"It's easier to fool a man than to convince him he's been fooled."
Precision of language is important here.
Where's the easiest place to defraud people? Directly adjacent to the place where it is mathematically impossible to be defrauded.
Uninformed people stored their assets on FTX.
Had they stored their funds on the blockchain, instead of entrusting them with SBF, it would have been impossible for SBF to abscond with their funds.
He could not have defrauded them _by stealing their deposits after claiming he would not_, even if he really wanted to. It's a mathematical impossibility.
As I understand it, most people using FTX were not buy-and-hold investors who wanted FTX to "store their assets." It was a place where people loaned out their crypto, among other things.
It doesn't seem like there are ways to loan out crypto without risk. However, there are methods to mathematically guarantee that you will at least end up holding collateral that's worth much less than you thought it would after something bad happens.
Many non-US engineers were paid salaries in stables or fiat on FTX. These people gained exposure to US stocks and crypto, or just held onto their USD on FTX.
I personally know people who lost their life savings on FTX, even though the majority of their holdings was fiat.
"It's easier to fool a man than to convince him he's been fooled."
Precision of language is important here.
Where's the easiest place to defraud people? Directly adjacent to the place where it is mathematically impossible to be defrauded.
Uninformed people stored their assets on FTX.
Had they stored their funds on the blockchain, instead of entrusting them with SBF, it would have been impossible for SBF to abscond with their funds.
He could not have defrauded them _by stealing their deposits after claiming he would not_, even if he really wanted to. It's a mathematical impossibility.