Frontrun with John Cook

🔻Was SBF the smartest guy in the room? Was he playing 4d chess while everyone played checkers? Or was he just the fall guy on the backdrop of systemic fraud that permeates throughout the centralized crypto exchange ecosystem?

SBF went on an “interview roadshow” over the month of December 2022, but the one interview that mattered: his testimony in front of the US Financial Services Committee, never had its moment in the spotlight. Until now.

🚀 In this podcast we:

* Recap the charges against SBF by the US SEC, CFTC, and Attorney General’s office of SDNY

* Read and analyze the entire leaked transcript SBF was supposed to read at his congressional hearing

and attempt to answer…

* Was SBF the fall guy?

* How many other degenerates like SBF and FTX are hiding in the crypto space?

* Will anyone else be held accountable?

📚 Supporting content:

1. Leaked testimony

2. US DOJ arrest announcement

3. CFTC charges

4. SEC charges

📹Watch the podcast on youtube:

Cover art generated by DALL-E: “An abstract painting of a tech bro being arrested by federal police for wire fraud”

Frontrun predicts the future of money and technology. Support independent research for $10/month.

🚀 Join us for a crypto nightcap as we review the highlights of the day across the crypto and finance ecosystem for Monday, 12/12/22

⚠️ Topics - 70% of NFTs are hosted on web2 rails, BTC miner bankruptcies continue, SBF is arrested in the Bahamas!

📹 Also available on youtube

Cover art generated by DALL-E: “An Andy Warhol style painting of crypto enthusiasts reading a bitcoin book before bed”

🚀 Join us for a crypto nightcap as we review the highlights of the day across the crypto and finance ecosystem for Saturday, 12/10/22.

⚠️ Topics - Lending Protocol Revenue, NFT metadata hack, The Block & FTX drama, staked Ethereum release date, Bitcoin’s capital reset

📹 Also available on youtube

Cover art generated by DALL-E: “An Andy Warhol style painting of crypto enthusiasts reading a bitcoin book before bed”

🔻How did hedge funds, brokers, and exchanges like 3AC, Genesis, and BlockFi trade Grayscale’s bitcoin trust? BlockFi had $1.7 billion of exposure to GBTC. Genesis had $5 billion of exposure. Based on the best available information at the time of this writing, it is my conclusion is that BlockFi, Alameda, FTX, Grayscale, Genesis, DCG, Gemini, and 3AC all operated in a close loop group of eight crypto firms colluding to synthetically pump Grayscale’s bitcoin premium using leveraged positions funded by retail depositors.

🚀 In this podcast we answer the following questions:

* What is the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust?

* What does it mean to trade a discount or premium?

* What is a NAV?

* How were Grayscale’s GBTC shares were used in under-collateralized leveraged positions?

📚 Read the full analysis here:

* Part 1: Was Grayscale’s bitcoin premium a leveraged ponzi?

* Part 2: Everyone has our sh*t, and they’re watching us fight over it.

📹Watch the podcast on youtube:

Cover art generated by DALL-E:: “A van gogh style painting of hedge fund analysts trading imaginary money”

Frontrun predicts the future of money and technology. Support independent research for $10/month.

🚀 Join us for a crypto nightcap as we review the highlights of the day across the crypto and finance ecosystem for Wednesday, 12/7/22.

⚠️ Topics - S&P 500 2023 Forecasts, Constitution DAO 2.0, Bitcoin Bottom, Bitcoin capital reset, Ark Bitcoin report November 22 , Binance trading fees, Coinbase revenue, Vitalik, Apple’s crypto tax.

📹 Also available on youtube

Cover art generated by DALL-E: “An Andy Warhol style painting of crypto enthusiasts reading a bitcoin book before bed”

🚀 Join us for a crypto nightcap as we review the highlights of the day across the crypto and finance ecosystem for Tuesday, 12/6/22.

⚠️ Topics - FTX ventures, Gemini, M11 Finance/Ortho Capital, Exchange profitability - SBF response & autism capital.

📹 Also available on youtube

Cover art generated by DALL-E: “An Andy Warhol style painting of crypto enthusiasts reading a bitcoin book before bed”

🔻Are we in a recession? Answering this question reminds me of a childhood game Whac-a-mole. It’s an arcade game where players use a mallet to hit toy moles, which appear randomly, before returning back into their hole. Watching investment banks and government regulators create complex charts and research papers in an attempt to answer the question “are we in a recession?” is a disjointed, inconsistent, and perhaps intentional attempt to keep the masses confused and disinterested.

🚀 In this podcast we break down the basics of a recession by answering:

* What is a recession?

* Are we in one right now? Will we be in one next month, next year?

* Why are there so many different ways to measure a recession?

We also review data from Goldman Sachs, RBC Wealth Management, the Conference Board, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

📚 Read the full analysis here:

* Part 1: The hardest game - predicting a recession

* Part 2: Everyone has our sh*t, and they’re watching us fight over it.

Cover art generated by DALL-E: “An expressive oil painting of economists huddled around a chalkboard predicting the next recession”

🔻FTX literally created money from thin air. FTT is a pre-mined crypto token sold to early investors, pumped to retail bag holders, and used as collateral in exchange for US stablecoins. The downfall of the FTT token is that it lacks economic value. Zero revenue earned by FTX is paid to token holders.

🚀 In this podcast we cover the rise of FTX via the FTT token economics, the final capitulation, and explore why:

* crypto publications like The Block aren’t able to report the truth

* the largest crypto publication in the world, CoinDesk, is beholden to the same forces responsible for the impending implosion of GBTC and Genesis

* the largest and most prestigious venture fund in the world won’t admit wrongdoing in its involvement with FTX

* the fintech and crypto desk of the Financial Times is unable or willing to call out the ponzi tokenomics of FTT and the FTX token

…and how this prevents mainstream media outlets like: CNN, Forbes, MSNBC, NYTimes, WSJ, Fox, and more from reporting the truth

📚 Read the full analysis here:

* Part 1: How to build a ponzi empire with fake money

* Part 2: Mainstream mediocrity

Cover art generated by DALL-E: “An oil pastel painting of corrupt mainstream media reporters taking bribes from billionaires”

🔻 Sam Bankman-Fried and his FTX empire: the advocate for regulatory oversight to safeguard the plebs, is now being accused of using depositor funds in “bespoke non-reported transactions between financial counterparties”. Did he fool you? Don’t feel bad. He also fooled Blackrock, Forbes, Bloomberg, Sequoia Capital, The City of Miami, Tom Brady, Giselle Bundchen, The Ontario Pension Fund and many more.

🚀 Greed begets greed, and in this podcast, we outline how SBF lost $16 billion dollars in depositor funds and destroyed $8 billion in wealth via the collapse of the FTT token.

📚 Read the full analysis by clicking here

Cover art generated by DALL-E: “a mural of the stock market crashing”

🔻 The data is clear, start-ups will not make you rich. This is especially true for “founding team members” (pre-seed) and “early employees” (seed round, series A). In this multi-episode podcast, we cover founder risks - starting with dilution.

🚀 What’s more admirable than throwing caution to the wind in the pursuit of the entrepreneurial dream? How many of us envision a future where we are our own boss and the master of our destiny? The grit and determination to start your own company and “be your own CEO” should stem from an innate desire to make the world a better place with the creation of your product or service. In the absence of this passion, most people view the nobility of entrepreneurship as a byproduct of wanting to be rich.

📚 Read the full analysis by clicking here

Cover art generated by DALL-E: “a painting of start-up founders swimming in money”