Seeing how closely SBF and FTX are linked to the Bahamas I thought this would warrant a closer look at the Bahamas, to try and see if they really are as progressive and great as they want you and me to think.
The Bahamas vs the rest
The Bahamas made it very clear that they only care about the FTX that was registered in the Bahamas. If not before it was made apparent by the public address the Bahamian General Auturney made at the start of December. And another way this was made apparent was in early November. This was when made apparent when FTX tweeted they were working with the Bahamian regulators and regulations. And have started up withdrawals for their Bahamian customers again.
The amounts in question were downplayed by the FTX twitter account as well. As they followed this tweet by "The amounts withdrawn comprise a small fraction of the assets we currently hold on hand". If we completely disregard the FTX claim that they had a lot of funds and the withdrawals were only a small portion of that. Which we now know is completely false. Just how "small" was the withdrawal? It has been shown that in the 25-hour window where people who went through a Bahamian KYC were able to withdraw their funds. 1.500 people did so. The amounts withdrawn by them were around $100 million dollars.
https://twitter.com/mochains/status/1602736941916721154
- mochains
Video from official hearing confirming the 1.500 individuals and ~$100 millions
Now it appears that they will have to try and claw these funds back from the 1.500 individuals. As it appears there is a conflict between the US court and the Bahamian court as to who controls what.
The Bahamians did however put out a statement refuting the claim that they directed FTX to prioritize withdrawals for Bahamian customers. But this statement made by the Bahamians appears to carry little weight and credibility on the US side of things.
More reports of Bahamian meddeling
According to a report made by Bloomberg on December 12th. The Bahamian government reportedly asked SBF to mint new assets totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. And according to Bloomberg they then asked SBF to transfer these new assets to accounts under the control of island officials. Bloomberg reportedly got this from SBF´s lawyers.
They also reportedly told Bloomberg that "in the court that Bahamian officials ( officially & unofficially) planned to get access to the core database of the FTX exchange so that SBF can easily control the computer system of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX". And that SBF was forced to mint these new tokens. This was done in an attempt by the Bahamian agencies to try and gain control over the exchange.
This appears to be corroborated by John J. Ray III the new CEO of FTC as well. As reports have come out they were trying to wrestle back control of the computer systems from whoever was using them to mint new tokens.
It is a request for live, dynamic access that would be provided immediately to the government of the Bahamas and to Messrs,
Bahamian lawyers have also filed for increased access to data in the case. The US apparently views this as an escalation in the conflict of who controls what. And have pointed their fingers at SBF for cooperating with the Bahamian government, citing the limited withdrawals made available to Bahamian customers as evidence of this.
What can we make out of this?
First of all, personally, I think there are way too many coincidental things going on here for the Bahamians to claim they are not pulling at least some of the strings behind the scene. If this is simply the Bahamas trying to protect their financial interests or them trying to outpiss the US. Well, my money is on the Bahamas simply giving their rich citizens what they have paid for. Why else would more rich people come there, if they can not expect preferential treatment?
To me, this all screams of that. Bahamas doing what is best for the Bahamas. And why would SBF go along with this? Well, he presumably thought he was all nice, cozy, and safe as long as he kept doing the Bahamians bidding. While the Bahamans keep saying they are carrying out their own investigations in parallel and in cooperation with the US. To me, it looks like nothing more than when the criminal tries to insert themself into the investigation on a cop show on tv.
They say that lady justice is blind, but in the Bahamian case, she appears to be both deaf and dumb as well.
I mean I think it is pretty telling that both Caroline Ellison former CEO of Alameda Research and Gary Wang co-founder of FTX made plea agreements with the US and not in the Bahamas. I do think it will be interesting if any charges will be filed in the Bahamian court vs any of the people involved. I would however not place any money on it.
What are your thoughts on this, is the Bahamas simply in the business of itself, and is "customers", or and I reading too much into this who thing? Or is it as they say "it is better in the Bahamas"? And that is simply the truth here as well? Please share your thoughts on the public service announcement from the Bahamas in the comment section. If you would like to support me and the content I make, please consider following me, reading my other posts, or why not do both instead.
See you on the interwebs!
Picture provided by: https://www.bahamasjudiciary.com (fair use)
Resources