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Ripple CTO Says FTX Differs from Madoff's Ponzi, But There’s a Catch

Sat, 11/12/2022 - 11:24
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Yuri Molchan
Ripple’s David Schwartz says that while many are comparing Sam Bankman-Fried to Madoff, there are “huge apparent differences”
Ripple CTO Says FTX Differs from Madoff's Ponzi, But There’s a Catch
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Chief technology officer of Ripple Labs David Schwartz, who is also a co-creator of XRP Ledger and XRP, has taken to Twitter to sort of defend the reputation of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

Ealier today, SBF announced that he had filed for FTX and Alameda Research bankruptcy, thus pushing Bitcoin price further down – below $17,000, as well as the whole cryptocurrency market.

Ripple CTO believes that while many on Twitter are now comparing FTX to Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, there are “huge apparent differences”. Still, he admits that FTX ended up to be a Ponzi.

Here’s how SBF is different to Madoff, still ending up a Ponzi, per Ripple CTO

Schwartz believes that unlike Bernie Madoff, who created the largest Ponzi in history worth nearly $65 billion, Sam Bankman-Fried seems to have started FTX as a legal crypto business and then it gradually turned into a pyramid, while Madoff started with a Ponzi deliberately, perhaps hoping to replace it with a legitimate company later on.

He believes that FTX started to turn into a Ponzi when Alameda Research trading firm linked to it began losing money. Another scenario here is that FTX founder wanted it to become more profitable.

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Whatever the case was, David Schwartz believes, SBF put a huge risk on his crypto exchange – first to increase its profits and then simply to keep it afloat.

Another difference between the two Ponzies that Madoff made people lose money from the very beginning, while Sam Bankman-Fried loaned customer funds that he was not supposed to use this way.

By now, Sam Bankman-Fried announced that he has filed FTX and Alameda for bankruptcy. This event pushed Bitcoin price below the $17,000 mark and down to pre-2017 ATH levels.

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About the author

Yuri is a crypto journalist interested in technology and technical innovations. He has been in crypto since 2017. Believes that blockchain and cryptocurrencies have a potential to transform the world in the future in many of its aspects. ‘Hodls’ major cryptocurrencies and has written for multiple crypto media outlets. 

His articles have been quoted by such crypto influencers as Tyler Winklevoss, John McAfee, CZ Binance, Max Keiser, etc.

Currently Yuri is a news writer at U.Today and can be contacted at yuri.molchan@u.today.