Latest news with #SamBankmanFried
Fox News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Luigi Mangione musical sells out in San Francisco, producers eye national tour after smash debut
A San Francisco musical about Luigi Mangione, charged with the 2024 assassination of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson in New York City, might go national as the show continues to sell out. The show, entitled, "Luigi: The Musical," is a "satirical prison comedy inspired by the bizarre true story of three high-profile inmates housed together at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn," according to the production's website. Mangione is depicted along with Sean "Diddy" Combs, who was recently acquitted of racketeering and sex trafficking charges, and Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for a multi-billion dollar fraud. The three have reportedly been held in the same jail, the Metropolitan Detention Center, in Brooklyn, New York, but reports suggest Bankman-Fried was recently transferred to a different facility in California. The website for the production features an announcement that it has been "Extended by popular demand – August 6 show added after sell-out run," and invites patrons to purchase tickets for the fifth show that was added. Nova Bradford, head writer and director of the show, was quoted in The Hollywood Reporter saying that the show's popularity has a lot to say about the level of interest society has in Mangione, as well as Bankman-Fried and Combs. "There is this interesting thing that these three men represent three pillars of society that people have lost a lot of trust in in recent years, including healthcare, Hollywood and the whole tech/VC/finance ecosystem," Bradford said. "And so what we want to explore more with the show is not about the individual actions of these actual people, but more so the place that these figures are occupying in the public consciousness and what it means about us when we've lost so much trust in institutions that are supposed to support us," she added. The Hollywood Reporter notes that the show was originally set to be performed at Taylor Street Theater in San Francisco, which seats 49 people, but was moved to The Independent, which seats 350 people. The musical's architects are reportedly trying to get it into the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, held in August, as well as considering adding shows in Los Angeles and New York, per The Hollywood Reporter. "Our hope is that regardless of someone's worldview, they'll leave the show with more questions than they had at the beginning," Bradford said.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
FTX to Start Next Round of Creditor Repayments on Sept. 30
FTX, the once prominent crypto exchange, will begin the next round of cash redistribution on Sept. 30, the bankrupt firm said in a statement on Wednesday. The firm, which was led by founder Sam Bankman-Fried, started paying back its creditors earlier this year. FTX has repaid nearly $6.2 billion after getting approval for its redistribution plan by the U.S. bankruptcy court. The former crypto giant used to be a mainstay in the digital asset ecosystem till a CoinDesk expose in 2022 resulted in the downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried's empire. In 2023, Bankman-Fried was convicted on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy, and sentenced to 25 years in prison for orchestrating the $11 billion fraud. Although, according to a report, his sentence could be cut by 4 years due to "good conduct." FTX said that it has received court approval to reduce its disputed claim reserve to $4.3 billion from $6.5 billion. The exchange will distribute the cash through BitGo, Kraken, and in to access your portfolio
Forbes
6 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
GENIUS Act Passage Calls For Rethink Of Sam Bankman-Fried's Conviction
NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 30: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (C) departs Manhattan Federal Court after an ... More arraignment hearing on March 30, 2023 in New York City. Federal prosecutors added a foreign bribery charge to the list of crimes that Bankman-Fried is already facing. The indictment accuses the FTX founder of directing $40 million in bribes to Chinese government officials to unfreeze assets related to his cryptocurrency business. (Photo by) Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) shouldn't be in prison. All it takes to understand this is to remember that when SBF was forced to sign bankruptcy papers for FTX, a third of the crypto exchange's assets were the FTT coins issued by FTX. Which is the point. Those coins were not 'money' in the traditional stablecoin sense, rather they were shares. As Michael Lewis clarified in Going Infinite (my review here),'The most important feature of FTT was that its holders were collectively entitled to roughly a third of the annual revenues of the FTX exchange.' This is elemental when it comes to pushing back against the notion that SBF criminally arrogated customer funds to himself for trading and investing. More realistically, that was the purpose of housing money at FTX. Evidence supporting the previous claim can be found in the fact that the all-time high for FTT coins, a high reached in September of 2021, was $84. The FTX coins were a way for individuals who didn't understand the crypto market to gain exposure to it. Crucial here is that if SBF hadn't been doing what presently has him behind bars, he wouldn't have had any money entrusted to him. See above. The customer assets at FTX were a speculation on SBF, and the view (arguably correct as evidenced by the recovery in FTX's assets after the bankruptcy) that he somewhat uniquely grasped the crypto future. Which brings us to GENIUS, CLARITY, and other Acts meant to create a stable regulatory environment for the cryptocurrency present and future. The latter precisely explains why SBF was spending so much time in Washington. While self-proclaimed purists from the various political and economic religions vilified SBF's time in Washington as evidence of cronyism on his part, in truth it was SBF seeking a regulatory imprimatur for crypto that he deemed necessary for its positive evolution. Some understandably disdain the tendency of business types to secure 'pull' in Washington, but the purists are yelling at the proverbial scoreboard. Until Washington retreats from commercial meddling, it will be necessary for those discovering a new future to make nice with the political class. The passage of GENIUS, CLARITY and others like it vindicate what SBF was doing all along. He uniquely saw that a failure to institutionalize crypto regulation would render all the spade work done by himself and others moot. And so, he waded in the swamp. Bringing it all to President Trump, it's time for him to pardon SBF. As opposed to a criminal, SBF somewhat uniquely saw a future that no one else did. What's easy to forget about those willing to risk it all in the face of endless ridicule is that there are stumbles along the way. If change were easy, or better yet, obvious, we would never have heard of SBF. We have because he did what no one else had the courage or the imagination to do. To this day those who should know better view SBF as a crook or a fraudster, while also agreeing with his prison sentence, The bigger truth is that SBF's only error wasn't even an error: for a time the various crypto concepts that he actively traded and invested in went south. Stated simply, SBF sits in prison because the market for crypto coins briefly corrected. It's time for President Trump to correct this egregious error.
ABC News
21-07-2025
- Business
- ABC News
What's behind Donald Trump's latest crypto adventure?
Amid all the noise about Epstein and ankles late last week, Donald Trump quietly started a revolution within the global monetary and payments system. The announcement didn't go entirely unnoticed, but with the anger and fury bubbling through American society right now, it didn't quite get the exposure it deserved. It's called the "Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act", an innocuous-sounding bill that condenses down into a neat little acronym. "The GENIUS Act, they named it after me," Trump announced in a rare moment of levity and without the faintest hint of irony. Widely touted as a means to provide credibility for the crypto industry, and the US president's family business exposures, the move will have far-reaching impacts on the global financial system and the US economy. Most of the attention in the lead up to the bill's passing has focused on the president's personal exposure to cryptocurrencies. And for good reason. Five years ago, towards the end of his first term in office, Trump denounced Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as "a scam". But in the lead up to last year's election, he announced a lighter touch to crypto regulation. New regulators with a more benign attitude to the industry would replace those who brought the likes of Sam Bankman-Fried — the FTX tycoon now serving a 25-year jail sentence — to justice after one of the biggest financial collapses in history. That pledge saw huge amounts of donations flow in from crypto industry devotees. And, in the aftermath of the election, the president and his wife launched their own meme coins — raising an estimated $US2.7 billion — along with the launch of World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm run by his sons and other business associates. While the potential conflicts of interest are disturbing, the bill could reshape the way global finance and trade flows operate. Stablecoins haven't always lived up to their name. Occasionally, they've been anything but. When the cryptocurrency industry was collapsing in on itself three years ago, a stablecoin called UST — which had little real asset backing — suddenly was de-pegged from the US dollar, resulting in the collapse of two big cryptocurrencies, Terra and Luna. Investors lost tens of billions of US dollars. But the concept has survived and stablecoins, unlike many other crypto applications, have a useful purpose. They can transfer money in an instant and at minimal cost with none of those annoying transfer fees. Stablecoins are named as such because they are pegged to a fiat currency, usually the US dollar. Unlike other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, the price doesn't change or, at least, shouldn't. To be truly stable, however, they must be backed by assets that can be readily exchanged into US dollars, assets like US Treasury bills and US government bonds, essentially US government debt. For years, they were mostly used in countries with unstable currencies like Turkey. But that's now changing. During the past year, stablecoin transactions have exceeded $US33 trillion, far exceeding that of PayPal and even Visa, a trend that is in its infancy. That sudden lift in transactions and the rise of stablecoins has begun to shift the market for US government debt. Tether, the biggest stablecoin, last year emerged as the seventh biggest buyer of US Treasuries and between them, stablecoins now collectively hold $US128 billion in US Treasuries, which is more than sovereign holders like Germany, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea. This shift is occurring at the same time as the US dollar is losing its lustre and questions are being raised about America's role as the global reserve currency. While there is no obvious interloper, another currency to take its place as the global reserve, confidence in America is faltering, as this graph shows, hit by rising levels of US debt and increasingly erratic politics. China, once the world's biggest owner of US Treasuries and bonds, has been selling down US government debt, and instead building its store of gold. That has kept US Treasury officials awake at night. Less demand for US government debt flows directly through to higher interest rates. That's because investors would demand higher yields, or interest rates, to purchase the bonds for the greater risk they hold. With the interest bill on its $US37 trillion debt already topping $US1 trillion a year, that's something the US can ill-afford. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is praying that he's found the answer. Just as foreign governments and their central banks have been backing out of US dollars and US government debt, stablecoins may just fill the breach. Continued demand for US government debt is vital for America's future, something Bessent's boss, Donald Trump, has failed to grasp. The US president believes the rest of the world is "ripping us off" because the US runs a trade deficit. The real problem is that Americans spend more than they save. And the only way to finance that, is to ensure there is strong demand for US government debt. Bessent is hoping stablecoin demand for American government debt will pull borrowing costs lower. He has some serious heft backing him on that. Investment banks Citigroup and Standard Chartered both believe that stablecoin use will grow exponentially within the next few years. Even major US retail chains and banks have begun exploring stablecoins to drive down the excessive fees charged by credit card companies. That sounds like an easy fix for the Treasury Secretary. But as The Economist newspaper points out, if the money is merely being switched from one set of domestic buyers to another, the pain relief will be short-lived. It also points out that, should the world become hooked on stablecoin use, foreign demand to back US dollar stablecoins will also lift demand for US dollars. That, in turn, will push the US dollar higher, thereby giving Americans more buying power for their imported goods. That would undermine any efforts from Trump to tariff his way to a trade surplus. For all the optimism that blockchain technology finally may deliver some useful applications, questions remain. While Circle — another stablecoin and smaller rival to Tether — is independently audited, its bigger competitor is not. It doesn't disclose where its reserves are held or exactly what they comprise and particularly whether it holds volatile assets such as Bitcoin that may undermine its ability to balance its liabilities. To date, it has weathered some almighty crypto storms. But should it falter, it would seriously damage the credibility of the emerging industry and derail any solution, however short-term, that Scott Bessent may hold in store for US government debt demand. The shift in sentiment towards cryptocurrencies, particularly since Donald Trump surged to power earlier this year, has been nothing short of spectacular. Bitcoin is trading at records and most keen watchers expect it to keep rising. It is estimated the president reaped $US320 million from sales of one of his meme coins, while a foreign government wealth fund invested $US2 billion in another. A third has sold at least $550 million in tokens. But not everyone is a winner in the crypto sphere. Those who invested in $Trump, the president's meme coin, and his wife's coin $Melania, have suffered massive losses ever since the Inauguration Day spike.
The Herald
04-07-2025
- The Herald
Lockdowns and fights: Sean ‘Diddy' Combs back in Brooklyn jail ahead of sentencing
His hopes of returning to one of those homes and the embrace of his family after being cleared of the more serious charges were soon dashed. The judge denied Combs' request for bail, citing evidence of his violent behaviour presented during the trial. In recent years, the MDC has been plagued by persistent staffing shortages, power outages and maggots in inmates' food. Two weeks after Combs' arrest, prosecutors announced criminal charges against nine MDC inmates for crimes including assault, attempted murder and murder at the facility in the months before Combs arrived. In January last year, a federal judge in Manhattan declined to order a man charged with drug crimes detained pending trial at the MDC, calling the conditions there an 'ongoing tragedy'. Last August, another judge said he would convert an older defendant's nine-month jail term to home incarceration if he were sent to the MDC, citing the jail's 'dangerous, barbaric conditions'. The US Bureau of Prisons, which operates the MDC, said it was engaged in 'intensive efforts to improve conditions at MDC Brooklyn'. The agency said it confiscated drugs, weapons and other contraband during a sweep of the jail last October and November. During the eight-week trial, US marshals transported Combs to and from the courthouse in Lower Manhattan every day from the facility in Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighbourhood, which has also housed former cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried and Luigi Mangione, accused of killing a health insurance executive. Bankman-Fried has since been moved to a low security prison in California and is appealing his fraud conviction and 25-year sentence. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to murder charges. A jury found Combs not guilty on Wednesday on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, sparing him a potential life sentence, but convicted him on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution that could land him in prison for several years. He had pleaded not guilty to all charges. Combs' defence lawyer Marc Agnifilo said in court on Wednesday Combs had been housed in 'a very difficult part of the MDC' where there have been fights. His lawyer Alexandra Shapiro said in a November 2024 court filing that frequent lockdowns at the facility had impaired Combs' ability to prepare for trial. On Wednesday, Combs' lawyers praised MDC staff, who they said had facilitated their access to him during the trial. Defence lawyer Teny Geragos told reporters after the verdict: 'Despite the terrible conditions at the MDC, I want to thank the good people who work there.' Reuters
