FTX’s balance sheet was bad
The thing that this piece really got me thinking about is how many other crypto companies are the same ponzi scheme because they are counting made-up things as assets on their balance sheet.In other words, suppose I create token SCAMMER, and I say its supply will be capped at 1 million tokens (or 10 million, or 100 million - that's the "nice" thing about crypto, I can kinda choose whatever number I want), and then I'm able to sell 10 of those tokens for $100 each. According to FTX math, I now have $99,999,000 of assets on my balance sheet, but of course if I actually tried to sell a lot of my "kept" tokens I would tank the SCAMMER price.Even better, and I think what is probably more common in the crypto industry: suppose I get my buddy to create a SUX2BEU token. I tell my buddy I'll by 10 SUX2BEU tokens for $100 each if he buys 10 of my SCAMMER tokens for $100 each. Now suddenly we can both say we have huge assets on our balance sheets! Until, of course, someone decides to pull aside the curtain covering the wizard.So many ponzi schemes on top of ponzi schemes...