> he basically called SBF out on running a Ponzi scheme and being OK with it (which was then, surprisingly enough, acknowledged by SBF).
That's not how I recall it. Levine asked SBF to describe yield farming and SBF went on his (in)famous thing about boxes, practically calling them out as pyramid schemes (but without mentioning any specific names). At no point was FTX referred to as a ponzi scheme.
Agreed. Levine even said after the interview that he came away more confident in SBF because it sounded to him that SBF's business model was selling people shovels to dig for gold. Even if the gold was fake and worthless.
What actually happened was FTX was reliant on these "assets" to get loans even though they were just an exchange that should have just been passing them off to counterparties.
> I think of myself as like a fairly cynical person, and that was so much more cynical than how I would have described farming. Like, you're just like "well, I'm in the Ponzi business, and it's pretty good!"
Levine himself says that SBF wasn't calling FTX or Alameda ponzi schemes, but rather was saying that some of the coins traded on FTX were ponzis, and that he left that interview feeling impressed with SBF's savvy.
Specifically, Levine's words:
People on Twitter now are like “he admitted that FTX is a Ponzi!” but of course that’s not true. He conceded a certain validity to my claim that some crypto businesses — not his — are Ponzis. He is just in the business of trading their tokens.
In fact, I came away from that conversation bullish on FTX and Bankman-Fried.
This all seems very counterfactual and vibes based.
To be clear about this conversation, someone claims that Levine "called SBF out on running a Ponzi scheme." I provide a clear quote from Levine disavowing that. You come in and say that well, maybe FTX was unsound in a way that is actually different from what actually went wrong with FTX/Alameda.
Is there any content to your contribution here? Or is it all just vibes?
I'm not disputing that Mr Levine's take was that SBF and co were "in the Ponzi (trading) business" rather than running a Ponzi themselves.
I am just just pointing out that while this is not as rapidly or completely unstable as running one of the traded Ponzis, it is also not fundamentally stable and sustainable. IDK what "vibes" have to do with that, if anything. These are fundamentals that eventually bring down temporarily bubbles. If that's what you mean by "vibes", it's the opposite.
> Matt: (27:13)
> I think of myself as like a fairly cynical person. And that was so much more cynical than how I would've described farming. You're just like, well, I'm in the Ponzi business and it's pretty good.
> Joe Weisenthal: (27:27)
> At no point did any of this require any sort of like economic case, it’s just like other people put money in the box. And so I'm going to too, and then it's more valuable. So they're gonna put more money in, and at no point in the cycle, did it seem to like, describe any sort of like economic purpose?
That's not how I recall it. Levine asked SBF to describe yield farming and SBF went on his (in)famous thing about boxes, practically calling them out as pyramid schemes (but without mentioning any specific names). At no point was FTX referred to as a ponzi scheme.