to different bankruptcies in all industries and they buy claims. This is this is a, you know, a subsector of of investing. And this is a huge bankruptcy. So this has been a very big liquid market. Right. And the first, you know, we're a very big creditor in this. So, you know, I'm in active conversations in this claims market. First, first bid we saw was in Thanksgiving and it was like six cents. That was the first bid. Six cents on the dollar, six cents on the dollar. And now now it's like 40 cents. And so it's gone from six to 40 cents. So then I'm like, OK, well, that feels quite good. Yeah. And OK, these guys are charging a load of money for that, but they have taken us from six cents to 40 cents. With both FTX's bankruptcy case and SPF's criminal case unfolding in real time, one may very well impact the other. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the CFTC to share the report. Sam says Solkrom filed to support that FTX's structure was above board. The agency denied our request, saying it's unable to share documents that, quote, could interfere with the conduct of federal agency law enforcement activities. And of course, as long as Solkrom selected John Ray is running the show at FTX, it's unexpected anything comes out to support SPF's case. FTX, too, didn't get back for comment. So unless SPF has direct evidence of lawyers being aware of FTX's shaky financials and helping for years to cover it up, it's hard to judge SPF's advice of counsel defense or the idea that he thought he was in the clear leading up to the collapse just because his lawyers said it was fine. As Litt said, that sounds more like an excuse than a defense.As a community owned Web3 media outlet, Coinage will be breaking down everything we've learned together through this series and curating still unanswered questions at Coinage.Media. I'm Zach Guzman. This was the second part of Coinage's investigative series covering SPF's defense. Stay tuned for episode three, where we'll explore another pillar. Of SPF's defense. You've been listening to the SPF Defense on the Coindesk Podcast Network. Follow the Coindesk Podcast Network to get all the Coindesk shows in one place and head over to Coindesk.com for all the Sam Bankman freed coverage. Thanks for listening.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from UNCHAINED: Why FTX Might Try to Claw Back Funds From Retail Customers
"Thanks for listening to Unchained, your no -hype resource for all things crypto, on the CoinDesk podcast network. You can also listen to the episodes on the Unchained feed earlier if you subscribe there. Plus check out all our content on our website, unchainedcrypto .com. These are all fraudulent transfers, potentially while the debtor was insolvent, potentially while it was coming to lift funds, so clearly all that money has to come back. I think that's pretty easy. The question is, like, what's it worth now and who can actually pay it back? With Toku, you get unmatched legal and tax tech support to grant and administer your global team's tokens. Make it simple today with Toku. Today's episode is brought to you by Overtime Markets, your premier Web3 sportsbook. The innovative protocol is changing the game one match at a time. Powered by Thales, explore more at OvertimeMarkets .xyz. Arbitrum's leading Layer 2 scaling solution offers you ultra -cheap and lightning -fast transactions, all with security rooted on Ethereum. Visit arbitrum .io today. With the Crypto .com app, you can buy, trade and spend crypto in one place. Download and get $25 with the code LORA. Link in the description. Today's guest is Thomas Brazile, founder of 117 Partners. Welcome, Thomas. Hey, Laura. Good to see you again. This week, FTX sued Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, the parents of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman Fried. Alleging that Bankman was intimately involved in a number of the allegedly fraudulent schemes, such as silencing someone who threatened to expose the alleged FTX fraud, the purchase of property in the Bahamas, Barbara Fried encouraged the use of strong donors as campaign finance laws, or allegedly, and both were accused generally of either knowing or ignoring the red flags that FTX was insolvent. Was this development surprising or expected? Thanks for having me on, Laura. Good to see you, as always. Was it surprising? No, I don't think it was that surprising. I think what was in the lawsuits in bankruptcy referred to as adversary proceeding, but what was seen in the adversary proceeding was probably a bit shocking, the actual details, but I think people knew that they were pretty involved. I think that was some of the heat they were getting post him getting a criminal complaint against him was that, why is he hanging out with his parents? Weren't they involved in a lot of parts of the business and people were saying things like that. I don't think it's that unexpected. People, I think, long knew that there were some real estate transactions where they were gifted or given some certain real estate in the Bahamas, but to see it all laid out in the complaint or I should say in the adversary proceeding was interesting. Which items in particular really struck you? I guess just the involvement in the actual day -to -day stuff. I mean, if you come from a corporate background or were a tax lawyer, which his dad, I guess, was and is, that there wasn't more, I don't know, structure to the organization. I mean, the dichotomy between what people thought pre -petition, what John Ray sort of said post -petition and now some of the revelations coming out about the pre -petition activity. I mean, it's just kind of amazing to think about people that might have been a more corporate background and saying like, if the business was so profitable, why were you cutting corners? To be fair to these guys, like in the light of day, sunlight of bankruptcy court, which as people in bankruptcy say, like my parents would say, the last place you want to be as a criminal is in bankruptcy court because there's so much sunlight and everything. Everything gets scrutinized. To be fair to people, sometimes the stuff gets overly scrutinized and they cherry pick stuff that went on. But it seems pretty damning, some of the stuff and there's, let's see what the responses will be. I mean, it's good for the estate and it's good for creditors because I'm sure they want to see sort of retribution. But in terms of recoveries, I don't think it's going to be incredibly meaningful, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 million dollars. I mean, that's, I don't know, maybe two months of bankruptcy fees. And so, earlier when we were talking about like how some of the things are particularly damning, like if you were to kind of say, FTX will win in court for these reasons, like which were the particular acts that you think probably will put things over the edge? Oh yeah. I think almost all the stuff though, the win on the merits of the fraudulent conveyance. I mean, these are all fraudulent transfers potentially while the debtor was insolvent, potentially while it was coming with funds, so clearly all that money has to come back. I think that's pretty easy. The question is like, what's it worth now and who can actually pay it back? Like if money was given to a charity, can you actually go and get it back? Like meaning, is it there? Has it been spent kind of stuff? And you can only squeeze whatever rocked so hard. So the question will be, what is the real estate in the Bahamas worth? The 10 million bucks or whatever that was gifted to them, where did that money end up going? Can they trace it? So, these things cost money to do and then the question is like, how much of an effort do you want to make? And of course, all that can be stopped by a criminal investigation, which there isn't a complaint, but clearly some of the activity could be considered criminal. And I think, I won't pretend to be a criminal lawyer or a lawyer at all, but when you're bringing lawsuits, I mean, basically these are kind of like preponderance of evidence standards versus like higher standards that you might have for criminal complaints. So, it's easier for John Ray to like stitch together some stuff they know and slap an AP and sue these guys, but it's a little harder from a criminal side. But all of it, just facially, I mean, of course, as my lawyer likes to tell me, like, facts matter Thomas. So, if more discovery happens than they take discovery, we'll see. But on the face of it, I mean, it looks pretty obvious that it's sort of slam dunk. Just the question is what they'll actually be able to recover. Yeah, I think one of the ones that stuck out at me, simply because I could very easily imagine myself in a similar position with my own parents and I could just picture what my mother would say. And it was when they purchased the Bahamas property and everything was just getting billed or allegedly in the complaint to FTX. And the parents didn't even make an attempt to pay to furnish their home themselves. And I could just imagine if something similar was happening with my mother, she would be like, wait, is this okay that we're doing this? Like, you know, she would have so many questions about the money and like what was okay, what was kosher, what was not. Like, I could just practically hear her in my head. But at least, you know, from what the complaint described, it didn't feel at all like the parents had any of those qualms. So that was... Yeah, it wasn't 100 % owner of FTX. So it is bizarre that those red flags wouldn't have been, or people wouldn't have been like, hey, I know that you think this is okay, but I don't. Like someone would have said something, maybe they thought it was a drop in the ocean, but if FTX was so wildly profitable and Alameda was so wildly profitable, they didn't need to cut in corners and have them picking up the checks. I mean, it would have been easy for Sam to just be like, no, I'm picking this up personally or something. Well, one thing that I also noticed is that the document hedges its language saying things like, quote, Banquin and Freed either knew or ignored bright red flags revealing that SPF and other insiders were orchestrating the scheme. And again, you know, I saw later again, it was like, they either knew or blatantly ignored. So, yes. Right. That's because the standard for these civil cases is much lower. You know, like if you were trying to criminally try them, you'd have to like really show that they knew because they're going to say they didn't know, they didn't know, right. But the standard for like breach of fiduciary duty or, you know, kind of unjust enrichment, it's a much lower standard. All you have to basically show is a reasonable person should have known, you know. Oh, oh, I see. Yeah. So, that's why they keep saying that. So, you're saying – So, basically, they don't know whether or not they knew, but it doesn't matter for what they're trying to do. Is that what you're saying? I will respectfully say that I'm not a lawyer, but a stress investor and what people usually say – is the standard is usually what a reasonable person should have known, steps a reasonable person should have taken, best practices that a board should have taken. So, like a board of directors, if somebody runs off with money in a company, they don't have to necessarily show that they knew the person stole the money, but did they take any steps a reasonable person would have taken to like verify that the money was there or that the person wasn't absconding with money or whatever. So, it's this reasonable person standard that I think you trigger under Delaware and there are a lot of jurisdictions for breach of fiduciary duty or breach of loyalty, duty of care that you have, mainly in the boardroom, but also I think as a C -suite executive and it sounds like he was sort of melding between the two. So, basically, yeah, they're just trying to meet that standard for their purposes. They don't need to go beyond. And Barbara Fried, you know, also – so, as far as I understand from reading this, you know, Sam Pinkman was definitely involved more in the day -to -day, you know, he was often listed with FTX management. He could make executive decisions on his own at one point saying, oh, I'm just going to make this decision without Sam, like we don't need to involve him, that kind of thing. So, Barbara Fried was not involved at that level. However, it did say that she was a key influence on the campaign donations and I wondered what your takeaway was in that regard in terms of, you know, her involvement there. campaign finance fraud. Yeah, I don't have too much to say other than it's just bizarre that, you know, so many corners were cut in regards to stuff. I don't have a real view on – again, it's like it helps them build a story that they can, you know, just slam dunk, take back any money that was taken out of the estate at any point in the last couple of years by Barbara and the husband. But I don't think that – I don't have a real view on that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And as far as I understand, I don't think they're married, they're domestic partners. Just to clarify, yeah. All right. So, in a moment, we're going to talk about what the consequences could be after, you know, from this document. But first, a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible. Toku makes managing global token compensation and incentive awards simple. Are you designing your token compensation plan and grant templates with multiple law firms? Are you managing cliffs, vesting and taxable events in a spreadsheet? Are you distributing tokens to your team manually? With Toku, you get unmatched legal and tax tech support to grant and administer your global team's tokens. Easy -to -use token grant award templates, vesting tracking via online dashboard, tax withholding integration with payroll, automated distributions, great employee experience. Make it simple with Toku. Learn more at toku .com slash unchained.
Unchained
A highlight from Why FTX Might Try to Claw Back Funds From Retail Customers- Ep. 547
"I mean, these are all fraudulent transfers, potentially while the debtor was insolvent, potentially while it was coming to lift funds, so clearly all that money has to come back. I think that's pretty easy. The question is like, what's it worth now and who can actually pay it back? Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no -hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin, author of The Cryptopians. I started covering crypto eight years ago and as a senior editor at Forbes was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full time. This is the September 22nd, 2023 episode of Unchained. Toku makes implementing global token compensation and incentive awards simple. With Toku, you get unmatched legal and tax tech support to grant and administer your global team's tokens. Make it simple today with Toku. Today's episode is brought to you by Overtime Markets, your premier Web3 sportsbook. The innovative protocol is changing the game one match at a time. Powered by Thales, explore more at OvertimeMarkets .xyz. Arbitrum's leading Layer 2 scaling solution offers you ultra -cheap and lightning -fast transactions, all with security rooted on Ethereum. Visit arbitrum .io today. With the Crypto .com app, you can buy, trade and spend crypto in one place. Download and get $25 with the code LAURA. Link in the description. Today's guest is Thomas Brazile, founder of 117 Partners. Welcome, Thomas. Hey, Laura. Good to see you again. This week, FTX sued Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, the parents of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman Fried, alleging that Bankman was intimately involved in a number of the allegedly fraudulent schemes such as silencing someone who threatened to expose the alleged FTX fraud, the purchase of property in the Bahamas. Barbara Fried encouraged the use of strong donors as campaign finance laws, or allegedly, and both were accused generally of either knowing or ignoring the red flags that FTX was in solvent. Was this development surprising or expected? Thanks for having me on, Laura. Good to see you, as always. Was it surprising? No, I don't think it was that surprising. I think what was in the lawsuits in bankruptcy referred to as adversary proceeding, but what was seen in the adversary proceeding was probably a bit shocking, the actual details. But I think people knew that they were pretty involved. And I think that was some of the heat they were getting post him getting a criminal complaint against him was that, you know, why is he hanging out with his parents, weren't they involved in a lot of parts of the business, and people were saying things like that. I don't think it's that unexpected. People I think long knew that there were some real estate transactions where they were gifted or given some certain real estate in the Bahamas. But to see it all laid out in the complaint or I should say in the adversary proceeding was interesting, you know. And yeah. Which items in particular really struck you? I guess it's the involvement like in the actual day -to -day stuff. I mean, if you come from a corporate background or were a tax lawyer, which is that I guess was is, and that there wasn't more, I don't know, structure to the organization. I mean, you know, the dichotomy between what people thought pre -petition, what John Ray sort of said post -petition, and now some of the revelations coming out about the pre -petition activity. I mean, it's just kind of amazing to think about people that might have been a more corporate background and saying like, if the business was so profitable, why were you cutting corners? And, you know, to be fair to these guys, like in the, you know, in the light of day, sunlight of bankruptcy court, which as, you know, people in bankruptcy say, like my parents would say, like, the last place you want to be as a criminal is in bankruptcy court because there's so much sunlight and everything, you know, everything is good scrutinized. And to be fair to people, sometimes the stuff gets overly scrutinized and they cherry pick stuff that went on. But it seems pretty damning, some of the stuff and, you know, let's see what the responses will be. I mean, it's good for the estate and it's good for creditors because I'm sure they want to see, you know, sort of retribution. But in terms of recoveries, I don't think it's going to be incredibly meaningful, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 million dollars. I mean, that's, I don't know, maybe two months of bankruptcy fees. And so, you know, earlier when we were talking about like how some of the things are particularly damning, like if you were to kind of say, FTX will win in court, you know, for these reasons, like which were the particular acts that you think probably will put things over the edge? Oh, yeah. I think almost all the stuff though, they'll win on the merits of the fraudulent conveyance. I mean, these are all fraudulent transfers, potentially while the debtor was insolvent, potentially while it was coming with funds, so clearly all that money has to come back. I think that's pretty easy. The question is like, what's it worth now and who can actually pay it back? Like if money was given to a charity, can you actually go and get it back? Like meaning, is it there? Has it been spent kind of stuff? And you know, you can only squeeze a, you know, whatever, rock so hard. So the question will be, you know, what is the real estate in the Bahamas worth? The 10 million bucks or whatever that was gifted to them, where did that money end up going? Can they trace it? So these things cost money to do and then the question is like, how much of an effort do you want to make? And of course, you know, all that can be stopped by a criminal investigation, which there isn't a complaint, but clearly some of the activity could be considered criminal. And I think, you know, I won't pretend to be a criminal lawyer or a lawyer at all, but when you're bringing lawsuits, I mean, basically these are kind of like preponderance of evidence standards versus like, you know, higher standards that you might have for criminal complaints. So it's easier for John Ray to like stitch together some stuff they know and slap an AP and sue these guys. But it's a little harder from the criminal side. But all of it, just on facially, I mean, of course, as my lawyer likes to tell me, like, you know, facts matter, Thomas. So it is more discovery happens than they take discovery. We'll see. But on the face of it, I mean, it looks pretty, pretty obvious that it's sort of slam dunk. Just the question is what they'll actually be able to recover. Yeah. I think one of the ones that stuck out at me simply because I could very easily imagine myself in a similar position with my own parents and I could just picture what my mother would say. And it was when they purchased the Bahamas property and everything was just getting billed or allegedly in the complaint to FTX. And the parents didn't even make an attempt to pay to furnish their home themselves. And I could just imagine something similar was happening with my mother. She would be like, wait, is this OK that we're doing this? Like, you know, she would have so many questions about the money and like what was OK, what was kosher, what was not. Like, I could just practically hear her in my head. But at least, you know, from what the complaint described, it didn't feel at all like the parents had any of those qualms. So that was. Yeah. It wasn't 100 percent owner of FTX. So it is bizarre that those red flags wouldn't have been or people wouldn't have been like, hey, I know that you think this is OK, but I don't like someone would have said something. Maybe they thought it was a drop in the ocean. But if FTX is so wildly profitable, I mean, it was so wildly profitable, they didn't need to cut in corners and have them picking up the checks. I mean, it would have been easy for Sam to just be like, no, I'm picking this up personally or something. Well, one thing that I also notice is that the document hedges its language, saying things like, quote, Banquin and Freed either knew or ignored bright red flags, revealing that SPF and other insiders were orchestrating the scheme. And again, you know, I saw later again, it was like they either knew or blatantly ignored. So right. Yes. That's because the standard for these civil cases is much lower. You know, like if you were trying to criminally try them, you'd have to like really show that they knew because they're going to say they didn't know, they didn't know, right? But the standard for breach of fiduciary duty or unjust enrichment, it's a much lower standard. All you have to basically show is a reasonable person should have known, you know? Oh, oh, I see. Yeah. So that's why I keep saying that. So you're saying, so basically they don't know whether or not they knew, but it doesn't matter for what they're trying to do. Is that what you're saying? I will respectfully say that I'm not a lawyer, but a stress investor. And what people usually say is the standard is usually what a reasonable person should have known, steps a reasonable person should have taken, best practices that a board should have taken. So like a board of director, if somebody runs off with money in a company, they don't have to necessarily show that they knew the person stole the money, but did they take any steps a reasonable person would have taken to like verify that the money was there, that the person wasn't absconding with money or whatever. So it's just this reasonable person standard that I think you trigger under Delaware and under a lot of jurisdictions for breach of fiduciary duty or breach of loyalty, duty of care that you have, mainly in the boardroom, but also I think as a C -suite executive and it sounds like he was sort of melding between the two. So basically, yeah, they're just trying to meet that standard for their purposes. They don't need to go beyond. And Barbara Fried, you know, also, so as far as I understand from reading this, you know, Sam Pinkman was definitely involved more in the day to day. You know, he was often listed with FTX management. He you know, could make executive decisions on his own at one point saying, oh, I'm just going to make this decision without Sam, like we don't need to involve him, that kind of thing. So Barbara Fried was not involved at that level. However, it did say that she was a key influence on the campaign donations. And I wondered what your takeaway was in that regard in terms of, you know, her involvement there. Campaign finance fraud? Yeah. Again, I don't have too much to say other than it's just bizarre that, you know, so many corners were cut in regards to stuff. I don't have a real view on. Again, it's like it helps them build a story that they can, you know, just slam dunk, take back any money that was taken out of the estate at any point in the last couple of years by Barbara and the husband. But I don't think that I don't have a real view on that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And as far as I understand, I don't think they're married. They're domestic partners. Just to clarify. Yeah. All right. So in a moment, we're going to talk about what the consequences could be after, you know, from this document. But first a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible. Toku makes managing global token compensation and incentive awards simple. Are you designing your token compensation plan and grant templates with multiple law firms? Are you managing cliffs, vesting and taxable events in a spreadsheet? Are you distributing tokens to your team manually? With Toku, you get unmatched legal and tax tech support to grant and administer your global team's tokens. Easy to use token grant award templates, vesting tracking via online dashboard, tax withholding integration with payroll, automated distributions, great employee experience. Make it simple with Toku. Learn more at toku .com slash Unchained.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"john j ray" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"Will Barron I mean, I would give it to the legal expert, so Lily Plev over here. No, I'll take it really quickly. This is the trial of the century, right? So we're going to see what Sam Bankman-Fried is going to come up with while he's in jail right now and trying to figure out his defense. It's not looking good though, right? Like, look at all the things that are alleged against him. Even this week, he was back in court for two more indictments about money laundering related to transferring of funds over wire. Those I think came from the Treasury Department. So it's got a lot to deal with here. And I don't know if like his counsel and this whole strategy is going to fit for all those things, right? Like maybe it helps him out on a few counts. That would probably be a best case scenario. That would be my imagination here running wild. But things look really bad. They have all this documentation from the company, right? Like all this information was handed over fairly quickly. We think back to just last year when Sam Bankman-Fried resigned. In a matter of like a few days, he was gone, right? And then all that information was basically locked in time for now everyone to go through and pick apart his eventual defense in this case. So it's not looking good. I don't love the strategy. But if you're going to say I'm not guilty, then you have to come up with something. Thoreau, Wendy, for your thoughts. I have the hottest take out of everyone on the show. I don't care. I literally don't care what happens to him. I don't care about the legal system. It's never going to be fair. If you have family with money and resources, you're always going to be a step ahead of the underdogs. I just want, you know, I want the courts to figure this out as fast as possible for everybody that got got by FTX and then is struggling in bankruptcy court because the more time they waste on this, it doesn't matter if it's the criminal stuff or it's the actual bankruptcy stuff because it's all interrelated. It's just going to continue to take money from creditors. And as we have seen with different bankruptcy cases, with crypto asset exchanges in the past, the courts and the attorneys and everybody just really takes advantage of the people of retail and everybody that was kind of associated and got caught off guard. And that's just really what it is. They just spend money on attorneys. And it just at the end of the day, less money goes to the creditors, the people that really got scammed and got screwed over. So I just don't care anymore. I don't care if he's eating bread and water. I don't care if he's a little bit uncomfortable. He did something bad. He got caught doing it. Generally, when my daughter does something bad, we do a little bit of a timeout. You know, we start working on that. And just the fact that his parents are not taking really any accountability, they haven't been questioned. Where the heck is Sam Tribuko? I just don't care anymore. I mentioned we had a lawyer on FirstMover recently and asked if there's been precedent set, has this kind of defense been successfully used before? And he said, again, not a direct quote and maybe exaggerating a little bit for dramatic effect, but I will try not to. He said that when he's seen this before, the lawyers really just kind of lay the defendant out to dry. At the end of the day, these lawyers are lawyers, right? They're not going to come out and say, you know, yeah, of course, I told him to do all of these alleged crimes that we're sitting here for. And they definitely have the receipts to back it up. And so I'm curious, I think it's going to be, Zach, like you said, a very dramatic trial that we'll all be sitting on the edge of our seats watching, especially when this firm and the attorneys at this firm take the stand. It will be interesting to hear their side of the story. And of course, we have all of the other people who are involved in all of these alleged crimes on the other side. You know, they're going to take the stand for the prosecution. They're going to tell the story from their perspective. And I just don't think it looks good for Sam Bankman-Fried when everybody else is saying, yeah, we did this. Yeah, we messed up. We are guilty. And Sam is the only one out here saying, my lawyer said it was okay, so I'm not guilty. But the thing is, that's like such typical behavior of somebody that comes from that type of privilege to come out and say it really is like, he has no awareness of what he actually did or the people impacted around him. And he just kind of say, no, I didn't do it. It was just a mistake. Or, you know, this happened or this happened or this happened. I think it's absolutely pathetic. And I wish his attorneys would just tell him to shut up. And I wish he would also shut up as well. But I don't think that will end up happening and he will continue to incriminate himself. So I just don't care. I want this to be over with everyone to get their money back or some of their money back. Thursday's top story. So FTX has tapped Galaxy, formerly Galaxy Digital, to sell, stake and hedge its crypto billions. This is a major development for the bankrupt exchange as it looks to get back on its feet and also return value to its many stakeholders. Let's talk about this one. And then we got another little quick story that we can get to here. FTX tapping Galaxy. Interesting. Galaxy, obviously the merchant bank helmed by Mike Novogratz. Very prominent in the space with a number of different arms, touching ventures, touching trading, touching all sorts of things. Gonna throw this to you, Will. Reading between the lines here, what do you think is going on with this headline? Yeah, I think there's just like a lot of cash that the FTX estate needs to get working for the creditors. I mean, they even talked a few weeks ago about how the FTX estate has not moved forward with putting a lot of the treasury into UST bonds, which would make about four to 5%. That'd be pretty awesome for the billions that they're sitting on top of. And they declined to do that because it's another risk factor. But maybe they can't take these crypto assets and give them to someone else to do staking operations or something that's more native to cryptocurrency itself. And they can't do it right now with like the technology they have in hand because FTX itself has shut down and perhaps it never really existed in the first place. But Galaxy Digital certainly can do it instead of going to hand it off. My question here is like, how much is Galaxy Digital going to charge for this? I'm sure it's not cheap, as we'll get into for the next story here in a second. The FTX estate has not held its hand from spending money from its vast treasury. As of right now, they're spending about $1.5 million per day. So I could see Galaxy Digital making quite a bit of money on top of this. I just think that speaks to like Galaxy Digital's strengths, right? They have so many different arms out there. They're really crypto merchant bankers, but they've kind of been called, they have staking, they have trading, they have a research team, they have so much going on over there. So it makes sense for them to be tapped for this role. Jen? Yeah, you said pretty much everything I was going to say. The article says that John J. Ray III is worried that selling all in one go could cause the price to plummet. So there has to be a strategy here. I think that Galaxy Digital is probably the right entity to tap in. If we think back to that story we talked about a few weeks ago now, there's this tension building right between the creditors committee and all of the lawyers and executives that are trying to tie up FTX as a state. The creditors committee is saying, hey, you're spending $1.5 million a day, it's equating to about $50 million a month. And then we have all of these assets that are just sitting around and doing nothing for us. I think this is one step in the right direction, maybe came out of that tension between the creditors committee and John J. Ray and his team of lawyers and executives. And so I think this is a good step, but that $1.5 million is such a big number to swallow. I just wonder at the end of all of this, once everything is balanced out, how much will be left for the creditors. But unfortunately, this is just the way that bankruptcies goes.
The Crypto Overnighter
"john j ray" Discussed on The Crypto Overnighter
"Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX is making strategic moves. They filed a motion to appoint Galaxy Digital Holdings to manage their vast digital assets. This decision comes as FTX navigates its bankruptcy proceedings, aiming to maximize the value of its substantial crypto holdings estimated at around $3 billion. FTX's primary goal is to return funds to its creditors. However, they're not looking to do this in volatile cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ether. Instead, they want to convert these assets into fiat currency. To achieve this, they're considering staking, hedging, and selling their crypto assets. The collaboration with Galaxy Digital is expected to provide the expertise and guidance needed to optimize this process. The court documents reveal FTX's strategic plan for management and market volatility and prepare for potential distributions to creditors. The documents also highlight potential sales and staking of certain tokens and emphasize hedging strategies for Bitcoin and Ether to navigate market fluctuations. FTX's journey has been tumultuous. Funded by Sam Beckman-Fried, the platform faced significant challenges, leading to its collapse in November of 2022. The collapse had a domino effect, causing other crypto companies like Celsius and Voyager to fall. After the departure of Sam Beckman-Fried from the CEO position, John J. Ray III took over the operations. Ray's leadership revealed a series of mismanagement issues, including poor record-keeping, unchecked loans amounting to billions, and discrepancies in the reported value of the firm's crypto assets. The debts owed to customers were found to be around $8.7 billion, with recoveries so far reaching approximately $7 billion. FTX's collaboration with Galaxy is an important part of the growth of the company's crypto assets, which could generate passive yields. The controlled sales approach, with weekly limits, aims to prevent a sharp drop in crypto asset prices, which could benefit short sellers. The aftermath of FTX's collapse has been chaotic. There have been disagreements between FTX's debtors and the official committee of unsecured creditors regarding the control of the company's assets. Amidst this, FTX is considering the possibility of restarting its operations outside the US. FTX's alliance with Galaxy Digital signifies a strategic move to regain trust, stabilize its financial position, and to ensure maximum returns for its stakeholders. Only time will tell how successful this collaboration will be, but it is a significant step for FTX. From the realm of exchanges to individual magnates, Israel's crypto space witnesses a significant scandal. Marsha Hogeg's alleged deception is about to unravel.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"john j ray" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"Financial advice, friends. That is straight financial advice. Thursday's top story. All right, we got some more developments with FTX, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. FTX is moving ahead with plans to restart its international exchange. CEO John J. Ray III is quoted in the article saying that the company has, quote, begun process of soliciting interested parties to the reboot of the FTX .com exchange. Sources say the company has already had early talks with investors about different structures, including possibly a joint venture. Adam, I'm going to kick this one off to you. Seems like FTX 2 .0 could be on the horizon. What do you make of this? Well, I think it makes sense, just from the perspective of if you were going to try to get value out of this branch, then this would be the way to do it. FTX, although it had a pretty abrupt fall from grace, really was a top exchange for a good amount of time, not necessarily for folks in the US. We weren't really allowed to use it, much to my chagrin at the time, but in hindsight, that turned out to be pretty all right. The reality, though, is that if they can reboot it, then there probably is substantial brand value to be had there, and that could wind up being a better way to recover much of the losses that appear to have been incurred here for folks who have funds trapped in there. It could also work out well for the company as well because it likely would mean that, just beyond the restarting, that there would be some type of equity allocation that would actually go to people who are owed money by the exchange. That could then allow the company to keep more liquid capital and go from being something that just gets liquidated down to nothing to pay off what it can to instead continuing as a going concern, which would be better for some of the parties who are involved here. I think that it makes sense. I think, ultimately, it'll be hard to pull off. There's a lot of challenges around trying to reboot this type of brand in this type of situation, but it makes sense that they would try. Zach? Zach Lander Yeah. A lot of people who used FTX really like the interface, right? They like the UX. They like the functionality. People were fans of it. Whatever was going on behind the scenes wasn't evident to them. The massive dumpster fire that apparently was FTX at Alameda wasn't apparent to a lot of users who really sang the praises of the trading interface at FTX. So they roll out that technology. It certainly makes sense. I think it shows some forward thinking by John J. Ray III, JJ Ray out here launching things despite maybe some initial skepticism that this would ever come to pass. I know we expressed a lot of that skepticism on this show previously. If this ends up being the case, hats off to him for trying to get money back into the system and pay out people who are harmed by what appears to be or what is alleged to be a pretty massive fraud. It's going to be interesting to see. I think the thing that I'm most interested in is which backers back FTX 2 .0, which venture funds sign up, sign their name on the line, put their name next to the FTX brand and say, you know what? We're doing it. We're going all in. There was some fans of this product in the past and we think we can breathe some life into it in a way that makes sense. That to me is actually going to be the interesting thing. No names were mentioned in the piece. But reportedly, at least, JJ Ray is making the rounds and saying who wants to back this thing. I'm very curious to see who that ends up being. Jen? Yeah, the piece said that parties that want to be involved must submit indication interest by the end of this week. So if you're watching and you want to be a part of this, you have until Friday. And the piece also said that Figure is allegedly interested in helping FTX restart. You'll remember that they bid on the rights to Celsius but lost the consortium that won that bid. So interesting. I am also very curious to see who could get behind this. But it sounds like it's probably, Adam, to your point, one of the better ways to get funds back into the hands of customers, to give customers some kind of something that can make up for what's happened over the past year with FTX. I see Will Foxley has joined us. Will, what are your thoughts on the possibility of FTX 2 .0? And welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I don't know what you guys just said, so I might just be repeating it, but that's okay. I'll say it with enthusiasm. I think they should relaunch FTX 2 .0. I hope they do go along with this. Why? Because there's a lot of creditors involved with this. And maybe, maybe, maybe everyone who's involved here can get some money back. We've seen all the other stories of failed exchanges, right? People get like 10 cents back on the dollar, 14 cents back on the dollar. Well, what if there's a world where FTX is able to reboot itself and pay back everyone the full amount of their money in USD terms? That's a fantastic ending, though a very unlikely one. I know there's a lot of people on crypto Twitter who are pushing for FTX 2 .0. They're putting it in their bios. They're putting it in their handles saying, we want this to occur. It's typically people who obviously lost a lot of money and are well down the creditor stack that are unlikely to get money because all the money goes to people who had loans out to FTX or our lawyers working on the Chapter 11 case. So if that's what I'm cheering for, I think there's a place for another exchange out there. Sort of like the Ledger news yesterday with the institutional trading firm that they're trying to boot up. There's a vacuum right now. After FTX left, a lot of liquidity left the market. A lot of people didn't know where to trade. Coinbase is under siege. Binance is under siege. I think it's prime time for another person to step up and build an exchange that a lot of people can use. Did I repeat anyone's talking points? How was that? That was highly value additive. Coming in blind. That was nice. That was really good. It's professional. I will say that. I wonder how regulators are going to use the narrative. I know there will be probably no validity to saying something like FTX failed customers. There was like massive wrongdoing behind the scenes. And here we are. FTX is back again. I can see regulators saying that. I can see them using this narrative to push regulation that maybe is not favorable to the industry. Not saying it has any validity to it, but I can see that happening separately. Customers have until the end of September to submit bankruptcy claims. I just wanted to get that in there. If you were a customer of FTX, you should be receiving a link to submit your bankruptcy claim and you have until the end of September to do that. That is my public service announcement to the people. Very nice. Good job. You've been listening to The Hash Headlines on the CoinDesk Podcast Network. We would like to hear from you. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to us at podcasts at coindesk .com, subject line The Hash, or leave us a review on your favorite podcast player.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"john j ray" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"So and you guys know what I'm talking about. I just can't think of it right now. But these cases are going to take a very long time. There's a lot of things that they need to sift through, things that have disappeared or remain a little bit curious. And it's also very interesting that SPF was one of the second largest donor to the particular candidate presidential who is now sitting in office. And I think not a lot of information will be public due to that. That's just my personal opinion, though. You talk about Mt. Gox there. Just just Mt. Gox? Mt. Gox? You talk about Mt. Gox? I'm talking about Toys R Us. No, the 10 the 10 year bankruptcy, the crypto. No, it was it was like a TradFi company. It's so stupid. I know it's like on the tip of my tongue. I just can't fathom it right now. Is it linens and things? Yeah, might be Toys R Us or linens and things. Maybe Mervins? Mervins, man. That's a blast from the past. California. If you were in California in the 90s, raise your hand. Mervins. Boom. We're just going to start naming off companies that have gone through bankruptcy for the rest of the show. Nice. Nice. Good stuff. Good stuff. Mervins. Still, I'm still on the Mervins thing. The FTX 2 .0 thing is interesting, Zach. But I want to point out the last time we spoke about it, John J. Ray the third had spent six hours, according to his invoicing, you know, deliberating or reviewing documents about FTX 2 .0. And I think in the grand scheme of things, six hours is maybe not maybe maybe not that much, but but maybe. Jen, last little tidbit. What do you got? We have a tweet of the day. Get ready for this. Kyle Davies made an announcement on Twitter saying 3AC is dead. Long live 3AC Ventures. 3AC Ventures is going to be investing in projects building in the OPNX ecosystem, which we've spoken about on the show before. This was the very interesting part. Arthur Hayes, quote, tweeted that and said, why did 3AC die? Please enlighten us. Zach, what are your thoughts? I mean, I ain't wading into this one, but yeah, second acts in crypto do exist. And both these guys are living interesting second acts. What do you think, Wendy? 10 -10, Chad. I love Arthur Hayes. I think that he posts a lot of really great stuff. He's got I want to say he's got like a blog and he posts a lot of alpha there. I would trust Arthur Hayes over Kyle Davies or anybody affiliated with 3AC any time. Not saying I trust either very, very much, but I think it's funny. Arthur's been in the space for a very, very, very, very, very, very long time. And I love to see these types of disputes, especially when one party is clearly in the right. Zach. All right. I'll wrap it. Arthur Hayes is the best blogger in crypto. I will say that. All right. I'm Zach, Wendy, Jen. We'll see you tomorrow. Thanks for being here. It's The Hash. Bye. You've been listening to The Hash on the Coindesk Podcast Network. We would like to hear from you. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to us at podcasts at coindesk .com, subject line The Hash, or leave us a review on your favorite podcast player. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.
The Decrypt Daily: Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News Podcast
"john j ray" Discussed on The Decrypt Daily: Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News Podcast
"Eth withdrawals. We've spoken about this many times. Now, at least you're going to be waiting until April. Tethers number three, binance is at two 88 down, 3.4% and USD C's number 5 running off the top ten. We have XRP. Cardano, Matic. Those coin down to 7.5% down almost 6% in 24. And B USD still, clutching his pearls in number ten spot, Solana has moved up a little bit. It's trailing B USD by $1.6 billion in market cap. The total market cap is down 3.5% to 1.03 trillion. We have a BTC dominance of 42.1 and a half dominance of 18.7 and I just want to take a look at Tesla's price, Tesla's did some crazy stuff overnight. It was sitting at around a dollar 17 dollar 18 and then just absolutely tanked down to a buck 7. On the week, it's down from about a buck 30. Moving into today's news as you guys know, the cycle of minor capitulation Bitcoin mining capitulation can be observed through Bitcoin's history. We've spoke about it many times on the show when the price of Bitcoin goes down. Miners start shutting off their machines. Why? Because they can't make the money. Hash rate is up. Bitcoin price is down. They mine Bitcoin get Bitcoin. And they can't pay their bills. So they either shut off their machines, wait out the winter. They sell their machines to run a smaller farm. They sell their Bitcoin to fund their operation or they just go bankrupt and sell everything and walk away with their head down. Maybe hi. Who knows? It depends on the person. Well, this cycle is a little bit different according to coin shares. This time, firms haven't been shutting off their machines. And this is setting late on how the mining market is quickly evolving. Well, how do we know if that machines are not shutting down? Well, the hash rate didn't drop. And this says one of two things are happening. Either there were a lot of shutdowns and the hash rate actually outgrew the shutdowns, so basically more machines are being started up than our shutting down and the hash rate is staying high. Or machines are just not shutting off. And this is the case in core scientific. In December, the firm officially filed for bankruptcy, citing the market conditions. However, they said that operations will still continue. So why is this happening? Again, we were talking about Bitcoin mining. Companies are being more efficient with how the user energy. If you looked at companies in Texas, when bad weather happened in Texas and they needed more power to the grid, they would transfer power to the grid. They would sell power back, which would give the mining companies income while providing power for the state of Texas, just earlier this week, I think, or was it last week? Earlier this week, we heard about the nuclear power plants and hydropower plants fueling Bitcoin mining, and then using the redirection of the hydro and nuclear power plants to sell it back to the state and fuel cities and towns and residents and businesses. And so these operations are definitely evolving. However, it also could be that everybody is just holding on tight, waiting for that Bitcoin having that's going to happen around April 26th of 2024. Remember, though, even though the having does happen around that time, the all time high for Bitcoin and you get really good Bitcoin prices, that starts happening around 12 to 18 months after the having. We also have a liquid having coming up. A lot of people don't remember that. But the litecoin having is coming up in around 202 days. You remember tornado cash, it was a mixing tool that allows you to obfuscate your Ethereum by using tornado cash using the tool, and it was banned by the U.S. because, well, North Korea and the Lazarus group and hacking groups were using it to basically launder money. Hide their money from their illegal practices. Well, a tornado cash contributor builds a new privacy tool in hopes it won't trigger the feds. A demo release today of the new coin mixing app lets people send and receive Ethereum. They edit a feature that proves the user is not a North Korean backed actor or some kind of other criminal. I say that even though it's true for now, there's going to be a workaround. If this game's traction, I can not see North Korea finding ways not to use it. I can not see the United States not sanctioning it. However, there's a big lesson here. You ban something, somebody will build another one, and somebody will just make it better. It's the case of whack a mole. So I think that instead of just the government coming up and saying, hey, it was banned everything. We really have to find a way that is satisfying privacy that apparently people want with their cryptocurrency and the ability for these tools not to be used by bad actors. Like North Korea, Iran, the Lazarus group hacking and ransomware companies and the like. According to a presentation filed by FTX debtors, $2.2 billion of total assets have been located. Of which only about $694 million are from the most liquid currency, such as Fiat, stablecoins, Bitcoin or Ethereum. Against these holdings, and another $385 million in customer receivables are $9.3 billion in net borrowing by Alameda research. Borrowing in my air quotes. The presentation updated the amount of liquid assets currently held and recovered by the debtor's group, which grew from $5.5 billion to $6.1 billion since the last report in January. Although the increase is primarily as a result of the updated digital asset pricing, the group also recovered about $202 million held at Alameda, $125 million of stablecoins, and $57 million in a sort of cryptocurrency is held at subsidiaries. The CEO, John J ray, the third of FTX. The CEO of FTX John J ray the third said, the books and records are incomplete and in many cases totally absent. And they're saying that there's a massive shortfall on FTX assets and FTX U.S., which Sam being were free to has claimed. Was in the black is also in the red. And finally, NFT trading surpassed a whopping $2.04 billion last month. Up 117% from 941 million in January. Making February the best month since May of last year. The surge appears to be indebted to a single company. Mostly indebted to a single company. What company? Blur. Blur is trading volume jumped over $1.13 billion in February from the previous month. Let me say that again because that's insane. It jumped over $1.13 billion in February from January. But the majority of that volume was generated by a small number of whales flipping NFTs back and forth and back again. And they're doing this to accumulate blur tokens through the company's incentive scheme. And that's where we stop. Because everything after that statement is a bunch of BS. There's not volume if you're wall trading, and that's what that is. It's a sort of Wall Street that making this value look amazing. Pumping prices and NFTs to unsustainable and unrealistic levels. While the media outlets, note, I said media not news, media outlets report on this amazing volume of the NFT space. Quick note, by the way, this decrypt article did point out, by the way, that these NFT whales are gaming the blur bidding logic. And at this looks like smells like and talks like wash trading. And so I just want to make that very, very clear that this looks like we have a turnaround. This looks like we have a bowl. This looks like the marques recovering. It more than likely is all fake and the trading volume for the NFT space is no different from January. Thank you for listening to this
Live Bitcoin News
New FTX CEO John Ray III Says Exchange Could Be Up and Running Again Soon
"1 p.m. Sunday, February 12th, 2023. New FTX CEO John ray three says exchange could be up and running again soon. FTX may restart that's the crazy news for today that one of the biggest crypto debacles could eventually turn itself around. The news has been greeted with positivity given that FTT the native token of the now defunct crypto exchange has risen by more than 35% at the time of writing. Could the post new FTX CEO John ray three says exchange could be up and running again soon appeared first on live Bitcoin news.
The Dan Bongino Show
Sam Bankman-Fried Arrested in the Bahamas, Close to Congress Hearing
"So the FTX Samuel bankman freed hearing was going on yesterday He wasn't there of course but it was about allegations that he defrauded this company The crypto guy you know what I'm talking about So the new CEO of the company the new CEO of the company a guy by the name of John ray the third He goes up there yesterday and the scandals enormous again and the media's kind of downplaying a lot of it because Samuel bankman freed was a very large donor to Democrat party Now if he was a large donor to the Republican Party the story would be all over the front page of The New York Times and Washington Post and elsewhere but because he was a large donor the Democrat party all of a sudden the story gets sidelined and buried on page 672 But something really strange has been going on In this case over and over and over again One of the strange things that's happened in this case is Samuel bankman fried was going to testify yesterday in front of Congress and was probably about to spill the beans on a lot of this stuff he was up to And then all of a sudden boom he gets pitched in The Bahamas Thrown in the lockup in the clink So all of a sudden he can't talk
Bloomberg Radio New York
"john j ray" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Customers funds for personal use and risky bets. He's now fighting an extradition bid from The Bahamas. Speaking to lawmakers in the U.S., the new FDX CEO John J ray the third blamed the collapse on failures by previous leaders. The FTX group's collapse appears to stem from absolute concentration of control in the hands of a small group of grossly inexperienced, non sophisticated individuals, failed to implement virtually any of the systems or controls that are necessary for a company and trusted with other people's money or assets. That assessment by John J ray the third comes as binance CEO CZ tried to ease concerns about his company's health, saying the exchange is in a strong financial position and quote will survive any crypto winter. Customers have been pulling funds from the platform this week amid a lack of confidence in the sector following the collapse of FTX. We will be breaking this all down with Matt greensburg CEO of quantum economics in just a moment. Here in the UK, UK inflation dipped from a 41 year high in November, raising the possibility that the worst of the cost of living squeeze is over. Consumer prices are up 10.7% from a year earlier, a decline from 11.1% in October. Governor Andrew Bailey, though, says the economy is still under stream. The economic environment is challenging. We have high inflation, demand is slowing, and interest rates have been rising. Household and corporate finances are under greater strain, overall, however, both households and businesses are more financially resilient than they were in previous periods of stress. Governor Bailey and the rest of the UK's military policy committee have lifted the benchmark lending rate 8 times so far in 2022, seeking to choke off inflation that's lingering at a 41 year high. Now a key measure of U.S. inflation has posted its smallest monthly advance in more than a year indicating that inflation has likely peaked core CPI which excludes food and energy rose by just 0.2% in November. President Joe Biden says things are improving. Inflation is coming down in America. Prices are still too high. We have a lot more work to do, but things are getting better, headed in the right direction. President Joe Biden's comments come as the fed concludes its two day policy meeting with markets pricing in a half point hike later today while that would be a smaller rise than the last four meetings it would still put rates at their highest level since 2007.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"john j ray" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Dollars in customer funds for personal use and risky bets by trading house Alameda research. So we have a number of different fronts that he's going to have to contend with. And how likely is it that he can avoid extradition? Well, it's not completely unlikely. I suppose he is going to challenge it. And there can be a lot of different factors that come into play, right? On the surface, you might say there's nothing in it for The Bahamas to stop it or it looks like he's going to at least try. So we'll have to find out. And they can take months and years to resolve. So it could be a long time before the U.S. gets them on American soil. Indeed, that has been the experience of many other high profile exhibition cases as well. And when we think about what's left of FTX, Joanna, we heard from its new CEO John J ray the third yesterday, what did we learn from him about the state of the finances? Yeah, well, we learned that he sees it as almost completely probable that they won't be able to recover everything in terms of what would be owed. But he says that U.S. customers may be able to recover a little bit more who thinks there might be a little bit more from the U.S. assets. So I guess a bright spot if you are an ex U.S. customer, but he's not painting a very optimistic picture at this point about what they can glean out of what's left of us yet. And Joanna, the crypto world has really been shaken by the collapse of FTX by Nancy's CEO's warning his staff of tough months ahead. What's been the reaction in the rest of the crypto community shall I put it? Well, the crypto community is still pretty devastated by this whole thing. And there has been some nervousness about finance. They had a lot of outflows in the past few days past couple of weeks. But the CEOs come out and said, basically, we can get through this. It'll be a rocky time, but we should be fine. Okay, do you want to ask some jar of senior crypto reports or thank you so much for checking through the details of that story. Let's get back to lily and garand's now for a reminder of our top stories. Steven good morning to you and thank you. Let's start here in the UK when inflation dipped from a 41 high 41 year high in November, raising the possibility the worst of the cost of living squeeze is over. Consumer prices are up 10.7% from a year earlier compared with 11.1% in October, economists had expected price rises to tick down but only to 10.9%. The cooler print was largely due to the cost of petrol and also used cars, now a key gauge of U.S. inflation has posted its smallest monthly advance and more than a year, CPI excluding food and energy rose 0.2% in November and was up 6% from a year earlier, overall CPI increased 7.1% as lower energy prices did help offset rising food costs. The data indicated inflation has likely peaked and May that validate a downshift in the fed rate hikes and finally, Bloomberg has found that Apple is preparing to ally alternative app stores on its iPhones and iPads in the coming months. Their historic pivot is a response to the EU laws taking effect in 2024 amid a leveling the playing field for third party developers, regulators have accused Apple and Google of wielding too much power as gatekeepers of the biggest mobile app stores. Global news 24 hours a day on air and on Bloomberg quicktake powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts and more than 120 countries, and the Ann goens, this is Bloomberg Stephen. The Anne, thank you. I know you were holding that together so well. That was really very impressive. Thank you very much, Lee hangar and for our top stories coming up next on Bloomberg daybreak Europe. We're going to be joined by the writer and economist Duncan Weldon to talk us through his view on those later CPI figures, so coming in weaker than had been expected showing a slowdown from last month's 41 year high stay with
Bloomberg Radio New York
"john j ray" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Radio. All right, let's get a check of your markets this morning, UK inflation cooler than expected 10.7 year on year, 10.7% year on year in November, past the peak of 11.1% in October that should comfort some of the Bank of England monetary policy committee members who were thinking of voting for a half point hike. It might embolden some of the doves on the committee if we look at where the markets are currently you're seeing Euro stocks 50 futures pretty much flat and S&P E minis up three tenths of a percent the NASDAQ futures up three tenths of a percent. And in Asian equities, the MSCI Asia Pacific index up 8 tenths of a percent currently the dollar spot index down one tenth of a percent. Okay, let's go to our top stories this morning, one of more on the UK inflation print in just a moment, but first FTX founder Sam bankman freed has been charged with 8 criminal counts in white prosecutors have called one of the biggest financial frauds in American history. The indictment alleges bankman fried misappropriated billions of dollars in FTX customers funds for personal use and risky bets. He's now fighting an extradition bed from The Bahamas. Speaking to lawmakers in the U.S., the new FTX CEO, John Jay ray the third blamed the collapse on failures by previous leaders. The FTX group's collapse appears to stem from absolute concentration of control in the hands of a small group of grossly inexperienced, non sophisticated individuals, failed to implement virtually any of the systems or controls that are necessary for a company and trusted with other people's money or assets. Not assessment by John Jay ray the third comes as binance's CEO CZ tried to ease concerns about his company's health saying the exchange is in a strong financial position and, quote, will survive and he crypto winter. Customers have been pulling funds from the platform this week amid a lack of confidence in the sector following the collapse of FTX with breaking all of this down with our senior crypto reporter at Joanna passenger in just a little while. And a key measure of U.S. inflation has posted its smallest monthly advance in more than a year indicating that inflation in the U.S. has also likely peaked, core CPI which excludes food and energy rose by just .2% in November. President Joe Biden says things are improving. Inflation is coming down in America. The prices are still too high. We have a lot more work to do, but things are getting better, headed in the right direction. President Joe Biden's comments come as the fed concludes its two day policy meeting with markets pricing in a half point high later today. While that would be a small arise in the last four meetings, it would still put rates at their highest level since 2007. Here in the UK, the Bank of England says 4 million households will feel a significant increase in mortgage payments next year. The BOE has lifted its benchmark lending rate 8 times so far in 2022 seeking to choke off that inflation figure as we've just heard which came down to 10.7% just off a 41 year high. Governor Andrew Bailey says the economy is under strain. The economic environment is challenging. We have high inflation, demand is slowing, an interest rates have been rising. Household and corporate finances are under greater strain, overall, however, both households and businesses are more financially resilient than they were in previous periods of stress. But that easing of CPI, both the headline and core numbers to 10.7% and 6.3% respectively, both of those figures less than the survey estimates will be important as fit feeds into the NPCs rate decision tomorrow. And speaking of the cost of living, support for UK households struggling with sky high energy bills, may be
Bloomberg Radio New York
"john j ray" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"The more interesting by that software CPI print out of the U.S. yesterday. Let's get a check on the markets for you. We've got the MSCI specific index. In fact, nudging towards a bull market ahead of that fed decision it's 8 tenths of 1% higher this morning around 19% off the lows. That's when we're watching closely this morning, European stock futures are a tenth of 1% higher on the Euro stocks 50 index, S&P E minis a third of 1% higher. Of course, that index finishing up 7 tenths of 1% yesterday it had spiked on use of that softer CPI print. The dollar clawing back some of its last ground versus G ten currencies yesterday holding steady today on the Bloomberg dollar spot index ten year treasury is ten year treasuries are one basis point lower this morning three spot 49 is where they're trading holding on to the drop in yields that we saw yesterday. Those are your markets going into this major day for its Central Bank decisions. Let's get to our top stories on the program this morning. The FTX founder Sam bankman fried has been charged with 8 criminal counts in what prosecutors have called one of the biggest financial frauds in American history. The indictment alleges bankman fried misappropriated billions of dollars in FTX customers funds for personal use and risky bets. He's now fighting an extradition bid from The Bahamas. Speaking to lawmakers in the United States yesterday, the new FTX CEO John Jay ray the third blamed the collapse of the exchange on the failures of its previous leaders. The FTX group's collapse appears to stem from absolute concentration of control in the hands of a small group of grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals who failed to implement virtually any of the systems or controls that are necessary for a company and trusted with other people's money or assets. That assessment by John Jay ray the third comes as binance's CEO CZ CZ tried to assert a sage concerns about his company's health, saying the exchange is in a strong financial position and will survive any crypto winter. Customers had pulled funds from that platform this week amid a lack of confidence in the sector following the collapse of FTX with breaking all of this down with our senior crypto reporter Joanna asking her a little bit later in this hour. Meanwhile, the key measure of U.S. inflation posted its smallest monthly advance in more than a year indicating the inflation has likely peaked these figures suggest that Jerome Powell and his FOMC colleagues may slow their tightening pace later with a 50 basis point hike. President Joe Biden says things are improving. Inflation is coming down in America. Prices are still too high. We have a lot more work to do, but things are getting better, headed in the right direction. As president Joe Biden speaking as overall CPI increased 7.1% as lower energy prices helped to offset rising food costs. Here in the UK, the Bank of England says that 4 million households will feel a significant increase in mortgage payments next year. The BOE lifted its benchmark lending rate 8 times so far this year seeking to choke off inflation that's lingering at a 41 year high. Governor Andrew Bailey says the economy is under strain. The economic environment is challenging. We have high inflation, demand is slowing, and interest rates have been rising. Household and corporate finances are under greater strain. Overall, however, both households and businesses are more financially resilient than they were in previous periods of stress. Governor Bailey and the rest of the UK's NPC will be closely watching the latest inflation data out at 7 o'clock this morning to see if there are signs that the record price rises have finally peaked. And support for UK households struggling with sky high energy bills may be contributing to labor shortages by discouraging people from seeking work. That's the assessment of the treasury select committee who say linking the support to means tested benefits means that people could lose the entire 900 pound payment if they increase their working hours. The chair of that committee Harriet Baldwin explains if your means tested benefit income plus one pound, you don't get it. So you would lose out on that 900 pound payment. And that's what we call a cliff edge. No, Harriet Baldwin is pushing for payments to be staggered to avoid that cliff edge since the start of the pandemic there has been a jump in benefit claimants and a steep rise and act inactivity as people dropped out of work. And in the United States, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is blaming losses in key Senate races on some of the Trump aligned candidates nominated by the party Bloomberg's ad Baxter has the story. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell laying the blame for losses in key Senate races directly on the former president and on candidates whom he says were not very strong. McConnell used the term candidate quality, hurting Republicans and pointed out Arizona, New Hampshire and Georgia, McConnell says quote our ability to control the primary outcome was quite limited in 2022 because of the support of the former president, proving to be very decisive in these primaries. He said untested candidates should not be running in those important races. In San Francisco, I'm Ed Baxter Bloomberg daybreak Europe. It's those are our top stories this morning, of course, one of the big stories we will be watching for later this morning is that CPI reading here in the UK. So we're expecting to see it tick down to 10.9% after reaching that 11.1% reading on October, which was the highest since 1981. So the key parts to watch would be what happens to services, inflation, businesses, of course, facing higher energy costs stronger wage pressures as well. The CPI region coming ahead of the Bank of England's decision tomorrow as well. So plenty for central banks to watch in a week, of course, it is full of both data and Central Bank decisions. Let's get though to the stories on the front pages of the UK's newspapers this morning, leading with the prime minister's plans for
Bloomberg Radio New York
"john j ray" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"The NASDAQ is up two and a half percent to 11,427 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently up about 1%, 342 points to 34,346. So if you thought we're going to see Dow 35,000 today, well, something else I think would have to happen. And Bitcoin up 3.4% to about $17,800 per token here. So the market's rallying. So right now we're going to go down to Washington, D.C.. We're going to have comments from the current FTX CEO and successor to Sam bankman free that will be John J ray the third as he testifies in front of Congress. Let's listen in. Accepted the position of chief executive officer of FTX in the early morning hours of November 11. Immediately it became clear to me that chapter 11 was the best course available to preserve any remaining value of FTX. Therefore, my first act as CEO was to authorize the chapter 11 filings. I have implemented a 5 part bankruptcy plan. Which is detailed in my written statement. Our overarching objective is to maximize value for FTX customers and creditors. So that we can mitigate the greatest distinct possible, the harm suffered by so many. The FTX groups collapse appears to stem from absolute concentration of control in the hands of a small group of grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals. Who failed to implement virtually any of the systems or controls that are necessary for a company and trusted with other people's money or assets. Some of the unacceptable management practices. Identified so far include the use of computer infrastructure that gave individuals and senior management. Access to systems that stored customer
Bloomberg Radio New York
"john j ray" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Funds to crypto trading from Alameda research to the tune allegedly of more than $1.8 billion. It's now 6 12 on Wall Street. This is Bloomberg daybreak. We want to get back to our top story this morning. The arrest of FTX founder Sam bankman fried and the charges just unsealed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. We are joined live now by Bloomberg cross asset market senator Joanna Austen, who has been following this story from the get go. Joanna, good morning, we are watching headlines across the Bloomberg terminal as the Securities and Exchange Commission reveals the accusations it is making against Sam bankman fried what more can you tell us? Well, Nathan, this is not too much of a surprise, really, because we always knew that the FTX and Alameda relationship was being looked at. There has been a lot of speculation about exactly what the flows were between those organizations and what might have contravened securities laws or anything like that. So the SEC, of course, is unveiling those. We also, of course, are awaiting the criminal charges and what the federal prosecutors will do as they unseal the case against him this morning also. So that's going to be a pretty big deal as well. And then of course, there is the issue of he's being held in custody in The Bahamas pending that extradition process. So we'll have to see exactly what will go on with that. Is it going to be fast? Is it going to take weeks or months? Sometimes these things take years. This one might not go on so long, but there are so many different strands of this situation right now. And just to quote from the news release from the Securities and Exchange Commission, quoting the chairman Gary gensler saying quote, we alleged that Sam bankman fried built a House of Cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto. Of course, as you know, Joanna, Gary gensler has been very critical of the crypto space in FTX in particular. What further color are you expecting when we get those criminal charges unsealed by the district or the federal prosecutors in New York later today? Well, it'll be interesting to see exactly what their zeroing in on. And one thing that's interesting, this case has proceeded quite quickly. It's been only about a month. And so there have been a lot of comments about may feel like they have very strong evidence if they're moving this fast. So it'll be interesting to see exactly what they're looking at or are they looking at the same things as the SEC? Are they looking at international stuff or exactly what different laws are they focusing on? And also, is it mostly about Sam bankman freed, or are they going to loop in other people? There are all sorts of people who were involved in FTX and Alameda. Some of them have been a lot quieter than others. Sam bankman fried has been speaking a lot. So he's been in focus, but other people may be included as well. Yeah, to your point, Joanna, the speed at which the bankruptcy of FTX to now the arrest and charges being unsealed against the founder has been nothing short of dramatic. What does that tell you about potentially the kind of case that prosecutors could have against Sam bankman fried? Well, speculation is that they may have something extremely strong if they're moving this fast if they're that confident about it. So we will have to see what they have, but it does seem like if they're moving this fast, they might think they have something that works really well. And we'll have to see, they also may have been worried that he would try to move to a different jurisdiction. We have seen people in the crypto space moving to different jurisdictions and even kind of going under the radar with their locations. So there's that aspect as well. But it definitely seems like they wanted to move fast even before he could testify. He was due to testify at the U.S. House hearing today. The financial services committee didn't get to do that. They're still having the hearing today. They're having the Senate hearing tomorrow, but without one of the star players there. Yeah, in our last minute here, the timing of this arrest coming just a day before the kick-off of these two days of hearings is really interesting here. What does this mean for what the hearings are going to do going forward? I guess Sam bankman fried isn't going to be testifying now. Does this just sort of put the whole proceeding in Washington into a kind of a state of upheaval here? It definitely takes away some of the drama at the same time, John Jay ray, the third who's the new CEO, is going to be testifying and he will still be able to give a clearer sense of what he's been able to figure out in the meantime and what exactly we have from FTX and so there's still a lot of information we can glean out of it and it'll still be interesting to see what the legislators are focusing on, but definitely Sam bankman freed's appearance would have created a lot of drama and we won't have some of that drama. Yeah, but lots more information to come out many more questions to be answered with these multiple investigations swirling around Sam bankman fried. Joanna osser of Bloomberg news, thank you for keeping us up to speed on what's happening here, including the breaking news from the Securities and Exchange
Bloomberg Radio New York
"john j ray" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Is up by 7 tenths of 1% this morning cafe Pacific, the airline shares up by two and a half percent outperforming the broader Mark hang seng is up by 7 tenths of 1% this morning cafe Pacific, the airline shares up by two and a half percent so outperforming the broader market there. The MSCI specific index is a quarter of 1% higher this morning, oil prices also pushing further north by crews at 1.6% now at $79 and 23, so the oil market taking some cheer from the potential of further opening up in China. On the currency markets, the Bloomberg dollar spot index is a tenth of 1% weaker this morning. Down over 7% from its peak as we look ahead towards the Federal Reserve decision tomorrow and of course the CPI print will be key in that decision as well. The ten year treasury yield 3.6% still strongly inverted with the two year, which is at 4.37% database point this morning. That is your Bloomberg radio business flash. Let's get more now on the stories that we are following this morning. Yeah, let's particularly focus on the sandbank when freed story, the former CEO of FDX has been arrested in The Bahamas and is now facing extradition to the U.S., we're joined by our senior crypto reporter, Joanna, Austin in Singapore, good morning and good afternoon. What do we know about the charges that sandbank and fried has been arrested on? Well, we know that there are criminal charges that federal prosecutors plan to unseal Tuesday morning, but they say they'll have more to say at that time. So they haven't elaborated on that. We also know that the SEC is separately authorizing civil charges related to alleged violations of securities laws. So in the U.S., we do have apparently criminal and civil proceedings. Samba can free Joanna had been due to appear or to speak to a U.S. House hearing today. We do have an idea though, what if he was expected to say? Right, so we saw a draft copy and he says he liked to start by formally stating that he screwed up in slightly more colorful language. But he also said that the company's new managers have repeatedly rebuffed his offers to help with sifting through the wreckage of FTX. So he said some of the emails haven't been returned, that sort of thing he's been trying to help, but they haven't they haven't responded to him. And I think it was reported that the new CEO John J ray has met with enforcement authorities. What is happening with what's left of fgx in the meantime? It looks like John ray is just trying to figure out exactly what they have there. I mean, he's made some pretty strong statements about the chaos that he feels was left in FTX and the inexperience that he feels these people had. So he appears to be just kind of figuring out what was going on, what they might have left, and I'm sure it's quite a big task to get all that information together. Do you want to in terms of the broader effect this is hard on the crypto space? We have that big tumble in crypto prices when FTX collapsed. Things do seem to have stabilized now, though, has the limit of contagion been reached, do you think? It looks like it is pretty stable, at least in terms of price, but there's still a lot of nervousness in the market. You still have people thinking, well, if this can happen with FTX, we thought FTX was so solid. Who else could it happen to? So you do start to get the rumors around about various entities and whether they're in trouble too. And again, that hasn't caused huge tremors post FTX, but there's definitely a lot of tenuousness. We haven't seen 10,000 or 5000 on Bitcoin, so it hasn't gotten to kind of a worse case scenario, but we have seen a lot of hesitancy and we haven't seen anything really recover and start to go up at this point either. Well, thank you so much for joining us Joanna, Austin jar are senior crypto reporter talking us through that FTX story. Well, let's turn our attention to the CPI print out of the U.S. duet later this morning ahead of course of the Federal Reserve right decision tomorrow. Our market supporter Valerie Titan is with us now and Valerie the exploitation is for 7.3% for the headline figure, which would be a slowdown on October 7.7%. What should be looking out for though in the detail? So the core number, I think is going to capture the market's attention and especially the fed. And when you break down the core number, what the fed is really going to be looking at of things that under the core services umbrella. Those are things from education, like how much it costs to go eat your haircut, hospitality, healthcare, these things. And the reason why they're focused on that is because these are the more sticky components. We know we've had this wave of goods inflation, this wave of energy inflation impacted the U.S. economy, and now it's slowly fed into other bits. The other bits that are more sticky and really hard to turn around, right? And Powell has noted quite often that they need to see weakness in the labor market in order to turn these things around. Now, why is that? It's because wage inflation is really what drives these core services
Bloomberg Radio New York
"john j ray" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"On Bloomberg television and radio. I'm David Weston. There's a big hearing to be held on Capitol Hill tomorrow and involves FTX and Samuel bankman freed and is before the House financial services committee. And they're going to look into exactly what happened and what it means may be more broadly for crypto in our current society. We turned out one of those who will be asking the questions democratic congressman Brad Sherman of California. He is a member of the House financial services committee. Congressman, thank you so much for being with us. First of all, as I understand, we're going to hear from Samuel bankman fried we're going to hear from the man who now runs FTX, John J ray, who's been appointed sort of in bankruptcy for it. What do you hope to get out of this? Well, I hope that our focus is on whether crypto is good for America, not only our investors, but let's face it the purpose of cryptocurrencies to partially displace the U.S. dollar whenever you're going after an incumbent in a market. You name your product about the advantage you think you have over the incumbent. So jolt Cola has more caffeine. What is cryptocurrency have over the U.S. dollar or other major currencies? It's right there in the name. Crypto, hidden money, cryptocurrency. And so my goal is to say enough is enough. It's time to prohibit Americans from investing in crypto. If we can't do that, if we're able to impose the know your customer and anti money laundering statutes on the entire American involved crypto ecosystem, then you'll strip away from crypto, the one reason it has for existing. And that is to be a hidden currency. So let's talk about that specifically. I mean, you've been skeptical in the past about crypto without a doubt. But historically in the United States, by and large, we've gone the route of disclosure rather than banning things. That certainly is the fundamentals of our securities laws. You have to disclose what you're doing and let the buyer decide what they want to do. Do you see a path forward that crypto can do what it wants to do, provided there is accurate and full disclosure. Well, in the investment world, to protect investors, we tend to go with full disclosure. But there are certain products that are antisocial in their nature. You can't go public with a company that is going to build burglary equipment because we don't want burglars to have better tools. And a crypto exists as a tool, but the very large market, which is why it hopes to be successful, of tax evasion, bankruptcy law of Asian, which I know mister bankman fried is learning more and more about. And the invasion of sanctions laws or drug laws, et cetera. So from an investor protection standpoint, maybe it's enough to provide disclosure. But there are certain products that shouldn't be out there. And one that has as its sole advantage in its namesake evading U.S. sanctions laws, tax laws, bankruptcy laws. We just don't need to product like that. Well, let me pursue that because you refer to burglary equipment. The only thing you do with it is violate the law. Is there no redeeming social value potentially a crypto at all because we hear people say it can facilitate transactions in a more efficient way, including a cross boundaries. Well, first it, one good thing about crypto is it helps you evade the laws of bad countries. But just like burglary tools might help you burglarize somebody who deserves to be verticalized. The other thing is a payment system of blockchain is interesting technology. We have, I think, over the next ten years, the payment systems for the U.S. dollar and other currencies is going to be much better. I don't like to see this three, three and a half percent charge that merchants are paying. I don't like for the most part, we've already gotten away from paper checks, but that's still an inconvenience. So I think we can improve the payment system. But to say that you need hidden currency because you want to faster and more efficient payment system is, I think, a red herring. Okay, so if there are advantages to a digital payment system that could really redound to everyone's benefit. But there are problems with the crypto part of it. Do you envision a world in which the government essentially takes over the digital currency? This is a Central Bank, or they could be supervising the regular banks to do it so that we get the advantages of the digital payment system without some of the problems you see potentially for illegality. We're moving toward a more efficient payment system already. Then mo and Apple Pay and whatever. And we need to see more competition in that market. We need to see the technology get better and I think we will just as we've seen everything else that can be done digitally done at lower cost, but as decades go by. I think you could have a digital currency from the fed or you could have it run through the traditional banks. But in any case, what you want is a system where we have the maximum possible, know your customer, anti money laundering, enforcement. And that is an antithesis to the crypto ecosystem. So cash when we've seen you in various hearings take a position on crypto, a skeptical one, as I say. Talk about what exactly you hope to get out of tomorrow. I mean, have you already made up your mind or are there things that perhaps mister ray, John Jay ray could tell you about what happened here that could separate what went wrong with FTX from perhaps what could have gone right? Or do you think the whole thing was just wrong from the get go? Well, I think the whole thing's wrong from the get go, but that being said, I chair the subcommittee on investor protection of capital markets. And so we do, you know, as long as Americans are buying crypto and are allowed to do it, we want a fully audited brokerage firms. With from serious accounting firms, I have one thing that I'm concerned about is it's kind of chutzpah to have investors who sent their money to The Bahamas so that they could evade U.S. investor protection law, which is the only reason you established in exchange in The Bahamas. And then the investors say, well, I sent my money to The Bahamas to evade the SEC's protection, now damn it, why didn't the SEC protect me? We can't protect American investors worldwide if they choose to take their money offshore. And but at least we signal that when you send your money to the Cayman Islands, when you send your money to The Bahamas, there's a reason why the financial institutions there. And the reason it's there is to evade U.S. law. And finally, congressman, you've been very direct. And I thank you for that. And your attitude toward crypto and what should happen here. Is there sentiment in some of your colleagues? Republicans and or Democrats that might actually support a move to actually ban crypto that is crypto the secret part of crypto. Is that feasible?
Bloomberg Radio New York
"john j ray" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Just a minute to go before it is 8 30 right here in Hong Kong and in Singapore and nearly 7 30 evening there on Wall Street. I'm Rashad salami. And O'Brien courtesy in Los Angeles, risk assets in the Asia Pacific pulling back a little bit this morning. Nothing too dramatic than EK is down about four tenths of 1%. The ASX 200 off about a half of a percent. That's the general flow of the futures are also lower, even with oncoming China markets, and that's even with more reopening coming in China. We'll get to the markets in a few moments, but for now some of the top stories. We've got the House financial services committee confirming it will hear from former FTX chief executive Sam bankman fried Tuesday. Let's get details now from Bloomberg, Susanna Palmer. Bankman fried will testify at a hearing on the disintegration of his crypto empire. He is now listed as a witness alongside current FTX CEO John J ray. Bankman fried in a series of messages sent over Twitter on Friday, said he was willing to testify, but would be limited in what he would be able to say because he didn't have access to much of his personal or professional data. Susanna Palmer Bloomberg daybreak Asia. Twitter says it will relaunch its Twitter blue subscription service on Monday. It will cost $8 per month on the web. In a series of tweets, the company also said that users will get access on iOS for $11 a month, and that would be to subscriber only features that includes the blue checkmark. Twitter said that it will begin replacing that official label with a gold check mark for businesses, and later in the week it will have a gray check mark for government and multilateral accounts. Now Hong Kong court has sentenced tycoon Jimmy lai to more prison time, according to local media, he's already serving some 20 months for his role in unauthorized assemblies during 2019 anti government protests. Now a lie has received an additional sentence of 5 years and 9 months for two counts of fraud. I had pleaded not guilty to using the former headquarters of his next digital media company for purposes, not specified in the least local media reporting that lie has also been fined some 2 million Hong Kong dollars and he's forbidden to work in management for any company for 8 years. Chinese companies have raised a record amount in initial public offerings at home this year. Bloomberg's Yvonne Mann has more. Bloomberg data showed that listings in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and the recently inaugurated Beijing exchange brought in $92 billion this year defying a global slump. A slew of factors have enabled this feat, policy easing in China has been a key catalyst, rising borrowing costs have also deterred listings in traditional venues such as Hong Kong and London. At the same time, China's crumbling real estate market force many investors should look for an alternative to put their money to work. According to Bloomberg data, China's domestic pipeline for next year is also solid, about 376 companies have announced IPO plans over the past 6 months that are now under pending status. They could go public in 2023. In Hong Kong, I'm Ivan ma'am, Bloomberg daybreak Asia. Is what the moment 28 minutes to the top of the hour
Bloomberg Radio New York
"john j ray" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"It is just gone 28 minutes past 7 in the morning right here in Hong Kong and in Singapore. It says 6 28 in the evening on Wall Street, I'm Rashad salami. And I'm Brian Curtis in Los Angeles looking at the markets in Asia right now, the ASX 200. Down about 6 tenths of 1% and S and he S&P E minis are moving down a little bit down about two tenths of 1%, a closer look at markets coming up shortly, but for now some of the top stories. We're looking at the House financial services committee confirming it will hear from former FTX CEO Sam bankman fried on Tuesday. Let's get details now from Bloomberg, Susanna Palmer. Bankman freed will testify at a hearing on the disintegration of his crypto empire. He's now listed as a witness alongside current FTX CEO John J ray. Bankman fried in a series of messages sent over Twitter on Friday, said he was willing to testify, but would be limited in what he would be able to say because he didn't have access to much of his personal or professional data. Susanna Palmer Bloomberg daybreak Asia. Relaunch its Twitter blue subscription service on Monday. It will cost $8 per month on the web. In a series of tweets, the company also said users will get access on iOS for $11 a month to subscriber only features, and that includes the blue checkmark. Twitter said that it would begin replacing that official label with a gold checkmark for businesses. And later in the week, it'll have a great check mark for government and multilateral accounts. All right, we've got Volkswagen saying it's considering pulling its scooter brand out of China or without according to the scooter chief executive Klaus ezema in an interview with the trade magazine automobiles. He blamed it all on very intense competition in the Chinese automotive sector, adding that scooter now wants to focus more on India, which is also responsible for within the VW group. Volkswagen has loaded sales targets in China by roughly 14% for this year. Chinese companies have raised a record amount in initial public offerings at home this year. Bloomberg's Yvonne Mann had the story. Bloomberg data showed that listings in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and the recently inaugurated Beijing exchange brought in $92 billion this year defying a global slump. A slew of factors have enabled this feat, policy easing in China has been a key catalyst, rising borrowing costs have also deterred listings in traditional venues such as Hong Kong and London. At the same time, China's crumbling real estate market forced many investors to look for an alternative to put their money to work. According to Bloomberg data, China's domestic pipeline for next year is also solid, about 376 companies have announced IPO plans over the past 6 months that are now under pending status. They could go public in 2023. In Hong Kong, I'm Ivan mam, Bloomberg, Debra, Asia. All right, well, it is now just what 29 minutes to the top of the hour
KIRO Radio 97.3 FM
"john j ray" Discussed on KIRO Radio 97.3 FM
"Um, let's see what's coming yet? Yeah, again again. Just give me a little taste little taste. Other mailman. What do you think? You know, a little something something they're showing on the mailman. No. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wasn't wasn't expecting that for such a teeny tiny? Help me out here? T teeny take you There She is. Okay. She shows the letter that they should give me the big thumbs up is his biggest capacity Come from woman listening to pickle jar. Let's get started. Tom, with all the rest. Here we go. Okay. We'll start off with the over leak vaccine scandal of sorts area code to a six ways in well money talks, and apparently, it's talking toe over Lake Hospital. Let's see 4 to 5. I've been trying to get appointments it over Lake for some time now on DNA's been available, so I'm not believing they had extra. That's true on the abiding on climate change 206 ways and imagine living in a town where a huge portion of the economy relies on producing something that uses a massive amount of fossil fuels, for example, maybe a company that makes jet airplane When the president decides to shut it down with the stroke of a pen. There's a promise of a replacement, but no actual plan. Wouldn't that be terrible? And Nick from or kisses. Why would anyone in Texas have to leave? Don't they have sun and win there and Eric 0253 Easy, curly easy. A man of your age. Getting this worked up, but you might just blow all your fuses Several of us. I don't know He's being funny with several of us would like you to stick around a while longer. There by the pledge. Allegiance Pam and Shoreline says dark curly, Just when I can't take any more of your bashing Biden and vilifying teachers, your real me back in how with the story of getting choked up, saying the Pledge of Allegiance curse your natural charm for unfairly, Carson. Very, very true. Very Co two of six Great story curly about the Pledge of Lee. Yes. When I was in kindergarten and just learning that I used to say and to the Republic for Richard stands, I thought it was a guy. Yeah, possibly 206. With the pledge allegiance and and Republic is not as important for Democrats to skip as under God, I think that the councilman's having trouble because he could remember where to skip the God part. By the way, that was just added and 54. Anyway, the Seahawks offensive coordinator 206 area code calling Russell Wilson Russ always bust me up. Yeah, that old Russ. He's just a regular guy. Great guy. They hang around and shoot the breeze with and that let Russ cooks slogan. OK, Russ, Here's a lighter, some aluminum foil a can of tuna and three jolly ranchers coat for it. Men in college that 2536 John, How can you pump out 2.3 kids is the 0.3 al. The TJ lady was born very fucking. It's like the extra dose of vaccine. Very good. 253 I stop college about a year ago. Why? I wish it was because I had a million dollar idea. It's because I don't have the discipline for at home, learning. I like beer and weed too much western Pierre Alain, speaking of beer and weed in 1989, right after high school, I went to Green River Community College for two years to become an accountant. I quit school with three classes left to start a side job that has turned into a 30 year career. March. He's a stripper. Easy, Sister. Pretty Congratulations, West and from Mr 253. This reminds me of an old poem recited by my classmates in elementary school school. Girls go to college to get more knowledge. Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider. Much to the chagrin Milan Musk who can't even make it to Mars, and I can't even make it to Mars. Anyway. It never occurred to the girls that the ER in stupider was unnecessary. Since they use more, which goes to show their need for college was far greater than us, Boys. Thank you, Mr 253. John's cabin Ray and Ritz Ville. Hey, John. Can you pick up some extra money plowing people's driveways. And clearly you go, John. Just sidebar job. Hi, John. I've been using your dad's Who cares Line ever since yesterday show works great. It could also be the slogan you've been looking for. In clear. Lem. We eloped cares, John, You've got to get a few mouser cats if raised, right. That you're fairly live outside. They take care of those rodents. Otherwise they'll keep finding ways in your cabin. Now it is time for the little up today. Wild animals eat them, by the way. Best Tarbell segment of the year so.
Power 106 FM
"john j ray" Discussed on Power 106 FM
"Your girl you got this weird feeling her best friend. Is Loki filling you matter of fact, I'm elaborate Way explained to you himself. Whatever you all this great race reminding fellow and I want to know from tripping for one that tell my girl That her best friend is just way too nice to me. You know what I mean? I know makes us stupid, but I just get that five. It's like whenever I post something on instagram, he comments or she shoot me a message in my DM always trying to start a conversation. And then when I see her out do for extra nice to me. But then when my girls there he doesn't even acknowledge me and then to make it worse this year, New Year's at 3 A.m. he hit He was happy New Year's Tech and my trip in that I tell my girl that her best friend is Loki filling me or she's just being nice. Ray Ray's trip it He's so problematic and nobody sees it is a problem. He's assuming, dude because she's nice. He's tripping now, man, do you can you ain't tripping, dawg. You're just trying to help your girl out there, you know, moved the snakes. That a fact. Let's go check in with our dog, Charles for mission. Be a ho Yo. You heard from Ray Ray man. Is he tripping? It's all set up starting with you once you do You know everything school that she likes you, don't she? Don't she? Don't tell me I'm telling you. This is turned into a conspiracy theory. Got it? That's local. No, listen, He ain't Charles is onto something. I Because maybe her best friend is testing him. This is not God's Got exactly zero raid drill knows what's going on Railways, girls on the dark. She's just waiting to see if he tells her Yeah, exactly. Tell her my boys other I'm trying to play it it try set Ray Ray up. Let's go check in with maybe reference point apart. Maybe. Is Ray Ray tripping? But down his girl that her best friend doing most? Yes, in a lead, not tripping. I would want to know if my girl was talking to my men. That is definitely disrespectful and okay, I agree. If your girl is talking to your man, it's disrespectful if she's trying to get at him, But he doesn't have any proof. This is literally in his head. But if you were in a relationship, the new best friend was calling him texting him at three o'clock in the morning. You would be upset. I'm sure so ready to go. Tell his girl. What you doing, Coach? He's bad girl is being of not a not a good friend. You know what? I think? The final word got to go to our brought Tim rep in Inglewood, Tim is Ray Ray tripping. I don't think he's tripping a trap. I think it's here. This extra twist. I think his girl is probably cheat on the math. A reason why his his girlfriend is being a little extra friendly around them. Where the hell did you Because Hey, girls be doing funny stuff like that. How did this become about us? Steady? Y'all projecting your neck. Your urine security's on us. It's always about John Ray Ray. Keep your head of play. You ain't shit will let her know that snakes is out and her friend.
NFL Live
Fantasy, Meet Reality: A Running Back Breaks Out, Then Disappears
"Liz Merrill is a senior writer for ESPN. So we're doing a package on one one hit wonders. And he editors thought who'd be better to sort of headline this but Jonas Gray story it's been about five five years. Since his breakout game. It was November sixteenth. Two thousand fourteen. What happened on that day? New England would've gone through one of those September's which everyone in Britain them off. You know they've lost that Miami in the opening game and then they went to Kansas City and just got clobbered and then to patriots form. They rattled off five wins. And they're back to their dominating cells. Broody leads US Patriots into town to the Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday night. Football how Michael Smith game was a Sunday night football game and it was a highly anticipated anticipated game because it was a rematch of that year's divisional round game tonight. It's Andrew Lock Against Tom. Brady get your calculators out. There should be really default to rescue teams. Both come off by weeks. There's a cave named Jewish graves is making star back to the ground. This this is Jonas Gray Gray to the thirty yard line. You know. It's amazing what nobody knew was except for people in very inner struggles of New England And he actually had a really impressive training camp and Bella check had told him. You know you're so close to making the roster oster but they didn't activate them until mid October when Steven Ridley towards ACL this guy he wasn't uh-huh regular starter at Notre Dame. He was on the practice squad until three weeks ago. So his mom and his brother drove about three hundred miles from mm-hmm where they lived outside of Detroit. The Game Jonas at the time was living in a one bedroom apartment and this modest area outside of Boston Austin on the very bare bones and the only tickets. He could really sport. His family. Were in the nosebleed seats. They're ZEHR watching the game. There's all this anticipation there's nerve block white with Michelle. Give the gray runs. Between Guard and center white. He pushes to the end zone. Owed go to spray has a touchdown patriots. He's scores his first touchdown and his mom is like okay. I'll clap. I'm I'm pretty exciting. This is so awesome. So she's Kinda cool about it in cash and then you know he's course again and then we. He scores his third touchdown. I get the great lowers the coders running. It was more a touchdown his she drops to a knee in like complete. You know amazement and just so older well that you know for kids. It's finally getting a chance. And then Jonas Gray Mix Histories Iowa thing for two hundred one yards and four touchdowns give give the pig right. He runs a lot he for the Patriots. Schoolyard can't stop. Stop it so Jonas Gray erupts. He has this once in a lifetime. Performance how does he react. After the game he'd reaction was pretty wide. I I mean I think that's one of the things that made the story so endearing it because he was just like holy cow. Here's Glock like celebrating Alabama with me. Here's Tom Brady headbutting. Me All the stuff that you see in the movies really you know the thing you know. act like he's been there I mean and he did act like you've been there but inside he was completely awash. You know in all of the surprise and the joy and there was sort of that moment where from Michelle Foia talks to him. They had the traditional interview with the Star of the game. Let's turn to John Ray. Yeah Guy who didn't hear his name before you're going to be hearing it a lot. We heard it many times tonight and he's doing nervous. I mean there's a guy who graduated with a degree in English and he did stand up comedy already in college. So you know. She knew his way around the microphone but she didn't know what he's GonNa say touchdowns the first four of your NFL career on at this stage had explain this performance. I'm just blessed. Blessed beyond belief we put together a great game plan. They hammered in all week. She watched this for so long. Keep Watch Tom Brady. And GRONK and company and Julia Nettleton on TV. It was just one of those things where you just couldn't believe all this is happening. Someone one of those guys men are probably go home tonight and get back. I'll probably just lay in bed. Look up in the ceiling. Just just astonished man. What's going on? Aw Right in a great story man. God's helping
KQED Radio Show
Teheran, British Royal Marines And Iran discussed on KQED Radio Show
"It is the latest ratcheting up of tensions just last month the Iranians shot down a U. S. drone over the same stretch of sea the US said blame Teheran for attacking six oil tank is in may and June and last week British Royal Marines stormed an Iranian ten can nature brought to suspected of breaching Syrian sanctions Monday and give you see on the gun shop all an act that is this latest drama unfolded yesterday Iran's president Hassan Rouhani will that Britain would pay full from Washington tonight where hostility to Tehran the scene Donald Trump threatened and then cooled off military action in recent weeks the president tweeted it seems the Brits some the French and the Germans are coming around to the idea that the Iranians are up to no good the US is not planning a multinational force to monitor the Gulf Britain must decide what role it might play in an escalating crisis that report from John ray of independent television news Iran has denied the British allegations and says it made no attempt to interfere with the
PBS NewsHour
Counting underway in Zimbabwe's historic vote
"He is open to meeting with no preconditions supreme court nominee Brett cavenaugh Juan over one over an undecided Republican today Kentucky Senator rand. Paul said that, he will vote to confirm that's a key endorsement in, this closely divided Senate meanwhile Cavanaugh had his first meeting with a democrat West Virginia Senator Joe. Manchin he is seen as a. Potential swing vote supreme court. Justice Ruth. Bader Ginsburg says she, hopes to. Serve until she's ninety Ginsburg is now eighty-five she told an interviewer on Sunday that quote I think. I have at least five more years on the court. He cited former Justice John Paul Stevens who served. Until he was ninety in Zimbabwe they have begun counting votes after a largely. Peaceful election day it's the country's first presidential election since Robert Mugabe. Was ousted in may he had rule for thirty seven years His former deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa faced opposition leader Nelson Chamisa who. Complained to voting delays designed to undermine his support John Ray of Independent. Television News reports from Harare the capital It Bob wait a historic day worth the early start sunrise and already thousands of queuing patiently many here have waited a lifetime for this moment where we've only known one you now So I think this demonstrates change That has been a joyous energy about. The campaign generated by one man Nelson Chamisa has vowed to. End forty years of one-party rule One. But hopes dashed by defeats might yet be a combustible combination Mistake kingdom confidence all the excitement around Nelson to me he says he. Will, not accept defeat makes this a dangerous moment has in Bob we if you do not win this election trouble.