The quote: As Binance's CCO bluntly admitted to another Binance compliance officer in December 2018, "we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro."
He might be able to use the defense of "they did the unlicensed securities operations against every piece of advice I gave them". If he tried to stop it but was unable that could be a legitimate defense.
One of the first (and best) pieces of advice I ever received upon joining the industry was to never send an email that I wouldn't be willing to see published on the front page of The NY Times.
A thousand years is a lot of time for an industry that has practically forgotten its death-and-resurrection experience of just fifteen years ago.
One thing is for sure: Technology will ensure that the fine art of relieving "suckers" from their monetary assets will reach ever higher levels of sophistication.
Calling the 2008 financial crisis a "death-and-resurrection experience" is a bit hyperbolic. Nobody important went to jail, the banks got bailed out after a couple of them merged, and the bankers still got their bonuses.
The only people that got fucked were the customers. The financiers got their just fine.
Well, I had to articulate something that will ring true (or at least be quoted) for at least a thousand years. You can't do that with measured expressions.
But on the main point, outward manifestation of deep crisis makes indeed for pop-corn consumption but I don't think I really exaggerate if I say that the crisis was a death moment for an entire industry. The resurrection worked. But it brought back a zombie.
The foundational myth of the financial sector, its calling card to society has been shredded. While in a world of TINA's the gainful milking of broken financial / banking systems continues unabated, this is not enough for a sector "to own the future" and NPV an infinite stream of cash.
It is now lost in fading memories but there was a time when the masters of the information universe were not "big tech" but "big finance".
Just like now there is a pseudo-ideology around "organizing the world's information" or "connecting all people", bankers used to have a pseudo-ideology about optimizing all the economy by transactionizing, financializing, securitising and marketising everything.
In fact, as the crypto boom conveniently reminded us, that ersatz ideology is still lurking around, available to any tribe that wants to try its hand at "reinventing finance" using tech.
The customers were, with a few exceptions (Kaupthing overseas customers, rich Cypriots) fine. The shareholders absorbed losses. The US government TARP ultimately basically broke even.
Other governments did less well. Ireland got screwed over, but managed to send Sean Quinn to actual jail.
Tell all of my friends whose retirement funds dropped significantly as a result of this that they were fine.
In any civilized country, the government would have conditioned bailouts on the people at the top being fired and prosecuted. The business criminals specifically counted on a bailout, and they should have to pay for that with treasure, flesh, and time in prison, but instead of doing any of that, disincentivizing that behavior going forward, they instead encouraged it.
That crypto companies did not get that treatment is a function of them not being the cornerstone of the economy, just a bunch of middle-class and rich people getting fucked on the side.
> Tell all of my friends whose retirement funds dropped significantly as a result of this that they were fine
They're equity investors. The value of your investment may go down as well as up. They are by definition the people who signed up for a risk/reward tradeoff who should absorb losses first before any bailout.
> would have conditioned bailouts on the people at the top being fired and prosecuted
You can't prosecute people simply by government fiat! There has to have been a specific crime committed! Not even Matt Levine thinks everything is securities fraud. Please elaborate on which specific illegal acts by specific named people everyone is angry about?
So far as I'm aware those are limited to Sean Quinn, and IMO the "robosigning" scandal and a few other incidents like the Wells Fargo mass ID fraud scheme (not actually linked to the GFC)
> The business criminals specifically counted on a bailout
> Tell all of my friends whose retirement funds dropped significantly as a result of this that they were fine.
Were they retired at the time?
I’m going to assume they were working. If stocks drop 40% and you still have a job and can contribute to your retirement and personal investment accounts, a 40% drop in stocks is a sale on stocks, not a bad thing. How are their retirement funds doing now that the S&P 500 is at ~4300 in 2023 instead of ~6xx in 2008? That’s a 7x increase from the bottom in 15 years.
Assuming they didn’t do something stupid like panic sell at the bottom and buy back in years later, they’re doing just fine now.
They were a year or two out from retiring and had to extend their time in the workforce through no fault of their own, yet nobody at the top who is responsible for both the theft of their money and years of their life was ever prosecuted for securities fraud or any other such thing.
If I stole $50 from the till at the corner gas station, I'd be arrested and prosecuted. If someone steals $50 million and their company gets bailed out by the government because they're exempt from the laws of capitalism (private profits, socialized losses) they get a golden parachute and a pat on the back.
I was pissed a few years ago when I tried to open a Binance account, but was utterly unable to convince the site that I was me. I moved on and never did get around to making a crypto investment.
In retrospect it might have been my best UX interaction ever.
Yeah...without more context the quote says nothing. The rest of it could have been, "They're talking as if we are operating as a fcking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro"
P.S.: I sit here wondering, is it the court system that doesn't want to write "fucking" or is it a quote where the author himself bowdlerized?
On HN, that the majority irrationally hate crypto (the minority irrationally love it), and this re-enforces their views.
In real life, that people have been trying to work out how to run a crypto exchange legally for about a decade. That the SEC is (suddenly and in a change of position) making that impossible. And that playing ball with regulators and trying to do the right thing will now be punished harshly (Coinbase). And people do don't really care will just ignore regulators (Binance).
I honestly don't get why people don't see this. Japan has had decent regs for spot exchanges for a while. They work, FTX Japan creditors are basically fine because of this. <shrugs>
Now people will downvote this or reply with comments that assume all lawsuits are won or that the SEC decides what is legal or that all crypto is bad etc.
It's very easy to run a crypto exchange legally. Do KYC like anyone else who handles money does, and trade Bitcoin for dollars and back.
Unfortunately, there's no money in that, all the money is in running an illegal exchange trading in unregistered securities (shitcoin and staking protocols and other crap). And no matter how many times you ask the SEC, they aren't going to give you guidance on how to do <illegal thing>.
This upsets crypto people, who then go on Twitter and complain about how they are 'trying to work' but are getting stonewalled.
The NICE thing about crypto exchanges is the very high fees they charge (compared to any other financial market). That's why people were so surprised FTX were also committing huge fraud. Why rob your clients illegally at night when you're already "robbing" them legally with fees in the daylight?
As it is, people keep falling back on the SEC "aren't going to give you guidance on how to do <illegal thing>" but that's not what anyone is asking. And it's not even true, the SEC did give Coinbase plenty of advice and their blessing and permission to list publicly, before deciding all crypto is illegal and previous advice doesn't matter...
I'm of the opinion that Gemini is the least-shady exchange, given the involvement of high profile US-resident US nationals, but that same property also makes it much less popular.
Right now, all the liquidity is on Binance. So anyone going elsewhere is looking for less-shady options. That is what disappoints me about the SEC action against Coinbase: they are very high on the "not shady" list, and probably the best for combination of "not shady" AND "actually have liquidity and a workable tech stack". The SEC seem determined NOT to work with them despite Coinbase's best efforts. Meanwhile they loved FTX. It's like they have decided to try and stop all crypto by smashing (only) better options while allowing frauds. <tin foil hat>, I know...
1. The way they are doing something is criminal. (Stealing customer funds, comingling the books with their trading arm, operating while insolvent, failure to KYC/AML.)
2. They are doing something criminal. (They allow trading in illegal products.)
Coinbase is, per the allegations, in category #2. FTX was in #1 and #2. Binance looks to be in #1 to at least some extent (to an unclear degree), and #2.
#1 is a problem for any financial business. Every firm does it to some extent or another. They get punished and fined for it, and restructure operations to avoid repeating those mistakes. It's why compliance departments exist. That an exchange is doing #1 in a small way is not particularly newsworthy. (But if it's doing it in a big way, it is.)
It's just regulatory problem. You can fix it by doing the right thing.
But I'd be shocked if there are any exchanges that are not in category #2. You can't just fix it by tightening up your compliance controls - you have to exit most of you business to do so. But that's not a reason to crack down on them. Just because it's not the exchange's customers that get defrauded by the exchange in #2, doesn't mean that they aren't a ripe category for fraud, by the coin issuers, against the buyers.
> Japan has had decent regs for spot exchanges for a while.
Why aren't Japanese exchanges more popular, then?
> how to run a crypto exchange legally
I think the answer has always been "you can't sell unregistered securities to the US general public", and that's bad news for 99% of crypto products. Bitcoin being the possible exception because it seems genuinely leaderless.
>Why aren't Japanese exchanges more popular, then?
Fair question: Japanese exchanges are only open to Japanese residents (and NOT to US citizens even if they are Japanese residents).
>"you can't sell unregistered securities to the US general public
Sounds easy, just let us know what counts as a security. Because the SEC doesn't seem sure. Or rather it's very sure but cannot tell anyone, but definitely know, but has changed it mind and won't go on record.
As it is, this will be decided by the courts. Let's see how that goes...
One of the first lessons you learn in finance is that if you get caught using personal apps (encrypted or not) for work product, you are at best fired but also potentially prosecuted.
It turns out finance regulators have heard about WhatsApp and will take it out on your firm if you use it.
Eh no? There’s increasing SEC enforcement discretion to require record keeping for all communications, including encrypted apps. To the tune of billions of dollars of fines…
The relationship between encrypted personal apps and legal discovery is .. interesting. The UK government seems to have taken to using Whatsapp for this purpose, along with conveniently "losing" or factory resetting phones that might have evidence that would be relevant to a public inquiry.
Encrypted data is just as easily subpoened as unencrypted data. Subpoenas come in the form of "give us everything related to X."
In case of highly-relevant info mixed with other non-relevant, but highly-confidential information, some courts allow a trusted third-party to see the documents and use their judgement what to submit to the court as part of the subpoena.
"But courts won't know what is in the encrypted info, so can't subpoena it, and you can't get in trouble over that." doesn't work. They order you to hand everything over. If you decline, and the opposing party convinces someone on your side to cooperate, you are in trouble.
If you decide not to turn something over, you get a nice stint in contempt-of-court land, which may include some all-expense paid nights at a not-so-nice hotel.
Regulated finance is already in hot water for the simple fact of using encrypted personal appsnfor communication, even if that communication isn't hinting at crimes.
Traditional finance already knows what not to put in writing at all. Some crypto bro amateurs just gave their compliance training people a ton of funny quotes to work with.
This would be an awesome lesson for them to learn, if they get confident in their encrypted comms, they might start writing what they really say behind closed doors. Then, when the prosecution flips one, we’ll get some real juicy stuff.
Blackberries weren't called Crackberries because people were sending each other funny emails. they were sending encrypted chat via BBM years before iMessage took off.
I think is because the Coinbase lawsuit is centered around staking-as-a-service that is a new service launched this year, so not very critical for company business, and Coinbase does not looks bad https://www.coinbase.com/blog/coinbases-staking-services-are...
"The entire finance industry will repeat this quote for a thousand years as an example of Things To Not Put In Writing during employee training."
Am I the only one noticing that the quote complains about them putting it in writing and not actually doing it? Like the industry is more focused on avoiding logging your crimes and not actually committing crimes?
“Don’t do crimes” is presumably already part of the training? This episode will stand forever as evidence that, regardless of whether you’re doing anything wrong, writing down an sentence that nakedly says your are is a Bad Idea. If you’re in the wrong, defending yourself just got a lot harder. If you weren’t actually in the wrong now you’ve created something you’ll have to defend yourself from.
The question is whether the problem for your higher ups is you doing crimes or you getting caught doing crimes.
Just as in safety culture, train all you will — if the lived culture is "rules are for losers" and people who follow them have it harder guess what is going to happen?
Ultimately business systems operate in a purely consequentialist matter: getting caught only matters because the punishment is bad for the stock price, and avoiding doing crimes is the only 99% reliable procedure for avoiding getting caught.
There is a complicated limbo with things like LIBOR, where practice drifted into quietly rigging the number, first in phone calls and then chat channels, and everybody involved kind of forgot it might not be percieved as legal once the outside world realised what happened. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/libor-scandal.asp
Agreed. See Wells Fargo for a real life example although in that case the higher ups made them do crime and then just fired them to scape goat.
Nice thing is that once you are in the club like the banks the worst that happens is a small fine. Crypto hasn't donated to enough politicians yet so they are actually targeted for real punishment at the behest of the enforcement arm of the big banks, the SEC
He has cred, but I also felt that this was from someone outside the finance industry because we have seen this all before.
After the FX scandals with the 'Cartel' chatroom, the libor scandals, we've seen compliance digging through all your Bloomberg chats and mails to find just about anything that sounds dodgy.
Crypto is new to this game, the other players have seen it before.
Patrick has consistently been highly critical of the entire cryptocurrency industry for shady practices over many years. His condemnation for their breaches in this case is a given.
It's been said that a cultural artifact of the pandemic era was "oversharing". People just being incredibly candid and loose with their personal feelings. And it's just bonkers how that has played out in the legal arena. I'm thinking in particular of the Dominion lawsuit against Fox where they just had all those texts admitting in completely uncoded direct language that they were lying on purpose.
I would ascribe that to a slightly different phenomena: Trump-era impunity. That was the point that people started doing all kinds of things that were previously Not Done and getting away with them.
Fox could have carried on lying forever if they'd remembered not to libel a business, only individuals and minority groups.
I disagree emphatically with this statement. I encourage you to insert colloquial expressions used by various cultures as a replacement for "bro" in your comment, and assess the validity and other characteristics that may be ascribed to these statements.
I am interested in this discussion, I would have described 'bro' as a culture some people self select in to, i.e. choose to be a 'bro'. I think it is very different than, for example, an expression like 'y'all' which comes from a regional culture. Do you disagree?
I'm born & raised in east-bay California. Bro, hella, tryna, finna - all words that everyone in that region use as naturally as my Granfolk in the Ozarks use y'all.
I think GP means that saying "bro" is akin to saying "y'all". It's more an indication of regional dialect than personality. It's not wise or appropriate to discriminate on that basis.
That article does not document a coherent culture, but rather a nebulous stereotype; essentially a list of traits that other people typically associate with men who either attended fraternities, drink alcohol, or wear boat shoes.
I don't think it is short for anything, the way it is used by some, including the specific context that we're discussing. It has become a distinct term.
The way words are used gives them their meaning. If "bro" is used differently than "brother" in certain contexts, then they have different meanings in those contexts.
In my experience, it does have different meanings.
One usage makes me think of: "friend", "close friend", "homie", "my guy", "dude", "someone I trust", etc.
Another usage is: "immature", "douchey", "fake", "asshole", etc
But is it actually used differently than brother in this context?
Understand that bro also has a pejorative connotation in some context, but that is not the case here.
If the quote was "we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA brother." how is the meaning different?
I can see that they have slightly different connotations like thanks versus thank you, but that doesn't mean it it's no longer an abbreviation, which is what the parent poster was claiming
I was pointing out that "Bros" in a company name is exactly an abbreviation for "brother". It is, in effect, a different word than "bro" used in slang.
The usage of [abbreviation for brother, as in company names] is very different than the slang "bro" used to describe undesirable people, but it's not very different than the slang "bro" used in the statement quoted in this tweet -- just literal brothers versus metaphorical brothers.
I think bro is always an abbreviation for brother, but sometimes the act of abbreviating is done to save space (like company names) and sometimes to specifically impart informality/metaphor (like TFA). But that doesn't mean the unabbreviated version can't be used metaphorically as well.
I have definitely been greeted with "what's up, brother?" several times. And I took it exactly the same as when other people have greeted me with "what's up, bro?" -- the former came from someone a bit older than me, and the latter came from someone my age. Intent was 100% identical as far as I could tell.
I get that it is an abbreviation, but does it have new meaning? What meaning or connotation would be lost if a user of the word said brother instead of bro? Would there be confusion?
No, but it would be unusual. You don't hear people using a term like "crypto brothers", for instance. "Bro" carries a different connotation, and it isn't a positive one in this example.
I don't think it is simply an abbreviation in this case.
Precisely. The speaker might happen to be "a bro" in the derogatory sense of the word (especially given involvement in an activity that may have a significant population of those people), but that's fairly distinct from simply calling someone "bro" as used in this quote. But I do say "fairly" because bros (in the derogatory sense) probably also call each other "bro" (in the sense that someone is close like a brother) at a rate that exceeds baseline. That elevated rate is probably pertinent to the etymology of the derogatory sense, come to think of it.
I think perhaps the usage has split, with dual meanings, depending on the social identity of the user.
It is still often used by many people for friends (like the quote in the link), with the original meaning.
Some people also use it as a pejorative, usually against people they don't know or like.
I think it is an error to think that the second usage the only one, or even the predominant connotation. I would guess a small portion of english speakers hold negative opinions about "bros", and the concept isn't even on most people's radar.
How often does the word bro get used, and in which context? I would guess that bros use the word in the positive sense more often than other people spend talking talking about bros in a negative sense.
If someone claims that there is only one meaning of bro and that it is negative, I think that reflects more on their social bubble and social leanings than reality.
Meh, “bro” is for anyone not mature enough to realize that the world isn’t a college frat and it’s hardly appropriate to use in a professional context.
You would be surprised to see what the older generations think about what we consider to be formal and professional, and how much of our lexicon started out as more informal vocabulary imported by upper classes. Are you sure your opposition to certain terms are completely unrelated to your expectations about different backgrounds, geographies and cultures?
I honestly don’t care enough what the older generations think since the context is contemporary and cosmopolitan and that’s how “bro” is used in such settings. Feel free to falsify that if the word matters that much to you.
Let's try one particular USA-specific culture, translated using the well known and currently popular family-friendly AI:
"Ayo, we be runnin' this bit** ass unlicensed stock game in the U.S, my n**!"
Imagine your chief compliance officer talking like that. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell am going to assume all sorts of stuff about that person.
I see huge meme potential in the statement "we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro". What do you say, should we make this a Thing?
So that's very curious, not really the private exchange between 2 high level executive, but rather how that exchange ended up at the SEC... The SEC doesn't tell how they acquired this quote, nor even whether it's a legitimate quote at all. We all believe the SEC is not gonna lie, right? Well, then that let us with 2 options: the executive cooperated with the SEC (huh, how and why? was he threatened or was he offered a better paycheck?), or they have some spying tools (also weird..). Any other option?
Binance operates out of the US and I'm not confident they would comply with a subpoena. Maybe they're using some chat service with a US presence which is subpoenable -- Slack or whatever.
Maybe, but given the powers the SEC have to prevent them operating in the US financial system at all, and sanctioning anyone who wants to operate in the US if they deal with them, it’s usually less risky to hand over the data and hope they don’t find anything.
> Well then, since you're absolutely confident with the SEC integrity, please suggest how they acquired this quote?
This is an absolutely ridiculous demand, of course. I don't have any special access to the SEC, and yet I am very confident they are not fabricating quotations from Binance. First, because crypto operators really are dumb enough to commit this kind of thing to writing -- it is very plausible. And second, because the incentives are all wrong for the SEC to fabricate evidence. It would eventually come out, and then they would lose all credibility. There's just no upside in it for the SEC.
> Just to be clear, Binance is operating out of the US so it's very doubtful they provided much logs to the SEC, let alone compromising logs.
If they used a hosted chat service, like Slack, Teams, or iMessage, the US would have had access to that via subpoena. I expect it is something along those lines.
