To immortalise the greatest rug pull in the history of extremely annoying financial debacles, we’ve created an actual rug. Depicting the major characters in the saga, this is crypto’s Bayeux Tapestry. If the Bayeux Tapestry had been printed on acrylic in China and destined for your mum’s basement.
𝗦𝗕𝗙
The protagonist of this sorry story hardly needs any introduction. About as effectively altruistic as a prawn is vegan, he was our cult leader, our sushi itamae. And he no doubt remains a hero to some (his parents; Michael Lewis; possibly Caroline; any early sushi bagholder who actually sold).
Collectively we maybe should have seen the signs - “high returns with no risk”, linear utility functions, that weird viral dance video, total inability to comprehend shoelaces - but we all wanted a bronze tier league of legends player who does not understand eye contact to become the richest man in history and for that to be enough that he gets to smell Gisele’s hair. Now he’s probably not going to have to worry about shoelaces at all. It’s a real shame SBF is not around to spin up a prediction market on exactly which negative-expected-value outcomes SBF can look forward to.
He might have done more lasting good for future generations of humanity (financially, environmentally, intellectually) if he had attempted to drive that Corolla in a bee line from Hong Kong to the Bahamas, rather than taking a private jet, via his new found friends’ offices in Washington DC. If only the indirect graft directed at US politicians was as effective as the money he paid Chinese officials. He definitely would have been better off selling all that SOL at USD3 - probably could have purchased enough cigarettes to buy a bean bag for his cell. MS-13 and the Aryan Brotherhood might be a bit less keen than Barry to accept SamCoins as collateral (even if $MAPS 𝙞𝙨 the new PayPal). Then again his friend Cill Blinton might make sure he doesn’t have that much time to spend prison currency.
𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲
A generous commentator might describe Caroline as a complex woman and we would too if only her algorithms had been as complex as her hot (?) takes on human sexual relationships. We don’t know what the elementary mathematics equivalent of a Chinese Imperial harem might be. But simping for a boss who won’t admit you’re doing the sneaky spreadeagle might be it.
The drawings that the court illustrator put out also appear to be elementary finger paintings of a woman whose boss might wish they had not slept together; maybe they too had some money on FTX - money that Caroline used to try and maintain her grip(py) on SBF’s affections (wang, not Gary).
The relationship between being able to effectively run a multibillion dollar hedge fund and chronic use of off label prescription stimulants is probably also not linear, but maybe giving away 10 billion dollars of other people’s money to the markets is just another way to avoid a normal, non-medicated human experience.
For the total betrayal of SBF, she might also be hoping for six months in the Miami heat but is more likely to find herself a bit lower in the pecking order of a different sort of polycule. So much for not going to jail for being an asshole who devastated some part of the global economy.
𝗧𝗮𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗰𝗼
For latecomers, Sam Trabucco seems anonymous; if you started watching only around the time of FTX’s collapse, he may seem like a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; for anyone who watched the rise of Alameda and FTX, he was “Other Sam”, the figure with the second-highest public profile, who now seems more slippery than a greased pig in mud, on a yacht in international waters, using a call sign that’s embarrassing to say out loud.
Tabasco was loud and proud in describing their shift from data-driven quant to degens at the crypto casino, albeit playing with loaded dice. If he did actually use the only real informational advantage that he had - inside information, regarding their collective incompetence - then he’s timed that particular trade to perfection. He may have had his deck thoroughly soaked with customer cash before sailing off into the sunset months before the implosion but we expect to see more details emerge around this central cast member.
How Tabasco has managed to actually not be like Larry (who has actually been sued) is anybody's guess. Has anyone ever seen him in the same room as Brett Harrison?
𝗚𝗮𝗿𝘆
The 101x engineer and second-largest-shareholder of both FTX and Alameda, Gary was practically anonymous throughout the rise and demise of these conjoined-twin businesses (they shared a heart, a head, and at least a full digestive tract). He was known only as the finest engineer in all of cryptodom - the Shang-Chi of exchange infrastructure. We now know that he was actually helping SBF take everything, everywhere, all at once; that his true gift was backdoors rather than backends; god mode for Alameda rather than god mode for risk engine design; and while even a well-designed insurance product might struggle with a black swan event, his insurance fund struggled to pass a giggle test. A bit like when the kung fu master meets someone who actually tries to hurt people.
𝗢𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗚𝗮𝗿𝘆
Our lawyers said that we must be clear that this is absolutely not Gary Gensler being led by a chain by SBF and any resemblance (as to appearance and/or character) is purely coincidental.
𝗖𝗭
As he remains the most powerful man in the industry, we include him here only to mark his essential role in (a) funding FTX and (b) more importantly, defunding FTX so, so hard. SBF was maybe a few days/months/years late in publicly conceding defeat, and probably reflects with mixed emotions on his jibe about CZ not being welcome in DC, but who knows? Maybe there’s another dimension to the most destructive game of multidimensional chess ever played and CZ may yet get his own limited run commemorative meme rug distributed via novel bonding curve architecture.
