The Network Behind FTX with Marty Bent & Michael Krieger

Mary Bent and Mike Krieger join Whitney to unravel the network behind the meteoric rise of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX and what was actually going on at the company. The discussion goes far beyond the obvious fraud at FTX and looks at the networks that brought Bankman-Fried to power and were using him as a front for a dangerous agenda.

Originally published 11/22/22. Show notes Follow Guests: Marty Bent on Twitter
Michael Krieger on Twitter

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Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:19):
You're listening to
Unlimited Hangout. I'm your host
Whitney Webb. Today we are going
to be wading into the big story
in the financial world and more
specifically the crypto space by
working to make sense of the
spectacular implosion of FTX.
And the mystique behind its 30
year old billionaire founder Sam
Bankman-Fried with each passing
day. The news about the story
gets progressively more insane

(00:41):
with the obvious fraudulent
behavior bank, Bankman-Fried and
his polycule posse becoming
evermore apparent. Yet some
major outlets like the New York
Times and covering the FTX
collapse have avoided portraying
Venkman fried as a criminal or
fraud. They haven't even
bothered to call out what he was
actually doing it FTX which is
more or less running a massive
Ponzi scheme. Yet beyond the

(01:01):
brazen criminality, the story
has taken on some interesting
new dimensions following
revelations about Sam Beckman
Fried's connections,
particularly those of his family
and his ties to a bizarre
somewhat cultish movement of
self-styled philanthropist known
as Effective Altruism. Not only
that, but some of these
connections involve cozy ties to
those leading the Securities and
Exchange Commission, as well as

(01:23):
the revolving door between
congressional staff and one of
FTX is subsidiaries. Did Sam
Beekman fried really accomplish
all of this on his own? No, but
narrative is quickly being spun
that he conducted all of this
fraud avoided regulatory
scrutiny and amassed billions of
dollars of wealth without the
help of a network that benefited
from and protected his
activities. Such a narrative is

(01:43):
oddly reminiscent of the
mainstream narrative about
another brazen financial
criminal Jeffrey Epstein to help
me make sense of this complete
hive of financial fuckery and
apparent conspiracy. I am joined
today by Marty Bent and Mike
Krieger. Marty is the founder of
t ftc.io. A media company
focused on Bitcoin beauty and
freedom in the digital age. He
is also a partner at 1031, a

(02:03):
leading investment platform
focused exclusively on investing
in the Bitcoin ecosystem. And he
hosts the Tales from the Crypt
or TF TC podcast. Mike formerly
worked on Wall Street as an oil
and gas general commodities
analyst and equity research and
later on a trading desk he
ultimately left and discuss over
the state of the industry can't
blame him, and started the
website Liberty blitzkrieg.

(02:24):
Though he doesn't blog much
anymore, Mike still shares his
insights on social media and
elsewhere in between
homeschooling is for kids and
gardening. So hey, guys, thanks
for being here today. Welcome to
unlimited hangout.
Hey, Whitney, great to be here.
Thank you. It's always a
pleasure, Whitney.
Well, thanks so much for being
here, because we have a lot to
get into. So I'm sure by now
most people are familiar at

(02:45):
least have heard of FTX. And Sam
Venkman. Fried since it's been
in the news so much over the
past several days, but maybe we
should start off giving a
summary of of the collapse.
Exactly. You know, how it
happened? What was the lead up
to it? And what was FTX? And
what did it claim to be doing
versus what it was actually
doing?

(03:05):
Yeah, so I guess I can take
that. And we'll start with, I
guess we have to start with what
was FTX? How did it start? In
short, FTX was a cryptocurrency
exchange, where people could
deposit Bitcoin and other
cryptocurrencies and trade those
currencies against each other,
and then trade them with

(03:25):
leverage, as well. So this was a
spot where many individuals and
hedge funds in the crypto space
would would come to trade,
different altcoins and Bitcoin,
using leverage to try to try to
make a return. But FTX spun out
of a trading research firm known
as Alameda and Alameda, their

(03:48):
claim to fame was their ability
to arbitrage the price of
Bitcoin between across Western
and Asian markets in around
2018 2019. I mean, the origin
story, and the lore behind
Alameda that SPF would put out
there was that they were somehow
able to recognize that Bitcoin

(04:10):
was trading at say, $10,000 in
the US and $10,100 in Japan. And
apparently, they were able to
spin up a bunch of bank accounts
across the world and arbitrage
that price difference. So they
would buy Bitcoin for $10,000 in
the US, and then sell it for
10,100 in Japan immediately, and

(04:33):
they claimed to have been wildly
profitable with that particular
trade. And they brought it over
to South Korea to at least
that's the story. I'm not sure.
Do you buy that story? Because
I've heard from people that
talked about that we're talking
about FTX being fraudulent
basically, in October, I think
Mark Kehoe did go holidays or
something like that is his name.
And he was saying that this

(04:54):
origin story doesn't make any
sense to him at all. He would
have had to have like a ton of
capital that wasn't his behind.
until we've made this strategy
work.
Yeah, some of its skeptical
about it too. And I've been
Michael could chime in here
about the nature of the type of
infrastructure that would have
to be set up from multiple bank
accounts across the world to

(05:16):
actually make this trade
possible in the first place.
Yeah, so I'm just chime in a few
things to add there. One is that
there were some chat releases or
messages recently, I don't know
if you to saw but from ex former
employees, talking about how
they did make a decent amount of
money on that trade, somehow we

(05:36):
can get into that the details
later and how the Effective
Altruism network apparently made
all that happen. But these
employees claimed that it was
squandered that whatever money
they made was squandered. So
you're still left with this
gaping hole of Where did all of
that initial money come from to
launch FTX. And remember that
FTX didn't just, you know, sort

(05:57):
of launch, you know, out of a
basement or a garage, and then
slowly, you know, gain share it,
it came out of nowhere. And we
still don't know, you know,
really the origin of the money
where it came from. And it
absolutely exploded, I believe
that it started only a few days
after Biden announced his
present presidential candidacy.
So sometime in 2019, then, but

(06:20):
it just came out of nowhere. And
it very quickly became one of
the biggest so That's bizarre.
The one I think, you know,
Whitney, we've I know you've
done so much work on Epstein.
But when you first look at him,
right, one of the one of the,
you're looking for the money,
you know, sort of where did the
initial kind of big money or
sort of injection come from? I
think Wexner was one of the
first correct me if I'm wrong.

(06:42):
In this case, it seems like the
only name that I can attach to
money. early on was this guy,
Jen Talon, who's a, a co founder
of Skype and also an effective
altruists. So that's sort of the
first. That's that's the only
significant chunk of money that
I've been able to find that
that, you know, surfaces kind of

(07:02):
early on in the origin story it
was from it was from that
individual.
Yeah, so we'll get into the
effective altruist stuff a bit
later, because that's a real
hive do explain because there's
a lot of backstory to that, but
I guess to, you know, sum it up
briefly here. It seems like a
lot of FTX is an initial
activities. And really Sam
Bateman, Fried's career, from
the time he left MIT on was

(07:24):
effectively managed by this
particular group of effective
altruists, which is really quite
a tight knit network. And, you
know, again, we'll get into that
later. So, origin story aside,
so we, we've talked a little bit
about, I guess, what FTX was.
So, you know, a lot has come
out, especially last week about

(07:45):
what they were actually doing,
or rather what they were
supposed to be doing, but didn't
do. So maybe we could go over
that a little bit. In terms of,
you know, just the evidence of
excessive fraud, and like, what,
what has been exposed about FTX.
That's significant. And on the
business side,
yeah. And this, this dovetails

(08:06):
into the thread that was pulled
on over the last couple of weeks
that essentially uncovered the
big massive fraud that was going
on. And this revolves around FTX
is exchange token FTT. So when.
So first, we'll say there's this
big theme in the overarching

(08:27):
cryptocurrency space,
particularly with exchanges,
where they'll essentially launch
their own token exchange token
in the market that this token
will allow users to benefit from
the profitability of the
exchange. In my mind, this whole
token mechanism doesn't make
sense from first principles. But

(08:48):
it has been trend over the last
five to six years particular.
But by Nance has an exchange
token crypto.com has an exchange
token, and FTX hasn't had an
exchange token as well. And so
this is where the unraveling of
that dx began. So they had their
FTT token. And the way that

(09:10):
these token mechanics typically
work is the exchange will pre
mined a bunch of these exchange
tokens and FTX, this case FTT.
And what they'll do is they'll
hold a lion's share of the
supply off the market on their
own balance sheet, and then
they'll release a small fraction

(09:30):
of the free float of the token
to retail investors. And they
can trade that in what this
mechanism allows, since they're
holding a lot of supply off the
market and allows them to
artificially increase the price
of these tokens rather trivially
with some washe trading. And so
in the case of FTX, and FTT.

(09:52):
Many people believe what they
were doing was wash trading, and
be Alameda to push the price of
FTT up significantly high,
giving it a lot of value in a
larger market cap, and
artificial market cap, if you
will. And so what happened a few
weeks ago, was coin desk

(10:13):
released an article of FTX, his
balance sheet. And it's
basically highlighted that a
lion's share of ft X's balance
sheet was their own FTT token
and not actually Bitcoin, or
other more established
cryptocurrencies. And what
happened then is that the larger

(10:34):
their largest competitor in the
space by Nance, their CEO
recognized this and basically
saw it as an opportunity to take
out in a competitor, or he
simply saw this is insane, that
their balance sheet is, is
predominantly their their own
exchange token, and that they
don't have a significant amount

(10:55):
of bitcoin, or cash on their
balance sheet. And so what
happened after CZ, the CEO by
Nance saw that that balance
sheet and the coin desk article,
he came out publicly and
announced, we're not comfortable
with the state of FTX. So we're
going to dump our FTT tokens by
Nance had upwards of $500

(11:16):
million worth of this FTT token.
So when CZ came out, and
publicly signaled that by Nance
was going to dump their FTT
tokens, the price of FTT starts
to fall significantly, because
others saw that and by Nance
being one of the largest holders
that they're going to sell their
FTT tokens, I mean, the price is

(11:36):
going to go down. And so others
who did not want to get taken
out with a tie to that trade
decide to follow along with CZ.
And so that drove the price of
FTT token down below when many
are claiming to be a critical
point, which was $22. Eventually
it fell down to I believe, for

(11:58):
$4. But when that happened, when
CZ started selling, and other
started selling as well, the
price of FTT fell significantly,
obviously, in this is what began
the unraveling of the giant
fraud that was FTX. And so once
the price fell below a critical
point, the market became aware

(12:19):
that what FTX was doing is they
were giving large amounts of
FTT. To Alameda, their trading
arm, which are supposed to be
separate, I think that's should
be important to note is FTX and
Alameda were posturing publicly
that they're completely separate
entities that had no involvement
with each other, but it's become

(12:40):
glaringly obvious that they were
commingling funds and working
very closely with each other.
And so when the price of FTT
fell, it became known that FTX
was giving a bunch of FTT tokens
to Alameda. And then the Alameda
was using those FTT tokens as
collateral to take out loans for
many other actors in this space,

(13:02):
loans and Bitcoin and stable
coins. And so when the price
fell, the collateral with all
the loans that Alameda had taken
out, became essentially
worthless, and they became the
debt that they had taken out,
they couldn't pay it back. And
so they became essentially
insolvent overnight. And that's
where the cascading effect

(13:23):
began.
So in the aftermath of this, and
they're filing for bankruptcy
ongoing, has been put in charge
of FTX. And most of the, you
know, people that had previously
been in charge of it, including
bank been freed, of course, are
out at this point. But this guy,
John Ray, right, he was
previously brought in to clean
up Enron. And he had a bunch of

(13:46):
revelations, I guess, that he
produced on the court filing or
elsewhere, some sort of
documentation came out where he
was basically going over that,
you know, this is even worse
than Enron and torn in terms of
corporate controls. And some of
the stuff he's he said, was just
insane, like didn't even have a
bank account. And like, you
know, I mean, loads of stuff

(14:07):
that's really just mind
boggling. Do you guys want to go
over that for a little bit?
I wanted to just add some
clarification on what Marty was
saying, as well, because some
people listening may get really
confused, as far as you know,
FTT, how could it possibly, you
know, sort of collateralize this
gigantic Ponzi scheme? And, you
know, what is it even right?
From what I've from my reading,
and maybe Marty can correct me

(14:28):
if I'm wrong here, because I've
never traded or had any funds on
FTX. But I read that apparently,
FTX was offering discounts on
their on trading or something
like that to customers or users
that were using the FTT or
holding the FTT token. So that
might have been the carrot that
was being used because remember,
the these these tokens are not

(14:49):
equity, right? It's not an
equity stake in FTX. It's
there's no like ownership of
anything that comes along with
holding a token. So they have to
put out some sort of rationale.
For what is this going to do?
And I think that's what it was.
Are you? Are you aware of any
anything like that, Marty? Or is
that does that sound right?
Yeah. And to be clear, I've
never traded on FTX or use that

(15:10):
TT token. That yeah, that's
typically how these exchange
tokens work. They try to
basically give benefits to users
that that token on the exchange,
that others who aren't using the
token would not get.
Right. And so again, that's sort
of a way to tie some sort of
utility to it to then that's how

(15:30):
the that's one of the ways that
the value can get just crazily
inflated, because users might
just choose to hold that token
on on the exchange, you know,
because there's some some
marginal value to it some some
discount or something like that.
Yes. Yes. And that's actually I
believe, how ft TX originally
launched, I believe the FTT
token was part of an Ico that

(15:52):
they that they launched to
actually fund or market that
they were funding the exchange
with the FTT. Ico.
Right? So for people that don't
know that Ico is an initial coin
offering, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay.
I don't know, if everyone's up
to speed on crypto isms. On my
podcast, you know, I'm certainly
not I'm, you know, a crypto

(16:13):
person myself in terms of being
as knowledgeable as you guys
about this type of stuff, which
is, you know, part of why you
are here. So anyway, to get to
get back to the conversation,
you know, about FTX. And so we
can spend more time sort of
unpacking a lot of these, you
know, revelations that aren't
getting a lot of lip service in
the media, you know, about this

(16:34):
whole situation. We're turning
to what I mentioned a minute, a
minute ago about the extent of
criminality and fraud and how
the person that's been brought
into clean up previously brought
in to clean up, Enron says it's
the worst, worst thing he's ever
seen in his whole career, you
know, there was no board, no
board meetings. You know, like I
mentioned earlier, no bank
account. So, I mean, if it was

(16:54):
this egregious how, and why was
nothing done before its
collapse?
Well, I mean, I'll take this
just to start. You know, I think
Marty actually called out SBF
publicly on Twitter. Earlier a
few times, I think I recall
that, you know, I never did, but
I've also been very much not
paying close attention to a lot

(17:15):
of different things over the
last year or so I've been much
less active than I was
historically, however, I do
recall, you know, earlier this
year, you know, when I saw him
on stage with Clinton and Tony
Blair, at I believe was
telling,
I saw this guy. And then also
when I just saw him sort of
disparaging Bitcoin, very, what

(17:37):
I thought would be a very snake
like fashion, very publicly
calling for regulations. I mean,
even someone like me, who's not
paying that close attention,
that definitely made me you
know, sort of caused me to say,
wait a minute, why, first of
all, where did this guy come
from? Who is this guy? What is
he doing? It felt to me, like it
was some sort of a op, or he was

(17:58):
somebody's, you know, beard or
something that he was there for
some purpose. And I just didn't
bother to look into it at all, I
had no stake in any of this,
right. But it was always weird
to me, like, because the talking
points that he was using, it was
it was almost as if I was the
WTF, and I wanted to, you know,

(18:19):
wreck Bitcoin as much as
possible, you know, I'd be this
guy, you know, I just create
this guy in a laboratory and put
them out there. So that, to me,
was always super bizarre. And I
think that in some way must tie
into the question you're asking,
which is, how is this allowed to
get so big, so fast? And go on?
And I think the clear answer to

(18:39):
that, at least from my
perspective, based on what I'm
seeing is that it was it was an
intentional thing, you know, he
was he was meant to. He was
meant to push forward some sort
of, quote unquote, elite
narrative and agenda. I think
that much is clear. And
obviously even more clear now

(19:01):
that we can unpack a lot of
these weird connections and webs
that we will do. But that's my
take. And I sort of had that
feeling from, you know, when I
first saw him, but now it's just
becoming too obvious.
Yeah. Mark, do you have any
thoughts?
Yeah, I just echo what Michael
said. I mean, Michael mentioned,

(19:22):
I've been calling SPFL since
July of last year of 2021. And,
again, I haven't been I focused
on Bitcoin only, I really don't
trade any of the other
cryptocurrencies and had no use
for FTX at all, or my
involvement in Bitcoin, but I

(19:43):
would echo what Michael just
said, the reason I started
calling them out in July of last
year, that's because he was
going on CNBC, and being wanted
as this expert that knew
everything about the space and
there was one particular enter
interview He conducted with Joe
Kernan, from CNBC, one of their

(20:04):
shows and it just became
glaringly obvious to me that he
really didn't grasp the nature
of Bitcoin or other
cryptocurrencies at all and the
conversation. That particular
conversation revolved around the
consensus mechanisms that these
cryptocurrencies use proof of
work or proof of stake, and, in

(20:24):
that particular interview, he
completely mischaracterized the
nature of the two. And it became
obvious to me that he didn't
understand what these things how
they work, or why these
consensus, consensus mechanisms
work the way they do. And that
seemed very fishy to me.
Well, you know, what's really

(20:45):
crazy too, though, is that it's
not just him like the the person
that was in charge of the
Alameda side of things, Caroline
Ellison, who is allegedly like
his SPF x, or current or
something, girlfriend, some sort
of romantic partner. There's
videos of her that have
resurfaced, where she is also,
like, she doesn't know what to
say, when asked basic questions

(21:06):
about the industry that she's,
you know, her company's supposed
to be like, you know, one of the
market leaders have just totally
clueless about loads of stuff.
And then another top executive
at FTX, I guess, Ryan, Salah
May, or I'm not sure how you say
his last name, but he, there was
also a video that surfaced of
Him from before the collapse,

(21:26):
and he's asked about like
trading and crypto and stuff.
And he's like, Oh, I can't talk
about that. I mean, he's they're
very evasive, about, you know,
answering really basic questions
of stuff you think they would be
knowledgeable about? For being,
you know, such a visible face of
the crypto industry? Right. And

(21:47):
to go back to something that
CanSat a bigger network that was
so I don't I don't think we
quite touched on is that when
these guys around, you know,
sort of the hype around them.
There was this huge marketing
campaign that was paid for by
some means that involved
involved like very big name,
people like Tom Brady and Gisele
Bundchen. The guy from what's

(22:10):
his name, Larry David, the
actor, they had like a Superbowl
commercial. They got their name
on the Miami Miami Heat arena.
And then that that conference
where he were SBF is up speaking
with Tony Blair, and Bill
Clinton, that was a crypto
conference in the Bahamas that
was backed in organized by FTX.
I mean, they've been doing a lot
of organizing in terms of PR and

(22:32):
but like very flashy and
expensive PR and like creating
these conferences, but they have
no you know, if you listen to
them, and what you brought up,
Marty, too, is that they have
no, like, actual knowledge when
pressed on this stuff. I mean,
that's pretty nuts. And if
people like you can see this,
and some, I think there were
some other people that were also
calling them out, well, before
the collapse as well, you know,

(22:54):
I mean, if these people could
see it, why couldn't you know,
the regulators?
And also, here's another thing
that, you know, I think needs to
be explored further, is, with
all of these campaigns, I still,
it's still not clear how they
were paid for. In other words,
did Larry David accept FTT? Did
Tom Brady and Gisele accept FTT?
Was it all paid for and FTT? Can

(23:15):
you actually, you know, sponsor
and arena with FTT tokens? I
think that seems unlikely,
right? For sure. Some of it
probably was right. But but the
rest of it, you know, I just
don't see a sports team taking
FTT tokens for you know, 10s or
hundreds of millions of dollars.
And so then you have to ask
yourself, Okay, well, it really

(23:36):
does seem like this entity had
an unlimited budget. And if
they're not paying for it with
FTT, and FTT was the only thing
that was really collateralizing
this entire Ponzi scheme. Well,
where was that unlimited budget
coming from? Was it just
customer funds? Was it something
else? Clearly, in the beginning,
it was something else, okay, the

(23:57):
money, this money was coming
from somewhere. And again, to go
from zero to the extent of,
let's say market share that they
eventually had at their peak.
That's not, you know, that takes
as we as we discuss money, it
takes money, it's capital. And
it's still not clear to me where
that's from and again, just just
donating font, you know, even

(24:18):
though they donated a lot to
politicians, it's not enough to
do, you know, to sort of have
the rise that they had there was
it felt like they were meant to
be, you know, in this not in a
universal sense, but in a sort
of sketchy sense.
Yeah, definitely sketchy? Well,
there's a couple of things that
have sort of a reason relatively
recently on the front of

(24:38):
potential collusion with
government authorities and
regulators. There, for example,
is the donations that SBF made
not just to the Democratic
Party, but also to members of
Congress, that sit on the
Financial Services Committee,
including Maxine Waters, and
another congressman, and those
two congressmen are congress

(24:58):
people. I don't know are the
ones that are due to investigate
FTX on behalf of the government,
which is pretty insane because
there's pictures that have
resurfaced and videos of Maxine
Waters, blowing Sam Venkman free
to kiss and you know, they're
very chummy and Huggy and a lot
of these photos so that, you
know, that's convenient to have

(25:19):
the people investigating you,
like you that much. And then on
the other side of this, there's
this apparent connection to Gary
Gensler, who's head of the SEC
or Securities and Exchange
Exchange Commission.
Yes. It was coming to light that
there was a particular meeting,
I believe, earlier this year
between Gary Gensler and SPF and
the meeting notes. The the

(25:41):
highlight of the topic of the
meeting was something like
figuring out a way to give FTX
amnesty for breaking securities
law with a certain form of
legislation that would get
pushed through.
And do we know the conclusions
of that meeting or what came of
it, or that's up in the air.
It's up in the air right now.
But we do know, that they

(26:02):
certainly met and the nature of
the conversation is public. What
exactly was said is, is not?
And of course, I mean, at this
point, maybe it makes sense to
just throw out some of those
connections that I think
everyone's heard by now. But it
makes sense to mention here I
believe, which would be that,
you know, Alameda one of the key

(26:23):
figures in the Alameda collapse.
Caroline Ellison. Interestingly
enough, she went to Stanford,
where Sam Venkman Freed's both
of his parents are law
professors at Stanford. And then
Sam bank, been freed went to
MIT, where Caroline Ellison's
father is, I believe, the chair
of the Economics Department at

(26:44):
something like that. Yeah. And
then, of course, Gary Gensler
was at MIT for a period of time
involved with I believe that
MIT's digital currency
initiative or something like
that, so yeah, I mean, it's just
a strange, very incestuous, some
FET family connections there.

(27:04):
And of course, there, there's
there comes up Gary Gensler. And
then, as Marty mentioned, that
they were working on some sort
of a carve out at CES for FTX.
It's it's certainly worth
noting, and people can come to
their own conclusions about
that, but it's certainly
interesting.
Yeah. And then we have the
situation where this
legislation, I guess it's in the
Senate right now, I'm not really
sure which house of Congress is

(27:25):
dealing with it, but it was a
bill related to regulation of
the crypto industry, and FB SPF
was very involved in drafting
it. And despite everything
that's exploded around FTX, in
this guy's reputation, over the
past couple of weeks, just a few
days ago, they announced they're
still going to roll with it,
they're not going to make major
changes, they're not going to
scrap it, they're gonna, you

(27:45):
know, roll ahead with a bill
that was partially written by a
guy behind a massive Ponzi
scheme to regulate the industry
in which he conducted his Ponzi
scheme. It seems a little odd,
right? And then you've seen Of
course, we've all we've all seen
the mat, the mainstream media,
articles and headlines trying to
sort of say, mean, the narrative
that's coalescing around this

(28:06):
post, you know, exposure of this
Ponzi fraud is oh, he you know
what this guy still was JP
Morgan. I think that was
actually a headline like,
Kramer was calling.
Originally called him the modern
day JP Morgan, right, which,
yeah, but But what I'm saying is
that then there was an article,
there was an article in The New
York Times and said, despite

(28:27):
what happened, I'm saying after
he blew up, he's still like, a
JP Morgan. So it's very, it's
very bizarre. It's in this is
where I don't I have conflicting
thoughts on this one, I don't
know if Marty would want to
expand and sort of his views is
he's more in the weeds of, of
this industry, or than I am. But

(28:48):
I go back and forth with, you
know, he was he was like this
nuclear bomb that was meant to
detonate inside of this industry
and sort of caused so much
damage that they could do
whatever they wanted with
regulation, sort of like the
equivalent of 911 in this
industry. But then on the on the
flip side, it feels to me like

(29:09):
it the plug was pulled early,
you know that this whole thing
wasn't supposed to go down just
yet. And, and so it blew up on
the timeline that I guess they
perhaps his handlers or others
were not quite ready for. And
that's how they're sort of
responding. Right. So I don't
know, I'm very conflicted on
that. On that view. I clear. I
definitely think this was, you

(29:30):
know, this entire thing was
created intentionally for some
major purpose, but I'm just not,
I'm not clear in my own head as
to whether he was supposed to
blow up now or later. Do you
have any thoughts on that,
Marty?
I think I think the fraud was
definitely uncovered way earlier
than they expected. Just seeing

(29:51):
how quickly it all unraveled,
and like you mentioned the
scramble to tighten up the
narrative from the media's
purse. Bective immediately after
does seem a bit fishy, and I do
believe that they were not ready
for this fraud to be unraveled
at this particular point in

(30:12):
time. In Yeah. In the con in to
speak to OSPF and FTX being
assets of the state or some,
some group that had an agenda. I
certainly think that is the case
too, because when you add up all

(30:33):
the inconsistencies around
Alameda and FTX is history. And
again, you mentioned it earlier,
Michael, but just the marketing
budget alone, the fact that they
were able to buy the naming
rights to two stadiums that have
Superbowl commercials to have
the FTX patch on the MLB umpires
uniforms throughout the season,

(30:55):
they were sponsoring f1 as well
and had a large billboard
campaign, and never really made
sense to me. That they, they had
the marketing budget that they
did. And like you mentioned,
Michael, it seemed like, via
that marketing budget, that the
powers that be whoever they are
behind Alameda and FTX, were

(31:16):
trying to imbue a sense of
legitimacy that simply wasn't
there.
Yeah, I mean, it's like pure
hype at this point with what
they were attempting to, you
know, get people hooked on it.
See, I don't know, I mean, it's
just a totally insane story. So
in terms of motives for
collusion there between FTX and
the state, or the people
ultimately backing this

(31:37):
enterprise. Do you think crypto
regulation, like a, you know,
forcing that through, which was
meant to be the main motive from
the off? Or do we see any other
sort of, you know, reasons
behind, you know, the promotion
of FTX and SPF at this
particular time? Aside from

(31:57):
that?
Yes, I mean, I think that's
something Bitcoiners have been
preparing for for some time. And
it seems that SPF and FTX were
the chosen vessel to bring about
what we've been warning about,
which is overbearing regulation,
that would make it significantly
harder for individuals to use

(32:17):
Bitcoin. The way it was meant to
be used in a peer to peer
fashion. And it seemed like, SPF
and FTX were lobbying
particularly for stringent
control around how individuals
interact with with
cryptocurrencies. And what he
was pushing for is that if

(32:38):
people are using these things
they should be if they should be
using them, via highly regulated
entities, like FTX. Enough more
free market options?
Yeah. And I think also, for a
long time, we've been aware, you
know, people that are in the
Bitcoin world, that one of the
most effective attack vectors

(32:59):
for, you know, undermining,
let's say, Bitcoin is an hour,
you know, the narrative, the big
narrative, the narrative push,
and clearly FTX, as I said
earlier, he was like a lab
created, you know, entity that
would eventually morph, you
know, this cryptocurrency
industry into, you know, more of

(33:21):
like a cbdc, you know, the Fiat
world. Yeah. You know, sort of a
thing. So, that to me, and also,
let's not forget that one of his
big things was climate change
right now, that could because
he's just, you know, supposedly,
this like, incredibly selfless
guy who just wants to make the
world better,
you know, we'll get into that
later. Right. But

(33:41):
that right there, it's a clever
way to put the seed into Bitcoin
is a problem, you know, because
they'll go into the whole mining
stuff. And that's been an attack
vector for a long time. And it's
certainly ramping up now. And so
he was like a perfect kind of
guy to be in there, you know,
wildly successful, one of the

(34:01):
biggest exchanges, he's, he's
connected with everyone. Oh,
look, how he cares about the,
you know, he cares about saving
the world. And if this wonderful
messiah of crypto, you know,
points out how bad and evil
bitcoin is, in particular, that
that can go a long way into
infecting the minds of, you
know, let's just say the average

(34:22):
person, and especially
regulators. So I definitely
think that was a part of part of
what was going on here for sure.
Yeah. So I think one angle that
I haven't seen talked about very
much, but I think is very
telling to the overall purpose
behind this op of FTX. And Sam
Venkman. Fried is related to his
his desire, I forget where I

(34:44):
read this, it might have been
that deleted Sequoia Capital
article, he talked about, in
some past interview, his desire
to have FTX become the
everything app. And to me,
that's a very telling term,
right? Because we've also heard
Elon Musk Last Great when he
bought Twitter talk about
turning Twitter into the
everything at modeling it after

(35:05):
WeChat. And so in China WeChat.
Right is the most dominant app,
you use it for everything. It's
you know, it's social media, but
it's also tied up with your
finances, it's tied up with all
different aspects of your life,
not unlike the digital ID system
that's being piloted in
different areas of the west

(35:25):
right now. And as part of this
broader, you know, control grid
of which the central bank
digital currency cbdc is planned
to be part. And that's why I
think it's interesting use SPF,
right, he's in FTX, they're
having like this crypto
conference down where they're
based in the Bahamas, and they
have someone like Tony Blair,
come down, who's a huge
proponent of this system going
back decades. And is currently

(35:48):
you know, through his NGO, I
forget what it's called, like
the Blair Institute for Global
change, or some crap like that
has been pushing really hard for
digital ideas more than ever.
And so, you know, you the
everything app is definitely you
know, the model that a lot of
you know, the people pushing
this type of technocratic agenda
are looking to sort of segue us

(36:10):
as a segue for people into this
particular control system, you
know, oh, look how convenient
this app is, and sort of sell it
that way. And he seemed to have
had the backing to be the
everything app. And as we'll
talk about later, you know, even
Elon Musk has some sort of weird
intersections with the movement
behind SBF. This effective
altruist movement, to varying

(36:32):
degrees. And it's just I think
that's sort of pretty telling if
true that, you know, he Well,
not it is true that SPF said
that that was his ambition for
FTX to have it be the everything
out, but he had a lot of
prominent, you know, venture
capital funds and other very
powerful people in the DNC even

(36:53):
I guess, you know, very much
behind him, or he was at least
heavily cultivating him very
much positioning FTX to become
that dominant, everything app
and sort of usher in this new
paradigm of money, you know, as
they're trying to get the CBDCs
off the ground. Yeah,
I just quickly add to that, I do

(37:14):
think again, it feels without a
doubt that SPF and FTX word, you
know, meant to be some sort of a
bridge. And that's what I think
Marty said that the, you know,
they blew up sooner than they
were supposed. Yeah. It seems
like that was not, you know,
what I mean, they hadn't
finished that yet. It was, there
was more to be done to
transition. This, the, maybe the

(37:38):
maybe the world, you know, into
into a new way of thinking with
new regulations, and trap them.
And that's where the FTX budget
comes, came into effect again,
like, how did it grow that fast?
Yeah,
so this kind of makes me wonder,
too, if, you know, maybe the
people that helped pull the plug
on SPF and FTX. They themselves

(37:58):
wanted to be the everything app,
right. And, and so there's sort
of like infighting over who gets
to, like, control that because
obviously, you know, if you get
to be the person that runs and
gets all the data from that,
like, you're really securing
your position. In the future, if
this, you know, technocracy
really takes off and takes hold,
which, you know, of course, we
hope it does not, but these
people are planning, you know,

(38:19):
for it, obviously. So if you can
have be the person in charge of
that, you know, app that's like,
ultimate power in this in this
type of society, into which
we're being ushered in. So it
would make sense to me to have
different factions trying to
duke it out for who's gonna get
to be the, you know, have that
power and have that data over
people's lives. Yeah. And

(38:39):
it could even be the, you know,
the some elements of the state
itself, you know, in the sense
that come in and say, we'll see,
yeah, we still need in
everything out, but we can't
have these row crazy, you know,
capitalists do it, we need to,
you know, we need it needs to be
government
run, or the UN.
They're not giving up on you
know, this this this agenda.

(39:00):
It's anything more like, oh,
well, he just didn't you know,
it hasn't been tried yet. Hasn't
hasn't been done properly. Yeah,
yeah. But every time these days,
I hear someone talk about the
everything app, I definitely,
like, pay attention, because
that's part of where this agenda
is going. I think that's how
they're gonna get people try to
get people hooked on it. And
maybe what they were going to do

(39:21):
here was trying to make, you
know, promote FTX create this
everything app, get a bunch of
people on it. And then you know,
as other economic stuff
unravels, and it's easier to
blame that, you know, for the
fraud that was already going on
in FTX. That was exposed early,
right? And then sort of be like,
Oh, well, how convenient. We
have all this infrastructure
here. And we can just replace
you know, our crappy FTT token

(39:44):
with the I don't know the
digital dollar USDC or something
like that. You know,
it's really interesting that
we're talking about this
everything app and you have TX
blow up happen. And then only a
few days after the blow up
happened, the Fed announces that
they're piloting it A digital
dollar campaign with a bunch of
the banks here in the United
States. So maybe that's an
opportunity to say, hey, this

(40:06):
crazy kid in the Bahamas can't
run this app, and maybe maybe
the Federal Reserve and our
consortium of banks needs to.
Did you see, I just want we can
go into this more later. But
there were messages released
between McCaskill and Elon Musk,
where he was trying to push SPF
into being going in with Musk to
buy Twitter. So that's very
interesting as well.

(40:27):
Wow. Yeah. Well, I think we'll
be getting to Yeah, exactly.
We'll get the effect of altruism
and EA pretty soon here. But I
think before we do that, we've
brought up a couple of times
this, these narratives being
pushed about SPF both before and
after the collapse. And we've
already talked about a bit what
it seems like he was probably
possibly being groomed for and

(40:49):
some of the other things here
we're talking about the climate
connection. But we also so first
off, I want to talk about just
briefly some of the insane
narratives that are coming about
mainstream media not just about
sandbank Ben free, but also like
Carolyn Ellison and some of the
other big names here. Because, I
mean, they're pretty insane. And
I also after that want to talk

(41:09):
about some of just briefly some
of his family connections, so
his parents and his brother,
before we get into Effective
Altruism, and William McCaskill.
So to start off on that, I would
definitely like to point out
that Forbes had this insane
article about Caroline Ellison,
who again, we've mentioned a few
times was in charge of this, an
Alameda side of FTX, the trading

(41:32):
firm, and didn't really know
very much about trading at all.
And when asked if, you know, she
could, you know, her advice
about like, bad trades or
anything like that. She couldn't
like recall details of any
relevant trade she'd ever made.
Like the I don't know. I mean,
it's really crazy. A lot of
these current clips are going,
you know, around Twitter and in

(41:54):
social media right now, but this
Forbes article framed her as,
among other things, a darling of
the alt right. Is the narrative
being out supposedly, because
like Curtis, some Curtis Yoruban
followers have created a cult
about her called like Queen,
they call her Queen Carolyn. And
this is the type of stuff that
they're trying to focus on,
instead of like the obvious

(42:15):
fraud, and some of the other
connections like her father's
apparent connection that you
mentioned, you guys mentioned
earlier to Gary Gensler, among
other things, and then you have
the New York Times covering this
and they don't, they're talking
about sandbank Ben freeze, they
don't mention fraud at all.
They're basically like, Oh,
these are millennial kids that
were just totally out of their
depth. And, you know, the more
evidence that comes out,

(42:36):
especially from the guy who's in
charge of FTX now and trying to
clean up the mess the best, it's
like, it definitely seems like
that cannot possibly have been
so why is mainstream media
rolling with this narrative?
That's just so divorced from
reality?
Yeah, the, the alt right article
that Forbes wrote, if you

(42:57):
actually like, dig into the
roots of that narrative, the the
author of that article, DM,
somebody who is associated with
urbit, which is the project that
Curtis er been started since
left, but it's pretty obvious
that the individual was trolling
her, like, hey, you know, we

(43:18):
call her Queen Caroline here.
And she took that and ran with
it. In the Forbes article. On an
attempt to distract from the
overt fraud and the weird
connections, it's
been happening a lot though,
just in the past few days, like
a big playing off of sort of

(43:39):
these salacious bits that have
popped up with the story. It's
very, it's very much what was
done with Jeffrey Epstein.
Right. Just focus on the
salacious bits that grab
people's attention and ignore,
like a lot of the actual crimes
that aren't being prosecuted at
all, you know, yeah. I mean, I
don't know, like Bernie Madoff,
when he got exposed for fraud,

(44:00):
wasn't he like arrested
immediately. And, you know, Sam
bank been free Caroline Ellison,
Ryan, Salomon, and all these
other guys, nothing's happened
to them. They're just let's wait
and see.
Right, which again, goes back to
this, this, this over whelming
feeling that, you know, these
this entity and what it was
supposed to achieve, it got, you

(44:22):
know, it got cut short in some
way that's bothersome to people
that essentially have the
ability to frame the mainstream
narrative. You know, one thing
that is very interesting that
you pointed out about Caroline,
you know, to the point that you
know, is she acting when she
just acts this clueless, and it
doesn't seem like she is you

(44:42):
know, it's like she's that
clueless. But if you really
think about it, if this whole
thing was never meant to be a
serious exchange, it was meant
for something else, then it sort
of makes sense to have someone
like Caroline there because she
she's never gonna, you know,
she's never going to realize how

(45:03):
messed up things are even that
she's potentially being used.
She's, she's someone that
actually knows what they're
doing or has experienced is
gonna go in there and in two
seconds just be like, what come
out of here, you know. So she
was actually in some ways
perfect for for her position.
You know, she she thought she
was a special and super smart
and you know, destined to be
this queen of trading. And, you

(45:25):
know, I think that that in
itself maybe allowed us to go on
a little bit longer the fact
that she actually just, you
know, I had no idea what was
going on or where the money was
coming from or anything but sort
of enjoyed the ride. That's what
it seems like to me.
I think it is important to note
too, that Caroline wasn't always
the CEO of Alameda, there's a
gentleman by the name of Sam

(45:46):
trabuco, who was the CEO until
earlier this year. And he left
leaving her in charge, they
might have been co CEOs. But
there was another individual who
was CEO of Alameda, or at least
Co Co Well, for the, for the for

(46:07):
like a large amount of time
since Alameda was launched and
that Sam trabuco
right, and a few people, I
believe, not just him, but I
think there were several people
that sort of got out of Alameda
and FTX as well, like a few
months before, you know, sort of
like right before so that that
probably is worthy of some more

(46:28):
investigation from people as
well. And I think the group
trabuco was in that in that camp
like he left shortly before it
all blew
up. Yeah. So. So to end this,
this bit of it. So post
collapse, it's pretty obvious
that the mainstream media sort
of stepping in to manage the
reputation of SBF. And this is

(46:48):
weird to me, because like when
Epstein got outed, you know, and
in comparing, like the
similarities there, there was
agreement across the board that
he's a bad guy in a criminal,
right. And it was just like, you
know, they're covering up the
fact that he had a lot of
supporters and a support
network. But with SPF, they're
just being like, Oh, forgive
him, for he was too young to
know what he was doing. You
know, there's nothing about

(47:09):
like, he was a brazen criminal,
and blah, blah, blah, and let's
all distance ourselves from him.
Now. It's a, you know, a very
different strategy. And so I'm
one I mean, I don't know what
makes you think maybe we should
look at his family a little, I
guess, maybe, you know, there's
some other connection there that
might be helping him at this
point with mainstream media or
even beyond that. I mean, it's
really hard to know, but it's

(47:30):
definitely bizarre that they're
covering for him this
extensively, because it is, you
know, pretty extensive.
You should should we just
mentioned, I don't know if
you're planning on doing it
later, but mentioned his parents
real quick, and sort of, yeah,
let's go. So there's saw on his
side, right, there's, this is
well known, but we should put it

(47:50):
here. His mother, Barbara fried,
is a Stanford professor, as is
his dad, Joe Joseph freed. Both
Stanford professors. She is part
of an organization called Mind
the Gap, which is concerned with
raising money from Silicon
Valley, wealthy people to
Democrats. So there's that. And

(48:10):
his dad is an interesting figure
that I haven't looked into too
much. But the reason I want to
mention him is because he seems
like he had some, like serious
involvement with FTX. Like, he
wasn't just this, um, the father
of SB. Yeah, he was he was
involved. So you know, you've
got this Stanford Law professor,

(48:31):
Father, who also was involved
with tax legislation in the
United States, I believe one of
Elizabeth Warren's proposed tax
bills, she actually celebrated
the endorsement of Joseph
Venkman of the legislation. So
that's, you know, this is this
is a this is a real figure out
here. And again, he he was he's,

(48:53):
he's been seen in the Bahamas
with SPF and I don't know if
it's regulators or other these
celebrities, but he was also
reportedly to be there now, as
they're winding it down the DAT.
Yeah. So
here's. So he's an expert on tax
policy and securities, which
according to the SEC, pretty

(49:14):
much all the crypto that was
being traded by FTX they
classify as a security except
for Bitcoin, I guess which they
Gary Gensler said they're going
to view as a commodity. But if
you look at his CV on Stanford,
and has like selected
publications, a lot of focus on
tax shelters, so I'll just read
off a couple that are here
modeling the tax, shelter world

(49:35):
substitutes for insider trading.
The in academics view of the tax
shelter battle, has California
broken the tax shelter
legislative logjam? You know,
these are some of the things
that he has written about
relatively recently. According
to his CV, just you know, worth

(49:57):
pointing that out, because you
know, Bahamas, the Caribbean in
general on, you know, tend to be
used very extensively in the
offshore banking system.
Yep. And then, of course, his
aunt as well. Linda fried. She
is a I think she's the head of
health department at a
university. But she's also a
part of the WTF. Not just a

(50:19):
picture on the web, but she's
like, formally involved with the
web. So
she's in charge of some kind, I
think the council on aging or
something like that. Yeah,
that's right. So you know,
again, I mean, this this guy is
just, he's just hooked up all
over the place. And that's just
this one guy. So yeah.
So there's also his brother. And
we might get to him here in a

(50:40):
second when we talked about the
Effective Altruism movement
because of the pandemic funding
stuff. guarding against
pandemics. Yeah. So anyway, and
I think he worked for Chuck
Schumer as well, if I'm not
mistaken, if that's the similar
that his brother was working for
at one point. Yeah. Anyway. So I
think now it's probably time to

(51:01):
get into something I think all
of us were really interested in
exploring on this podcast, which
is the people that are
effectively behind SPF, which is
this effective altruists
movement, which is ostensibly
led by William McCaskill. But if
you look around, there's really
supposed to be three, you know,
creators or co founders of this

(51:21):
movement. So there's William
McCaskill, there's a guy named
Toby Ord, and then there's a
Australian guy named Peter
Singer. So I guess maybe we
should start off and say what
effectively what the effective
altruist idea ethos is supposed
to be. And how William McCaskill
the you know, the face of it,

(51:42):
that's put out everywhere,
because Toby ord and Peter
Singer aren't as much the face
of this movement, as as
McCaskill is, should talk about
a little bit about how, you
know, it's quite apparent if you
look at his activities in
relation to SPF that he
recruited SPF out of undergrad
at MIT, and basically guided his
whole career, including through
FTX, and then had a role at FTX,

(52:03):
as well. So let's get into it.
Okay, I'll start here. This is
the area that I've been focused
on the most, because when I when
I sort of asked myself two
questions, you know, so what
were What do all roads lead back
to? Number one? And what is the
aspect of the story that the
media is focusing the least on
comes to Effective Altruism, or

(52:24):
EA, which I'll try to summarize
as, as good as well as possible?
I have tons of thoughts on this.
But essentially, if you, if the
social credit score world had a
philosophy, it would be
effective altruism, essentially,
I in a nutshell, It's concerned
with at least ostensibly doing

(52:45):
the most good for the most
amount of people. But in
practice, I think where this
sort of forks from just all
sorts of different philosophies
that have been around forever,
is that these, this, this
network, or this organization
is, is obsessed with a
technocratic approach to it. So

(53:05):
in other words, it's almost as
if, if you wanted to take the
idea of doing good or being an
ethical person, and then turn it
into a hard science, that's
where it gets very dangerous,
because what these people claim
is essentially, that by using
technology and research, you can
determine what the most good is

(53:28):
in the world. And so it really,
it starts off on an individual
level, it sounds fine, right? It
starts off with, oh, if I don't
have this beer tonight, and I
can, you know, put that $5
toward, you know, mosquito nets
in Africa, that's a moral
choice, you know, I should make
that choice every time, which is

(53:49):
fine, right? I mean, if you want
to have that, if you want to
make that decision on an
individual basis, that's fine.
But very quickly, it devolves
into, you know, which life is
worth more than another, you
know, is is is it worth letting
one life go in your neighborhood
to save five, you know, on
another continent, and so and so
very, and by the way, they they

(54:09):
claim and they think that you
can have a like a hard science
around this, that you can
essentially figure out using a
computer and data, what the
right choice for everyone is
worth more, who gets to live and
who gets to die ultimately is
what is it sort of boils down to
when the interesting are up to
you really quickly. Peter Singer

(54:31):
who's willing McCaskill is
mentor, and one of the founding
guys here was very
controversial, I think, in the
early 90s In the US, because he
argued in favor of infanticide
that it would it was okay to
kill a baby as long as it was
like under a month old, based on
his metrics about like, what
constitutes a human which was
all based around preferences. So

(54:52):
if a baby doesn't show
preferences, you can just kill
it.
Yeah, basically. And what
happens too, is it's inch
Staying in. It just goes to show
how completely absurd this
philosophy gets when you when
you keep when you go beyond a
couple of steps from the
individual how absurd it gets,
you have some factions of EA
that argue that life in the

(55:14):
developing world is worth more
than a life in the developed
world. And then you have another
faction that saying no, no, you
actually need to, you know, a
life in the developed world is
worth much more than the
developing world. So again, this
this goes right back to the idea
that a technocratic group using

(55:34):
technology will be able to to
command the ethical choices of
everybody or should be able to.
And and when you think about it,
this is absolutely right. The
the end goal for the web for all
of these like nefarious
characters, the direction

(55:56):
they're trying to push us and
right. Because historically, you
know, if you look at if you look
at sort of how we think about
human behavior, we think of
there's certain things you
really shouldn't do, like Thou
shalt not kill things like that.
And as long as you avoid those
things, you know, you're you're
free to kind of live your life.
This Effective Altruism
philosophy is the almost the

(56:17):
exact opposite. It's all about
telling people what they need to
do, as opposed to do what they
can't do. So again, back to this
is why it's so dangerous.
Because if this gets foothold in
the halls of power, which
clearly is the intent, it's,
it's, there's no step from that
to the social credit system. If
people are convinced that a

(56:38):
social credit system can spit
out, you know what you need to
do, then you need to do that.
And if you don't, you're a bad
person, because the computer
sets Oh,
yeah, it definitely has a lot of
issues with it, to say the very
least, but it's increasingly
looking like at least in the
case of SPF, who was poster
child for it in terms of like,
Look at this guy that was
originally an effective altruist

(56:59):
and made this pact to get ultra
rich and then use give away a
bunch of his money for quote
unquote, good. But you know, a
lot of that that movement in
earlier iterations in the quote
unquote, philanthropic world,
you know, there's been this
effort to claim that impact
investing in philanthropy or
analogous or that altruism is

(57:21):
impact investing and like
blurring the lines between what
those mean, basically so you
know, a lot of you know, this
supposedly altruistic behavior,
once you have a bunch of money,
it's basically it's not exactly
altruism, as most people would,
would care to define it. All
right, the average person would
define it, or even the term

(57:42):
philanthropy. It's not really
that but it was definitely built
up a lot in the case of SPF and
you have this now deleted
Sequoia Capital article. That's,
I mean, it's totally insane. You
have this guy interviewing SPF,
SPF isn't even paying attention
to him, really, because he's
playing a video game and not
even looking at the guy why the
guy is interviewing him. And
then the journalist is just
fawning over him. And then a few

(58:04):
lines after describing how this
guy just like, doesn't even
bother to, like, look him in the
eye, starts praising him and
being like, I really think he is
selfless. As everyone claims. I
can't shake this feeling that
he's just the selfless Christ
figure. And then SPF, apparently
I think in this Vox article, or
this recent interview, post

(58:24):
collapse has basically said,
Yeah, I was kind of faking a lot
of this altruism stuff. So the
question is, how many of these
other people are faking the
altruism stuff, and what else is
going on in this?
Well, considering the the
connections that that particular
Vox journalist has with the EA
movement and Parliament, the

(58:45):
tenor, the tenor of that article
are some people that believe
that that was like an overt
attempt to have SBF distanced
himself from the EA movement to
make them look a little better
seemed like this was just one
bad apple that really didn't
believe it. But I think in the
overarching discussion about

(59:06):
Effective Altruism, I think it
is really important to hone in
on this particular detail of
Effective Altruism, which is
essentially an extension of
utilitarianism, which Peter
Singer is the founder of that
philosophical belief where
school of thought I think the
iteration of Effective Altruism

(59:28):
really focuses on acumen
accumulating as much wealth as
possible to dedicate to these
causes that they deem worthy
over others. So I think that's
the the iteration on
utilitarianism that Effective
Altruism brings, again, you
mentioned at the impact
investing, Whitney, because

(59:48):
these people want to get as rich
as possible and use the lion's
share of their funds to bring
about what they deemed to be the
most virtuous on the planet and
that again, is very elitist,
very technocratic. And I believe
that is how McCaskill positions
Effective Altruism is like, hey,

(01:00:09):
we believe that the planet is
going to have a trillion people
at some point in the future. And
so we have to think of those 8
trillion future humans and to
make them as comfortable and
well off as possible, we may
need to make some sacrifices
today with the people living on
the planet right now.
Yeah. So let's talk about
McCaskill for a second and how

(01:00:30):
he views altruism. So I guess
before we get into McCaskill
specifically, it's worth
pointing out that if you look at
a lot of these organizations in
the EAA movement, if you'd like
look at their finances, and who
they're making grants to
ostensibly altruistic grants,
there's a lot of money passing
around between all these
different groups either tied to
McCaskill or tied to people that

(01:00:52):
are, you know, part of the close
knit power structure of this
movement. You know, they're
making grants to one and then
that one's making grants back to
the people that gave the grant
to them. And it's like, very
circular movement of money.
Just, you know, for a lot of
other people would look sort of,
like not so much like altruism,
but more like you're moving

(01:01:13):
money around within, you know,
own movement, that's a good way
to cover up money laundering.
Just something FTX has been
accused of, of enabling. Yeah,
anything you guys want to say on
that front, before we get into
McCaskill himself and who he is,
as it pertains to FTX. It seems
like they had a very similar
model, because they had 134

(01:01:34):
shell companies, as well, and to
essentially disguise the
movement of funds from FTX,
Alameda and their other
associated subsidiaries.
Yeah, and you know, in that in
the Vox article, you mentioned,
Whitney, which was written by
another EA adherent who's Dylan

(01:01:54):
Matthews. And it's, in fact, you
know, sponsored by future
perfect, which is a project
within Vox that is specifically
effective, altruistic, super
weird. He actually throws out
some figures as far as the, the
money at the disposal of this
network. And it's anywhere from
26 to 40. Something billion.

(01:02:14):
And, you know, this isn't just
stuff, you know, money that's
sitting in like EA bank
accounts, but what he's doing is
he's taking some of the high
profile figures that are
publicly associated with this
with this network and taking
their networks into account,
which is, which is probably
fair, because a lot of these
people are claiming that they're
going to give away most of their
money. Yeah, I'm chomping at the

(01:02:37):
bit to go off on sort of
McCaskill and how he, how we
Yeah, SPF, if
you don't tell us tell us who
William McCaskill is, or at
least his cover story, I guess,
and his relationship with SPF.
Yeah, I think, if anything that
I want to get across on my end
on this on this podcast is
William McCaskill, or you know,

(01:02:57):
his his birth name, apparently
it was William crouch, and he
took the knee McCaskill from
from his ex wife or something.
It's bizarre to begin ex wife's
grandmother, oh, exploits
grandmother, right. So his, his
surname now is actually his ex
wife's grandmother's name, not
even his original name. So
that's, that's interesting to
begin. But um, this is this is a

(01:03:18):
guy who the more you look into
him, the more there's clearly
stuff there that we don't know.
So SBF was this physics major at
MIT, and he hadn't even
graduated. When in I believe,
2013, it was right around there.
William McCaskill was at MIT

(01:03:40):
giving a talk and was introduced
to SPF somehow. And in that
introduction, McCaskill
immediately apparently, was, you
know, enthralled by the sky and
picked him out specifically as
an individual to, I mean,
there's no other way to put it
to to groom. He, then this is,
by the way, all of this is

(01:04:00):
coming from that deleted Sequoia
article. So I'm not inventing
any of this. This is exactly
also
in the New Yorker piece on
McCaskill and Effective
Altruism.
Yes, yes. So so so McCaskill,
you know, essentially pick
plucks this guy out of MIT
hasn't even graduated. And in
the conversations with SPF,
apparently convinced SPF that

(01:04:22):
the best thing SPF could do for
the world, is to make as much
money as possible. And then you
know, fund EA causes. And then
the interesting thing is SBF
hadn't even interned at Jane
Street capital yet, but
McCaskill is the one that
suggested Jane Street, the hedge
fund, the New York hedge fund,
where a lot of these you know,

(01:04:42):
Alameda FTX people interned for
a period of time.
A lot of them a lot of the FTX
and Alameda people have
overlapping ties to Jane Street
and Effective Altruism, the
majority it turns out have
overlaps with both so that's
pretty good. interesting anyway,
continue.
Yeah, cat Carolina, of course,

(01:05:03):
was at Jane Street for a period.
That's where she met FBF and
also gave bank Winfried Sam's
brother, I believe, also worked
at chain street for a short
period of time. So So that's
weird. Okay, so So I worked on
Wall Street, right? I mean, I
was very deep in the hedge fund
industry and all that stuff. I
didn't work at the hedge fund
industry, but they were clients

(01:05:24):
and for a PhD philosophy
professor Jung at Oxford to for
the first thought in his mind
upon meeting this guy at MIT
sandbank, Winfried, oh, you need
to work at Chang street. That to
me was one of the biggest red
flags I've seen, because that's

(01:05:44):
a very bizarre connection, the
physics major, like he was a
physical SBF was a physics
major. It's a very bizarre
connection. So first of all, not
only does McCaskill pick this
guy out of out of the out of the
crowd at MIT, he then convinces
him that he needs to make as
much money as possible. And then
he and then he suggests, hey,
you should go intern at James
Street. So weird. I cannot come

(01:06:07):
up with a a normal explanation
for that sinkewitz. Yeah,
there definitely isn't. And I
think even after that, let's
point out to that. Well, while
SPF is at Jane Street, the
McCaskill connection continues.
And he's involved I think, also
in guiding SPF, after he leaves

(01:06:28):
Jane Street, as well, which
leads to the creation of lmao
and FTX.
Right, so So on this front,
again, EA Effective Altruism,
and William McCaskill are all
over the entire origin story of
FBF, like at least the one we
know of. So So SPF works a Jane
Street for a period of time, and
then leaves and then he moves

(01:06:49):
back out to San Francisco, you
know, he's he's born, he was
born in that area. And at this
point, he doesn't have a job and
McCaskill offers, and this is
from the Sequoia article, but
Casco offers him a job at the
Center for Effective Altruism at
that point. Now, I don't, it's
not clear whether SPF took that
or not, but he was it was
offered to him. So there's
McCaskill again, in San
Francisco offering this guy a

(01:07:10):
job. Shortly after that, is when
the whole arbitrage trade
supposedly happened. And
interestingly enough, as we
discussed earlier, this was an
this was an ARB trade. That was
the I guess the arbitrage
opportunity was well known,
right, that the price of Bitcoin
was trading at a significant
premium in Korea and Japan. And

(01:07:32):
nobody really was able to make a
lot of money out of it, because
you needed bank accounts, you
know, in various jurisdictions,
you need to be able to move
money around, right, something
that, you know, you need to be
connected, essentially very
connected to pull off. And the
person apparently was a grad
student in Japan, who helped
make this trade happen for SPF

(01:07:54):
was also in the EA effective
altruists network. So SPF was
somehow connected to a another
EA
in Japan, who allow them use a
bank account. Exactly.
Let me just make it so again,
who even put SBF in touch with
this guy to know about the
arbitrator? What would be your I
suspect that some of you know
again, like some some hand back

(01:08:15):
there, and that network, tipped
off SBF and said, Hey, by the
way, there's this big trade. Oh,
by the way, this guy can help
you with bank accounts in Japan.
It's all weird. And then, when
SPF wants to raise more money,
to apparently continue to
exploit the ARB or for other
reasons, he taps the EA network

(01:08:36):
once again. And this guy John
Pollan, who is a co founder of
Skype apparently puts together
either it was all his own money
or a group of EA money 50
million to give to SPF and
supposedly from that, right,
initial injection and the ARP
trade FTX is born. And I would

(01:08:56):
like to point out that even in
the Sequoia article, I think it
was Nishad Singh, he explicitly
states that none of it could
have happened without EA, none
of it. So, you know,
objectively, the Effective
Altruism network a, a supposedly
some sort of philosophy from

(01:09:18):
Oxford, is able to create
almeyda and FTX, the the entire
origin story, every single piece
of it leads back to to William
and EA,
everything. I think even the
part where SPF decides to leave
Jane Street for the Sequoia
article. It's because of a moral
dilemma he has because of his EA

(01:09:39):
philosophy, which now he's he's
told these Vox people was bunk,
but he doesn't actually care
about that philosophy. It was
just like a front,
right? Because he wasn't making
because he wasn't making enough
at Jane. So he needed to make
more to save the world. Which by
the way, I want to point out and
I think everyone should Google
this and look look at the

(01:09:59):
pictures so He shared with it.
Just to show you how EA itself I
believe is a front. It's no I
don't think any of the higher
ups in this movement believe any
of it because if you read that
New Yorker article, it begins
with William McCaskill being so
frugal that he wouldn't have
beers with his friends because

(01:10:19):
he could be saving, you know,
the poor kids in Africa, right
with with his beer money. And
then, you know, fast forward a
few years later, and the Center
for Effective Altruism has
purchased one of the most
exquisite and celebrated private
residences in all of the UK
called White them Abbey, which
is outside of Oxford, it's a
1480s. Essentially, it looks

(01:10:41):
like a castle. And so you go
from a guy who claims he won't
eat a chicken or have a beer
because he could be saving the
world to his center buying
one of them private residences
in all Britain that isn't
right. So the point that I'm
trying to make is that this
whole thing, and I don't want to

(01:11:03):
disparage you know, like, you
know, your useful idiot who
comes out of college and thinks,
wow, this is this is so good.
Like, there's idealistic, right,
the rank and file that
associated with EA are, are
just, they really are they
believe it, but I'm saying
there's all indications point to
the people who are actually, you
know, at this point in charge of
billions, do not believe any of

(01:11:26):
of it, and in their, their their
deeds show that.
Yeah, one angle of EA, I think
is interesting is this, you
know, the same utilitarian
ideology, right? In theory, you
know, the ends justify the
means, and this is said in other
pieces that talks about the EA
movement. So in theory, you
know, you can justify to

(01:11:47):
yourself, running a giant Ponzi
scheme and you know, stealing a
bunch of people's money, because
you know, how to spend it better
than they do for, you know,
greatest impact for good, right.
Yeah, I mean, that's sort of
part of this philosophy.
This is This is precisely why
it's such a dangerous
philosophy. And the fact that
it's in has billions 10s of

(01:12:09):
billions as its disposal and is
influencing Paul politics,
remember, SPF funded, a lot of
his donations were actually he
funded this one person who's
running EA, in Oregon and the
primary he was trying to get
that person elected who was an
effective altruists, this
philosophy very, very clearly
can justify anything. And in

(01:12:29):
fact, it does. And one of the
areas that I think you've been
interested in, is the fact that
it's, it's shifted over time, of
course, to long term ism is what
they call it, EA, that's like
the thing that SBF was also very
interested in. And, as Marty
mentioned, this is I mean, it's

(01:12:50):
like mental masturbation to the
extreme. They believe, not only
that, they believe that not
helping people that are that are
dying or poor now isn't good
enough. They need to save the
lives of the future trillions of
humans, and they know how to do
it, right. And so again, if you
feel like you, you know how to
effectively save the lives of

(01:13:12):
trillions of human future
humans, and you understand that
you can and will justify doing
anything at the current moment.
And so when you merge this
philosophy with what the you
know, political, and oligarchic
elite are obviously trying to do
now, it's the perfect fit,
because it provides this
justification for doing anything

(01:13:33):
in the present to save the
trillions in the future. And I
would also want to add, because
I don't I don't want to forget
that McCaskill was an advisor to
FTX. I think it was the fun
Future Fund Future Fund until
the blow up.
I mean, he was he was right
there until the very end. And by
the way, I also want to mention
this too, because I want people

(01:13:53):
to look into it. This is so
bizarre as well. McCaskill, as I
mentioned, was texting with Elon
Musk about SBF not the other way
around. Okay, so McCaskill knows
his handler, right? He knows him
so well, that he's texting Elon
Musk, just like casually Hey,
you know, how's your day going?

(01:14:14):
By the way, SPF is a great
partner to buy Twitter with you.
I mean, that's what he's saying.
He's like, can I connect you
guys, you know, so this obscure?
Oh, didn't Elon Musk also tweet
out that about mechanicals book
that this is basically his
philosophy also, correct? Yes.
This is this book aligns most
closely with my personal
philosophy believes what he

(01:14:34):
said. But there's another
another. There's another
interesting nugget here between
Twitter FTX EA as well. One
thing that was highlighted in
the balance sheet of FTX and
Alameda that's been shared in
the last few weeks, is that part
of their balance sheet one of

(01:14:54):
the assets on their balance
sheet is Twitter stock, and this
is private Twitter stock. Ah, so
Uh, as we know, Elon has, has
bought Twitter and taken it
private. And there are only a
few shareholders who were able
to convert their public shares
and the private shares. And it
seems like FTX made them one of

(01:15:14):
those, those shareholders.
Well, that's interesting.
Yeah. Just going back to how
does a young philosophy
professor at Oxford, texting
Elon Musk suggesting to Sam bank
Ben free that he will work at
Chang Street, helping this
network providing all of the
initial funding Yeah, and right

(01:15:36):
capabilities to make the origin
story happen? That just none of
it? I mean, as Marco hood is, I
mean, none of it adds up and the
edge end and again, nobody,
nobody's really focusing on this
angle. As far as I can tell.
It's
no I think it's a very telling
angle because I mean, you look
at this William McCaskill guy,
he is 100% Sam Venkman. Fried's

(01:15:57):
handler from the time he's an
undergrad to now. And that's
like a decade of guiding
everything this guy does. And
this guy's being propped up,
like we talked about groomed for
this big role of like, crypto
savior, one of the big faces in
the entire industry, who's going
to lead people to what we
mentioned earlier, the bridge
between the current financial
system and cbdc. At least that's

(01:16:17):
how it looked. And this is the
guy behind him and Oxford
philosophy guy, you know, I
don't really buy that. And then
you know, another Elon Musk
connection, it's a little more
indirect. The building an Oxford
that the Center for Effective
Altruism has been out for
several years, I think, at least
before they bought this palatial

(01:16:38):
estate recently, was called the
future for humanity Institute,
which is funded by Elon Musk. So
they were in the same sharing
the same office space,
basically. And the future for
humanity Institute makes the
same argument that's basically
an argument for transhumanism
where they say, you know, we
have to augment because AI is
inevitable, and it's going to

(01:16:59):
take over everything. So to
compete with this inevitable
super AI, we have to become
machines ourselves, and you
know, plugs, the whole
transhumanist stuff. So, you
know, just interesting. These
networks, you know, are so close
together, and a lot of it's at
Oxford. And it's worth pointing
out to you that like the Oxford,
you know, has a long standing

(01:17:19):
tie to British intelligence
agencies. Just throw that out
there. William McCaskill. Is he
just a philosophy professor, I
don't know. But it doesn't
really look like it. And I one
thing I wanted to mention about
him too, in terms of his role at
the FTX Future Fund, I think
it's the New Yorker article, it
basically points out that while

(01:17:41):
he's at FTX, he's basically
looking at with this Future
Fund, he has a role in moving a
lot of the money at that Future
Fund, to other organizations
that are part of this umbrella
are closely tied to the Center
for Effective Altruism. And as I
was telling you guys before the
show, we took a look at some of
the financials, at least in the
British system, for the Center

(01:18:04):
for Effective Altruism, and
something happened in August of
this year, where it they
basically split themselves into
five different or maybe six. So
they just splintered off in
divided themselves into much
smaller companies. And William
McCaskill was using different
variations of his name to get
different ID numbers tied to

(01:18:24):
each company. So if you click on
this guy's name, or anyone's
name, like at companies house or
something like that, you're
gonna get you know, all of the
entities they're tied to. So the
fact that he used different
variations of his name, you
click on one and only one person
comes up, and then that's the
only entity tied to that
variation of that name. So
instead of William McCaskill,
its William David McCaskill, or
Dr. William McCaskill, or Dr.

(01:18:45):
William David McCaskill, you
know, like all these different
iterations of his name. And then
the other thing that is a red
flag for me in terms of
potential intelligence
connections of this guy, he is
using, as we mentioned earlier,
his grand his ex wife's
grandmother's surname, he's
claimed that his surname is is
crouch, that his real name is

(01:19:06):
William crouch, but at least as
far as we saw, and it's possible
that you know, maybe he wasn't
included and you know, the UK
databases that are allow you to
see like birth registration and
stuff but William crouched in a
turn up any results for March
1987, which is the birth month
and year that he supplied to the

(01:19:28):
British government with the
filings of this stuff. So it's
very possible that William
crouch isn't even his actual
name. And isn't it weird that
he's willing to McCaskill using
a last name that's not tied up
with his family at all. And but
he's supplying his former name,
but it turns out his former name
might not actually be his former
name. Okay, so and there's also

(01:19:49):
nothing about his parents. From
what I've seen. You can't find
out much about William McCaskill
parents who presumably have the
last name crouch if he used to
be believed, but it seems like
there's a lot of For it to
obfuscate his lineage. That is,
I mean, there's a lot of red
flags around the sky. And you
know, probably an even bigger
red flag is that there's no
interest from the media and

(01:20:10):
looking into him in this
movement at all, despite the
fact that he's a, he's the
handler 100%.
Right. And that's the thing,
because a lot a lot of and this
is very important, because the
way it's being spun to the
extent that it's being spun at
all, is that SPF was some sort
of successful guy who then
became a convert to Effective
Altruism when that's completely

(01:20:31):
not what happened. What happened
is the Effective Altruism that
was sought out hated, yes, I
created him, they, this is all
this is all laid out there. I'm
now you know, he was created by
the Effective Altruism nest
network, specifically William
McCaskill. And so again, who Who
is this guy, you know, what,
what is what is going on here.
And they even say in the Sequoia

(01:20:53):
article that the 50% of Alamitos
original profits were being
funneled right back to the
center for Effective Altruism.
It's all this money is going
back and forth. And it'd be very
curious to see, you know, where
where the stolen money ends up,
right.
If we will find out anything you

(01:21:13):
want to add to that party?
That was gonna say just in the
last few weeks to it seems like
there's been a concerted effort
to scrub information about
William McCaskill from the
internet one interesting one
interesting thing that happened
to me personally, in the last
few weeks is I mean, I got on to
the tip of Effective Altruism
and willing McCaskill being

(01:21:33):
behind it those doing research
trying to find podcasts and
interviews with him and one
individual did a podcast episode
with him was Lex Friedman.
Literally the day that I found
the podcast episode I was able
to get access to to the episode
and the audio file but as I was

(01:21:54):
listening to it literally like
the hours the hour which I was
listening to Lex Friedman pulled
the podcasts from all those
platforms. And white the tweet
deleted the tweet announcing the
podcast episode as well. So it
seems like there's
any blocky for calling it out?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Let me just throw one

(01:22:15):
thing out there also, which I
think is an interesting nugget
that could you know, be useful
to explore further is the
Alameda right was co founded and
almost nobody knows this, but it
was co founded by SPF right. And
a person no one's ever heard of
called Tara Mack Holly. G and
and she was the CEO of the

(01:22:38):
Center for Effective Altruism.
Now, she she's moved away from
both Alameda and the the CEO
position there, I think in 2018.
But isn't it interesting, that
Alameda was co founded by the
former CEO of the effective
center for Effective Altruism?
It's just it's just too bizarre

(01:22:59):
to do.
With Tara specifically to she
went on to start some fund some
crypto fund in the UK, Tara
something I believe, but if you
go to our Twitter page, until
last week, she hadn't tweeted in
four or five years and then for
some reason or another, she
decided to come out of Twitter

(01:23:20):
retirement after many years to
distance herself from SPF and
write a long thread about the
fact that she did co found
Alameda but has since left and
does not support SPF. All right.
So I think what we've
established here Yeah, William
McCaskill is Sam Beckman,
Fried's handler and has been for

(01:23:41):
a long time, the Center for
Effective Altruism seems to be
the force behind FTX. Right. So
when you're looking at what FTX
was doing, trying to become the
everything app, being one of the
top SBF being one of the top
donors for the DNC, the
Democrats this past cycle, and

(01:24:01):
also the offering of financial
services as it relates to crypto
donations for Ukraine. You have
the Center for Effective
Altruism involved in this
apparently, it was setting up
the entity that does all of this
stuff. So if SPF is a front for
these guys, why does the you
know the Center for Effective
Altruism? Why, you know, why is

(01:24:23):
it trying to curry extensive
favor with the DNC? Why is it
involved in apparent money
laundering and Ukraine? Why is
it involved in all of this
stuff? And the other angle we
haven't talked about yet is a
lot of this pandemic stuff. So I
think it's important to point
out that the EAA movement, one
of their other biggest stars

(01:24:43):
before SPF was Dustin Moskovitz,
who is a co founder of Facebook.
He's the CO creator of open
philanthropy. Open philanthropy
was directly incubated by
Effective Altruism with
involvement I believe from
William McCaskill as well. But
it's it was like a co creation
of Moskovitz and his

(01:25:04):
philanthropies with this group
called GiveWell, who were x
hedge fund guys that created
that bought into this philosophy
quote unquote, and created, you
know, an entity some sort of
philanthropic quote unquote
entity and so that merged with
Musk if it's this stuff and
creates open philanthropy, but
it's very much intimately tied
to this EA network we're talking

(01:25:25):
about, and those are the people
that funded event 201 Yeah, the
like, you know, Coronavirus
simulation before COVID-19
happened. And then you have SBF
on his side funding some weird
pen pandemic related things,
having a weird obsession with
pandemics that he describes to
McCaskill from the author. I

(01:25:46):
think it's to McCaskill he
describes it and then funding
the study that poo poos
ivermectin and uses a lot of
funny statistics and quote
unquote, science to do so among
other things. Any thoughts there
guys?
My only thought is it's very
creepy.
To be obsessed with pandemics
and be obsessed with pandemics

(01:26:06):
and not only that, but yeah, the
fact that SBF was the the main
funder of a study that poo pooed
would have come to me known as
very reliable. Early treatments
for COVID is a bit perplexing.
Okay, yeah. So so just to add a
little color on some of the

(01:26:26):
stuff Whitney mentioned, first,
yeah, that study with ivermectin
that said it doesn't work. It
was the Future Fund FTX Future
Fund that that funded that. And,
as far as I know, I don't think
I think that study has not
released a lot of their data,
their underlying data. So that's
one of the reasons it's
considered sketchy. Some other
pandemic stuff that I've noticed

(01:26:47):
that I'll mention is, as we
discussed earlier, also EA
adherent and former Jane Street
employee, Gabe Venkman. Fried
Sam's brother, is running an
organization called guarding
against pandemics, which I
believe was completely funded by
OSPF. So, you know, again, it's
not just him. It's his brother
who's like really obsessed with

(01:27:08):
you know, pandemics and pandemic
preparedness. This other guy's
salami, who was an FTX. Employee
pretty high up, I believe in the
in the organization. He's wasn't
executive. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
he's been propped up by a lot of
people trying to trying to say
that owed the donations, the
Democrats don't matter, because
look at this guy's salami,

(01:27:29):
giving to the GOP. But when you
look into the details of what
salami was funding, he wasn't
like giving to Donald Trump or
anything he was giving to
primaries, GOP primaries, and
when you look deeper, the the
primary candidates that he was
supporting, were the ones that
were focused, hyper focused on
pandemics. Again, super weird,

(01:27:49):
what is going on? And when you
and when you see some interviews
with the salami guy, you don't
see he doesn't seem like the
kind of guy that's like really
worried about like pandemics,
you know? So that's, that's
bizarre, as well. And then I
just wanted to note that if you
think about the COVID response,
the philosophical underpinnings
to us losing our freedoms,
during COVID, it goes, it again

(01:28:11):
ties in perfectly with Effective
Altruism, because in Effective
Altruism, you always have to
make a cold calculated decision
on what's best for the most
amount of people, right, like,
what's the most good, you could
do? And freedom or civil
liberties plays zero role in
that, right? That's not part of
its ethics. So if you think

(01:28:31):
about these, some of the things
that were done in particular,
the, you know, let's turn
unvaccinated people into second
second class citizens or they
shouldn't be able to do
anything, they should get fired,
because they won't take an
experimental vaccine or
injection. That is exactly what
an effective altruists would
argue, would he they would argue

(01:28:54):
that, that the greatest good is
done by vaccinating everybody.
So everybody must do it. And if
you don't, you're a bad person
and need to be punished. So, you
know, it actually does make
sense in that in that sense,
because if you want to create
and mold a society in which a
few people determine how you

(01:29:16):
should live, Effective Altruism
provides that bedrock philosophy
for that. And so, you know,
again, it's this twisted
philosophy, it's a philosophy
that everyone effectively in
power, the oligarchy, the state
the intelligence agencies, they
all want to push humanity into
accepting this sort of

(01:29:37):
philosophy. So yeah,
so a couple things I want to add
about the pandemic stuff so you
also have more recently
revelations that FTX or really,
I guess it sandbank, been freed
is funding major media outlets
like pro publica and also the
intercept and his focus in in
providing those funds was to
have them report more on
biosecurity policy, which is a

(01:29:59):
lot Out of this and pandemic
preparedness, I believe so we
can assume based on how those
outlets covered COVID What type
of coverage that would be and
what it would not be. Right. And
then the other group he funded
was the Johns Hopkins Center for
Health Security, which most
people probably not because they
moderated event 201. But if
you're familiar with my work
that used to be the center for
civilian biodefense studies, and

(01:30:20):
these are the people that wrote
Dark Winter before the anthrax
attacks, that predicted a lot of
the aspects of the aspect of the
of the anthrax attacks and so
on, for people that are
familiar, my work on that you
can go read the series about it
on unlimited hangout.com. And,
you know, the other guy that's

(01:30:41):
tied up with this movement, so
Peter Singer, and William
McCaskill are to the names and
there's a direct like mentor
mentee relationship there. Toby
ord is the other guy that runs a
founder of this movement, and
I'm not sure exactly where he
fits into the mechanic with
McCaskill and singer, but he, I
think Mikey sent this to me, he
was talking about how he
collaborated with a guy named

(01:31:02):
Jason Metheny. And so Jason
Matheny is in this article that
I was saying is talking He's
He's described as the CEO of
Rand Corporation, which
historically has been one of the
spookiest military contractors
and research organizations of
all in the United States. But
Jason Metheny also used to work
for the Center for Johns Hopkins
for health security under the

(01:31:23):
people that wrote the Dark
Winter exercise. And he also
used to lead AI ARPA, which is
the intelligence community's
DARPA equivalent. And he's also
on the National Security
Commission for artificial
intelligence, which is full of
spooks and the top people in
Silicon Valley that, you know,
you know, the big Silicon Valley
firms who double is military and
government contractors. And that

(01:31:44):
connection I find really telling
about, you know, these aren't
just philosophers, to say the
very least. So there's
definitely a very disturbing
network here with a particular
agenda. And they have a cover
story, which is they're
altruistic and they know what's
best for everyone better than

(01:32:05):
regular people do, like we've
been talking about. And so I
think by in looking at FTX,
you're starting to see into this
network that was behind them, I
have a feeling they're not just
behind FTX are probably behind
some other stuff. But this
particular group that we're
starting to see come into focus
here, you know, that we've been
talking about over the course of
the podcast today was really
angling for a major role in the

(01:32:26):
technocracy to come, or at least
at the powers that be hope will
come. And I think it's really,
this group needs a lot more
attention than they are getting
to say the very least, you know,
the fact that you have like musk
events and open philanthropy
tied up in here, which is one of
the biggest donors to like
biosecurity stuff in general,
aside from maybe the Wellcome

(01:32:47):
Trust and Gates Foundation, I
mean, they're like, really up
there, not quite at that level,
but very close to it when it
comes to funding this kind of
stuff. You know, there's a lot
to be said, and you know, this
whole DNC Ukraine stuff before
the midterms, and all of that is
also just mind boggling. I don't
know if you guys want to talk
about any of those aspects
before we get to wrapping up

(01:33:07):
here.
Another very odd timing thing is
the going back to SBS mother,
Barbara, and she runs a massive
pack that donates to Democratic
candidates and the timing of FTX
launching, and a massive

(01:33:28):
donation she made to the
Democratic Party is a bit odd, I
believe FTX was founded. And
then a month later, she was able
to donate 10s of millions of
dollars. Yeah, I
would add, just to put some
color on what you were saying.
Whitney? So Jason Ruthenia, who
you mentioned, that was or Toby
ords friend at Oxford, or

(01:33:49):
colleague and friend at Oxford.
Yeah. pointed, he pointed or in
a particular direction, to look
at a project called DCP. To. So
yeah, again, it's interesting
that all of a sudden, these
people like as you mentioned,
he's a spooky guy is whispering
in the ear of ord at Oxford. You
know, to take take a look at

(01:34:11):
this, you know, an order, of
course, is one of the one of the
considered one of the founding,
you know, intellectual leaders
of EA. The other thing is just
specifically so this is from the
Vox article. And just to give
some details. So it says open
philanthropy spent over 65
million on on these issues,
including seven and eight figure
grants to the Johns Hopkins
Center for Health Security, and

(01:34:33):
the nuclear threat initiatives
bio defense team. I think that
you had some thoughts on the new
anti AI as well, I think.
Yeah, they were co founded by
Ted Turner and Sam Nunn, who Sam
known as sort of one of the
architects a lot of this
biosecurity legislation and he
was the EU played the president
and the Dark Winter anthrax
simulation, and has a lot of

(01:34:53):
ties to you know, the particular
network that seems to have been
behind the 2001 anthrax attacks
among other things, and People
like Margaret Hamburg, for
example, who pot who was a dark
winter too and pops up and she
was I think Obama's FDA
commissioner. She was on this
panel in 2019, with Fauci where
they talk about getting rid of
regulations to ram through mRNA

(01:35:13):
vaccines and stuff. She was a
big name at NTI for a while as
well, I think up until she
became FDA commissioner, she
might still be there. But
they're a big player in in
biosecurity land to say, to say
the very least I mean, these are
very, like intelligence
connected organizations, sort of
where intelligence bleeds into

(01:35:33):
the big pharma healthcare stuff,
because I mean, if you look at
Big Pharma, right, there's
longstanding connections to
intelligence in the military. I
mean, keep in mind, right, like
a great example is Donald
Rumsfeld, who went between
stents at Secretary of Defense
being a top executive at a JD
sirloin CO which produces
aspartame, but I think was
ostensibly a pharmaceutical
company. And then also at

(01:35:55):
Gilead, which is the producer of
remdesivir. And some of these in
Tamiflu and some of these other,
you know, antivirals that have
been played to, you know, made a
lot of money off of a lot of
these biosecurity scares of the
past, including bird flu, and,
you know, more recently, the
COVID-19 stuff. So, you know,
these are these are not small
time players, they're promoting

(01:36:16):
to and if you're, you know,
donating to these organizations,
because you think they can do
the most good. I mean, if you're
looking at your track record,
what they do is they advance the
biosecurity state and
technocracy and they take away
our rights and our civil
liberties, or at least create
policy for that to be done. And,
you know, as we've talked about
their particular philosophy, you

(01:36:37):
know, when you follow it to the
same conclusion, these
particular effective altruists,
were talking about today, follow
it, you end up in that same same
endpoint. Right. So I may have
misspoke. And then when when I
said FTX funded the Johns
Hopkins centers for health
security, it may have been open
philanthropy that did that I'll
have to go double check if FTX

(01:36:57):
actually did that. So my mistake
there for not being 100% on
that. But there definitely this
particular network Effective
Altruism is funding. A lot of
very interesting things that
seem to overlap really converge
around the idea of, you know,
scientific dictatorship. At the
end of the day. Absolutely.
Yeah. All right. So we're coming

(01:37:19):
up to, you know, close to two
ish hours or so. So it's
probably a good time to, unless
there's any other aspect of the
case you guys don't have the NC
we didn't talk about Ukraine, or
some of the allegations there
about money being funneled back
to the DNC and all that, that
have sort of emerged recently.
But we can talk about some of
our, you know, conclusions areas
for further research, you know,

(01:37:40):
because I'm a lot of people that
listen to this podcast and other
podcasts, I presume, as well,
that are cover similar themes
are eager to look into some of
this stuff. Because I think even
Elon Musk had to say that a lot
of the big stories coming or big
revelations about FTX had been
you know, made by quote unquote,

(01:38:01):
regular people, non journalists
on social media and such. So
maybe we can go over some of
those things.
Twitter sleuth, really, really
pushing, pushing things forward
here. I do think we should
mention there is another smoking
gun. That really highlights some
potential FTX government

(01:38:21):
corruption. All right, yeah.
Which is the fact that one of
their subsidiaries was able to
buy a CFTC regulated clearing
house. So there's options
trading company called ledger X
that FTX us via one of their
subsidiaries fleet was called
Wilshire realms was able to last

(01:38:44):
realm shires Yes. West whelm
shires was able to purchase
ledger X. And again, to me that
this is a smoking gun because if
you understand the nature of
like how hard it is to actually
get the license to become a
clearing house in the first
place, it's a bit odd that FTX

(01:39:07):
was able to purchase this
clearing house because you think
the CFTC was doing proper due
diligence, they would be asking
for bank statements and very
fundamental financial statements
that would be necessary to get
the the okay to purchase and,
and operate this regulated
clearing house. And as we know,

(01:39:30):
FTX didn't even have a bank
account, when they when they
wound up purchasing this
clearing house to me that
signals that there's some
potential government involvement
in terms of them allowing this
massive fraud to continue and to
grow to as large as it did.
Yeah, we'll see if that comes up
and Maxine Waters investigation

(01:39:51):
into FTX What do you think?
I'm not holding my breath.
Yeah, no. I mean, it's it's
mental at this point. It sort of
reminds me of like when they
tried to put Henry Kissinger in
charge of the 911 Commission,
like you pick a person with a
huge, like obvious conflict of
interest and investigating stuff
to like lead the investigation.
And these types of things that

(01:40:12):
seems to be like exactly what
happens. So, you know, they have
the person who's blowing SPF
kisses and cuddling up with him
for photo ops and got like,
hundreds of 1000s of dollars
directly from him. I mean, she's
gonna investigate him now.
Right?
Yeah. For me, when he I'll just
sort of conclude with with my

(01:40:32):
final thoughts here. You know,
first, I just wanted to thank
you for putting this together.
I've been in podcast retirement
for over a year and actually had
no intention of doing another
one because sort of checked out
on that stuff for now. But this
I felt like was so important.
And so under covered in the in
the angles that I felt like
needed to be explored that I, I

(01:40:55):
was happy to come on, and
certainly based on how this
conversation, thank
you,
thank you, on how this
conversation has gone, I feel
like it's, it's achieved, at
least certainly the objective
that I wanted, which is, you
know, to, to say that this whole
thing stinks. Without a doubt, I
mean, stinks from the top to the
bottom. But I think it stinks so

(01:41:16):
much in so many different
tentacle directions, that I
wanted to focus on what I want,
you know, what I feel like is
the most important direction to
focus on which again, goes back
to you know, Effective Altruism,
William McCaskill, what is going
on there? What is what is that,
really? And how does it play a
role in the future, because this
is not, you know, that network

(01:41:37):
is not going to go away. They
are fabulously wealthy, clearly
super connected, and have a
dangerous anti freedom
philosophy that will, if it if
it continues to gain traction,
amongst the movers and shakers
of the world, is an absolute
intellectual foundation for
social credit score,
technocracy, as you mentioned.
And that is, you know, if

(01:41:59):
anything, other than being a
parent and husband is my number
one focus in life to not have
myself or my front, you know, my
children and descendants live
under such a system. So, to me,
I'm left with, you know, more
questions than answers still, at
this point. However, I feel like
the questions that I'm asking,

(01:42:21):
and the directions that I
encourage others to investigate
are the right or the proper ones
to do and so I hope that I know
you have an audience of people
who are super, you know,
motivated to to figure out the
workings of the world around us
and have an actually have a free
future for humanity. So I hope

(01:42:42):
that we've we've put enough
nuggets out there for others to
carry the torch for forward from
here on out, and just thanks
again for having me be a part of
this.
Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I guess
in terms of conclusions, then I
think we can what we've kind of
agreed on so far. Looks like FTX

(01:43:03):
was blown up early, but it's
still not quite clear. For what
purpose it was blown up early,
or what we sort of got a an
inkling of what you know, FTX is
original purpose seems to have
been before it was blown up
early. So I guess, a big
question, you know, I have at
the end of this was, you know,
how are the groups that were

(01:43:23):
behind FTX as an SPS meteoric
rise, how have they been
affected by this collapse? And
it seems like a like, you know,
we've been talking about sort of
a weak or weak point in the
aftermath of this collapse is
the sort of exposure of a quote
unquote, philosophical movement,
that doesn't make a lot of sense

(01:43:43):
and as a front for something
else. So I definitely agree with
you, Mike, that this effective
altruist movement, Willie
McCaskill, and, you know, their
associates, and associated funds
because these guys do move a lot
of money. And they have a lot of
different organizations around
and they'll probably start
scrubbing it sooner than later.
I mean, if flex Friedman was
willing to like, take all of his

(01:44:05):
interviews of William McCaskill
down, and then block Marty bent
for pointing it out. I mean, you
know, I don't, there's something
they're not, they don't want
people to look at, and that
probably means that's the place
to look at and you have, you
know, these tendrils coming out
of that movement that involve
major aspects of COVID stuff.

(01:44:26):
Oh, and one thing I didn't
mention that I think is
important to Jane Street with
all this overlap there, you
know, with this EA movement and
whatnot, they somehow, according
to the Financial Times, is one
of the few firms that knew how
to trade 2020 before COVID was
known to most people and you
know, the debacle of COVID and,

(01:44:47):
and all the quarantines and all
of that they knew how to trade
it in advance, and they made
like 1,000% increase, I had a
like 1,000% increase in profits
between 2020 and 2019. Because
of that, So that's sort of
suggestive of the way it's
written by the Financial Times
as for knowledge, and so you
have the same movement sort of
involved in vingt. Event 201, it
definitely raises some eyebrows,

(01:45:10):
including mine, to say the very
least. So I think there is
definitely a deeper story here.
And I think, you know, I think
most people get that. But the
question is, what should we
focus in on to try and unravel
the rest of that deeper story?
And I think we've sort of gotten
to big chunks of that, at least
today. So awesome.
I think there's a potential that

(01:45:30):
SBF has given given us a gift
because it seems that there's a
potential that he was certainly
the frontman, but he was a
frontman that went a bit rogue
and got caught up in the
competitive nature of the
cryptocurrency space and really
allowed this this fraud to be

(01:45:51):
unraveled sooner than the
backers would have liked.
Because it's become very
apparent that much of the or
many people on the FTX team were
were on stimulants, and they
were enacting the clearest minds
and the extent of the fraud at
FTX. Literally something we

(01:46:12):
didn't touch on, they were
literally taking user deposits
and gambling with them. And if
they were able to simply not do
that, to take their user
deposits and burn them with bad
trades, there's a likelihood
that FTX and Alameda would have
been able to survive much
longer. So we might be able to

(01:46:35):
give a hat tip to SPF for
forgetting for going crazy on
stimulants and becoming becoming
a big risk taker eventually led
to his quick downfall and
potentially the downfall or
highlighting that there. There's
something going on with this
Effective Altruism movement. Now

(01:46:57):
the attention is there. So we'll
give a hat tip to SPF for that.
So last question then about SSB
F then before we wrap up, you
know you have a lot of these
people that are backed by the
establishment involved in
financial crime we started I
started talking about a couple
of the parallels with Epstein
Epstein is obviously different
case. But you also have like
Elizabeth Holmes, right
Serrano's terrenos Harvey say it

(01:47:17):
and it's basically you know,
they have she has like Kissinger
on the board and all these like
deep state quote unquote guys on
the board. And then was recently
you know, sentenced to like 11
years for fraud and stuff. And
there's been no efforts to
arrest SPF or anyone else tied
up with FTX. do you what do you
guys see happening there? Or do
you think he could potentially
even be Epstein?

(01:47:38):
I think it's it's extremely odd
that he has not been apprehended
yet. So that to me signals that
he's being protected to some
degree and whether or not he
continues to be protected
because of all the information
he has access to and all the
dead bodies that that he knows
are associated with his company

(01:48:00):
and the movement behind it. I
wouldn't be wouldn't be
surprised if something happens.
But it is really telling that he
has not been arrested yet. Like
you mentioned earlier, Whitney
Bernie Madoff was arrested
immediately. It seems that SPF
is being allowed to just putz
around the Bahamas without
really worrying about being

(01:48:20):
apprehended?
Yeah, well, you know, Jeffrey
Epstein in the late 80s executed
what was then I think, the
biggest Ponzi scheme in US
history at towers financial with
Steve Hoffenberg. And his name
was dropped from the case. And
then he goes and starts
fundraising for the Clintons,
right? So I mean, there's people
that get away with this massive
fraud, and then they use them
again for something else if
they're good enough. The
question is, is SBF actually

(01:48:42):
talented at financial Googly
guck. And crime? Like Epstein
was I'm not so I don't know if
that's so true. He seemed he and
Carolyn Ellison and some of
these other people just seem
like they were, you know,
standards,
you know, what, we it might be a
gift to us that he hasn't been
arrested, or none of them have
sort of like what Marty alluded
to earlier, which I completely

(01:49:03):
agree with, in the sense that
every day that they aren't
arrested, you just have more
people that are, let's say, less
conspiratorial minded, or, you
know, more more willing to
accept the mainstream narrative
of stuff, you know, it'll it'll
start tickling their minds even
to like what we what is going on
here. You know, there's
definitely something else here.
So, I mean, everything starts

(01:49:25):
with someone saying to
themselves, wait a minute, this
doesn't add up. There's more
stuff here. Let me let me
explore that. That's how it
happened for me. You know, I was
actually in Arizona with my
family on vacation, when this
whole thing went down. I was
trying to, you know, ignore news
as much as possible. And then
just, I couldn't ignore it
anymore. You know, I just like
it was so crazy. It was as I you

(01:49:46):
know, I messaged you, Whitney, I
said, this is the, you know,
this is like the craziest rabbit
hole I've seen since Epstein,
you know, reminded me of that,
and I couldn't look away. So you
know, hopefully, the fact that
they haven't been arrested is is
a great signal to people that
Wait a minute, I probably
shouldn't look away.
Yeah, great point. Well,
hopefully people won't look away
and more will come out of it. I

(01:50:06):
don't think it'll come from the
mainstream media. I think it'll
come from independent media and
you know, Twitter slews and
people, you know, with an
interest in getting to the
bottom of this that aren't tied
to the establishment and want to
know, you know, why does this
fraud get to keep happening to
people over and over again, and
nothing's done about it. At
least when they're, you know,
have powerful friends. And but I

(01:50:26):
think, you know, like we've
talked about today, the story is
a lot deeper and potentially has
ramifications are some of the
biggest, you know, events over
the past couple years. You know,
there's a big Ukrainian goal.
There's a big, you know,
pandemic COVID-19 side to this
as well. And then, you know,
campaign funny money. Yeah, it's
definitely not going to go away.

(01:50:47):
And hopefully, you know, more
revelations will come out about
some of this some of this
network because you know, it's
going to be bigger, as we've
already talked about, it is
bigger than just FTX and OSPF.
So with that being said, thanks
to everyone for listening,
special. Thanks, of course, to
Mike and Marty, for joining me
today. If you enjoyed this

(01:51:07):
podcast, I would please
encourage you to share this
around for other people that
might also be interested in the
story and can help us perhaps
collectively help us get closer
to the core of what's really
going on here. And also, a huge
thank you as always, to the
supporters of unlimited hangout

(01:51:28):
in this podcast, it would not be
possible without you. And yeah,
that's it for today. Catch you
all next time.