FTX Meltdown and Life Update

The recent crypto crash has been causing quite a stir. I feel largely ambivalent about it. FTX didn't ruin me, but 15 percent of my holdings were in Solana, which was wrapped up in the meltdown, so I took a hit. I've been eagerly anticipating the moment when Hive and WAX fall to bargain basement prices so I can load up on discount tokens. So far, prices have held steady above my target levels.

How bad were things with FTX and Alameda? Well, here's a quote from Reuters:

Bankman-Fried showed several spreadsheets to the heads of the company's regulatory and legal teams that revealed FTX had moved around $10 billion in client funds from FTX to Alameda, the two people said. The spreadsheets displayed how much money FTX loaned to Alameda and what it was used for, they said. The documents showed that between $1 billion and $2 billion of these funds were not accounted for among Alameda's assets, the sources said. The spreadsheets did not indicate where this money was moved, and the sources said they don't know what became of it. In a subsequent examination, FTX legal and finance teams also learned that Bankman-Fried implemented what the two people described as a "backdoor" in FTX's book-keeping system, which was built using bespoke software. They said the "backdoor" allowed Bankman-Fried to execute commands that could alter the company's financial records without alerting other people, including external auditors. This set-up meant that the movement of the $10 billion in funds to Alameda did not trigger internal compliance or accounting red flags at FTX, they said.

That's right, there was an accounting backdoor through which $1-2 billion disappeared. Also interesting is the fact that Bankman-Fried was the second largest campaign donor to US Democrats behind George Soros. And until a day or two ago, the World Economic Forum listed FTX as a strategic partner. These things suggest that the meltdown may have a political dimension involving the global economic reconfiguration now underway.

Whatever is really going on, I get the sense that Bankman-Fried is more of a dupe than a criminal mastermind. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that the whole fiasco was a hit job by legacy banking cartels. Nor would I be surprised if it came out that the missing funds were merely bad bets made in clumsy attempts to manipulate markets. Maybe the truth of the matter will come out eventually. Maybe it never will.

Meanwhile in Minneapolis

My city is officially transitioning into winter mode. The first snowflakes fell yesterday. The tap water tastes pleasantly chilled. My heater is on. And the next four months will mostly take place indoors.

Work is fine. My current novel is coming along nicely. A special person even made me a playlist to listen to when I write. This is a person that I feel even though we've never met. Someone who I absolutely can't get enough of, which is rare, given my solitary lifestyle. This person and I have a connection that seems like it's operating on all levels. This kind of connection is a new experience for me, and I'm totally falling in love, despite the fact that she's thousands of miles away.

With this going on, perhaps because of it, my world has begun to shift in small but notable ways. I'm making more art and even made a dance video. My tolerance for the bullshit of my roommates has increased. Sometimes I simply can't stop smiling. The list goes on and on.

This situation has stirred up my unconscious in obvious ways. Intense dreams. Parts of me from the past demanding suddenly to be integrated. Startlingly honest self-reflection and recapitulation.

In a larger sense, I feel better about the future than I have in a long time. It's as if events have finally started to unfold in a way that might actually be okay for me. Like maybe I'm outgrowing circumstances that can't support who I'm becoming, whoever that might turn out to be. So I'm present for it, holding nothing back, and I have no idea what my life will look like a year from now. I don't know what it'll look like, but I'm pretty sure it will be awesome.

(Pictured above is me several years ago, standing barefoot in the snow.)

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Read my novels:

• Small Gods of Time Travel is available as a web book on IPFS.
• The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
• Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
• One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
• Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
• Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
• The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
• Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.

See my NFTs:

• Small Gods of Time Travel is a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt that goes with my book by the same name.
• History and the Machine is a 20 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on my series of oil paintings of interesting people from history.
• Artifacts of Mind Control is a 15 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on declassified CIA documents from the MKULTRA program.