FTX Testimony and Moderna (Podcast)

just under eighteencoin. Look at the bitcoin. Yeah, look, all right, are we are? Let's let I think we have to separate, right, and we'll do that, and we'll do Gray Felt is right here. I think Mike mcglonna is on the line from the self and proclaimed crypto capital of MYAMI law Bloomberg Intelligence Commodities Analysts. Um, we do have to separate. Sweet, Now we've got the smart Nathan Dean, got some smart people on. Now you got Nathan Dean, who knows everything

that's going on in Washington. I think we have to differentiate what's going on on, uh in Congress and with Sam Bankman freed from what's happening with the asked with the bitcoin, as you say, with the underlying asset, Katie, You've seen incredible stability and resilience I think in bitcoins and now rally well. Bitcoin is a macro asset. The fact that we are talking about I don't know, still a seven handle on CPI, but much fuller than what

was expected. That's going to be good for Bitcoin, because, I mean, Matt, you've been making the point over the past months, these are two separate happenings. What's happening with these centralized exchanges. What's happening with Sam Bangman Freed and his collapsing empire that's different from the bitcoin blockchain, that's different from the bitcoin token. And is there a more

stark example than today's price action. Probably not, Mike, does Mike, does this price action have anything to do with the arrest of Sam Bankman Freed. It's such a classic macro everything short covering day. Today, coins up the same as much as the nastic was this morning. There's massive shorts, and the nastic options exploration is this week. There's a huge amount of concentration of open interest right below the price we were yesterday, and they're just flushing the shorts.

And that's what happens in bear markets. Remember this is still a really bad inflation and spend a significant bear markets. So Bitcoin, yeah, it looks like it's bouncing. It's going to see very good resistance around twenty thou people have given up in sand Bank and Fry. The key story today in crypto is how binances having massive outflows, and that's just because people want the key, the you know,

get their coins off the exchange. But turning over to midcoin, crude oil, everything, the one markets has showing the most significant technical integation today is gold. Gold just bounce jumped above. It's fifty and a hunter week moving averages. And I fully expect you the only market you can say that about. And I fully expect Bitcoin at some point it's gonna get there. But Bitcoin is still a risk asset. Hey, Nathan, Nathan Dean, your senior policy analysom Bloomberg Intelligence. You're based

in Washington, d C. That's your cross the bear. But tell us about what you expect to hear from your Congress, your regulators in Washington. This is your wheelhouse, mark. I see, I see Maxine Waters sitting down right now exactly, so you know, just real quickly, the you know, just one

thing I wanted to call out on bitcoin. Though Bitcoin does have a safety net to it in terms of what we're gonna hear today in terms of FTX and the hearings and so forth, because the courts have deemed it a commodity and therefore the legislators are pretty confident that bitcoin is is safe from a regulatory perspective. What we're gonna hear in the hearing today, you know, look, the policymakers, we're going to try and score a lot

of political points. With Sam Bankman freed now that he's not gonna be here, those political points are gonna come down. I don't think we're gonna learn much in the way of policy clues of what legislators want to do. But my worst case scenario, worst case being for the crypto currency industry is if you hear policymakers try and reiterate what represented Brad Sherman likes to say, and I'm paraphrasing here,

but essentially let crypto burn. So if you hear some of the progressive lawmakers begin to echo those statements, that's really bad thing going in the It condent a lot of the momentum for providing regulatory clarity. Going forward, Nathan, I got to ask a question, and I'll first say, I'm not like some kind of q and on four Chan conspiracy theorist. Okay, okay, but the timing to me seems just questionable that Sam Bankman Freed is arrested hours

before he testifies in front of Congress. Are you hearing anyone else ask this question? You know? Why? Now? Why in this moment? Absolutely? I mean the chairwoman, Maxine Waters even said that this morning. She just said it was really unfortunate that, uh, you know, we weren't going to hear directly form Sam Bankman Freed. And you know, there is some draft of his testimony that is going around, and if it was the actual draft, there was a lot of information that he was going to put out there,

you know. So unfortunately, from the policymaker standpoint, they're not going to be able to you know, talk to Sam

Bankman Freed and so forth like that. But you are going to hear about a lot of the bad actions or at least the alleged actions and so forth from John Ray in today's hearing, and you know, it will be very interesting to see if you know, policymakers, you know, really group on like custody or customer protection or securities, because the Democrats want to do something in response to this.

The Republicans want to do something, but that's something is completely different, and part of them don't even know what that something is. So, you know, it's just the first stage of a long process that Congress has to get through, and we're gonna have to go through this against tomorrow when the Senate Banking Committee has their own hearing on this. Hey, Mike,

what is I guess this? I guess to me, it just feels like a new phase, and it's a phase in the development of crypto, which is regulatory oversight, regulatory attention. I mean, if that's a fact what we're seeing, what does that mean? What are you hearing from some investors as a related to crypto, Well, the retail are getting hurt because a lot of them are losing money. Unfortunately, people who had investments with some of these firms are

through some of these firms. But from a regulatory institutional standpoint, this is what is clearly needed and I think Nathan will be able to expond on that. And this space is just you know that no needed be decentralized and you know, it just realized we need some good supervision here because they're bad actors. We found out some of the bad actors are just going out and taking people's money. So that regulation, I think, is this is we're gonna

look back at. Is this is part of that paradigm shift that's going to flip over to Okay, you know what the space arena what solves this? From our et F team, Eric Felt Tunist and James Sefford is an e t F um et F would you know, you don't have to worry about your counterparty typically, So to me, that's one thing that will make a difference that should excite that process and not just ne t F tracking bitcoin trapping and index of cryptos like we do most

equities and bonds. Katie Katie Greifeld is not only a cross ass or reporter, she's also what is your new title I heard yesterday on the radio, Senior Financial Analysts or something. Definitely not a financial act but she is the co host of e t F i Q on Bloberg. Who's other co host, Well, it's Matt Miller Beltunists also

is there every single week. I mean I've spoken to a lot of people with that view that a lot of this pain that you're seeing among retail investors right now would have been avoided if the e t F wrapper had been made available from the get go. But at this moment in time, has a spot bitcoin e t F ever felt farther away. I think it's been pushed so far down the priority list. Gensler is definitely

taking a victory lap here. So I also want to point out that, um, I'll take issue with the statement that regulation is needed just from the total like libertarian o g bitcoin point of view. If you don't share your private key with anybody else, if you hold your own assets, this is a trust less asset, so there's no there's no need for that kind of regulation. Nless, you're letting Sam bankman Fried hold your stuff like dude, hold my stuff, you know, don't spend it. That's what

the bitcoin maximalists are saying. They feel vindicated did here. It's all of this Frankenstein industry that was built on top of what's supposed to be you know, people just holding bitcoin in their cold wallets. But those but those people are dinosaurs and cavemen like and Nathan, I mean you you wrote in a research note. I think I don't know yesterday the day before that even though firms like coin base and um you know, Genesis Finance, etcetera.

Would face tens of millions of dollars in compliance costs, they would still welcome some kind of regulation. Absolutely. I mean, anytime you have this type of new regulations come out and this is an a crypto. I mean we saw this with Dodd Frank. What it does is it it allows the big market players, the folks that have the compliance spend, the technology spent, to actually gain market share, and it pushes out the mom and pops of the world.

And you know, when you talk about all the legislative solutions that are being thrown out there right now, it really is geared towards institutional I mean you go back to the retail argument or the discussion we were just having. If any of the bill is that were to come up in two past, it would have helped coin base and f t X and Finance and even like black Rock and Fidelity, it would not have helped the mom

and pops, the web three startups and so forth. Because if any legislation passes in I think it has to include the provision that securities, Sorry, the tokens out there are securities and therefore go to the Securities and Exchange Commission. So you know, that's not what a decentralized community wants. So it's gonna be really interesting to see if the crypto industry next year starts actually lobbying against some of

the solutions that we're going to see come from the lawmakers. Hey, Mike, you're based in Miami here, And again, the good folks in Miami have been it's such a growing marketplace for financial services, and then they've been you know, the city itself has been advocating that. You know, they really want to be a center for all things crypto. What what's the feeling in Miami here as we think about what's happened to Sam BANKMN, Freed and f t X and

the whole space over the last several weeks. They still have a stadium. Yes that's not the name is still on it. There's some kind of legal issue. When I was worked by with my wife the other day, they got to get a picture. We haven't had a picture in front of it, but the name is still on the stadium. But there was a Web three conference two weeks ago that I participated in Mayor so far as spoken, there's still quite the it was. It was full, I

was replised. I was at a conference in Vegas in October. It was empty. It was full, and there's still quite the positive attitude to the bigger picture. I think from retail standpoint it's much different. From the institutional standpoint, it's still quite we're building this. This is part of the pain of a nascent asset technology, and unfortunately this is just the extreme. But one thing I want to point out is a lesson I learned, and I think y

SEC is good about this. The first day in the border trade by the waterfront, I saw a note that said the ultimate seduction of other people's money. And that's what we're learning the lessons of now. So it's I mean, trading crypto seems to to the Mike mclogans of the world who have been trading you know, pork belly futures and corn futures. I mean, it's all kind of there's a lot of lessons that kind of you can learn from. This kind of thing happens in a lot of assets.

And look, I'm still shocked that bitcoin is worth seventeen and a half thousand dollars. I remember, you know, I remember when U Joe Wisenthal said to me, Hey, if you liked it at a thousand, you should like it at two fifty. And I was like, I do, dude, And I would back up the truck if it weren't for you have a truck. My ethical um concerns, you can't,

you know, obviously report on an asset that you own. Now, I kind of wish i'd thrown those ethical concerns to the way, and you know, but but nonetheless, it's obviously it's come down considerably from what was the high, like sixty five, well that's appropriate, um so, down to seventeen and a half, which was kind of like the last peak right in two thousand seventeen, Mike, wasn't it wasn't that where where it peaked and then it dropped back

down at three or four thousand. Yes, so I think it's billion a foundation compared to that five thousand then, which bottom at three thousand. So it might get as well as twelve thousand. I'm not disputing that. Because this is a bear market. There's a good reason for it, but that's probably gonna be a foundation for the next ten x rally, because the key thing that's really notable this year is you look at open interest enlisted futures,

clearly your bull market Bitcoin. You look at open interest at all the Camani's most nobly crude, which is why been bear is clearly a bear market open interests. So it's going institutional, it's taking time, and this is part of the growing pains. The question is right now we are an a massive bear market in all assets except the one thing that are coming out of it and showing signs of it is bonds and gold. Bitcoin is

still risk. As I want to just point out that Maxine Waters has finished and now we're listening to Mr mckenry um give his opening statements. Before we get to um, what's his name, John Ray, John Jay Ray, the third uh Sam Bank and Freed would have been testifying here, but he was arrested. Like what Mr sam bankman Fried, we would have wells draft remarks, so maybe we would have seen some clauses fixed up and cleaned up. But we did see the draft remark. He started by saying

he messed up. He used a different word and starts off by dropping the f bomb, which is classic classic kid Mike drop from the start, but then it kind of goes a little bit off the rails. I mean, he was still taking shots at c Z of course, that is the CEO of Rival Exchange Finance. He also talked about John J. Ray the Third, who is the new CEO of f TX, saying that he's reached out to Ray multiple times to offer to help to sift

through the wreckage the reporting the records. Apparently Ray hasn't responded to five of Makemnfried's emails, so it's an interesting a little bit of he said. He said, right, of course, is going to testify today, so that's the main event, so we'll see what he says. Well, and I mean, what we're really waiting for. This is all interesting theater and it'll be I think, in some ways fun for those of us who are invested, um, not financially but

financial professionally. But what really matters, as Nathan pointed out, is getting some uh indication of what regulation we're going to see. And Nathan, you also drew an interesting distinction I thought, between you know, the bitcoins and the dose coins of the world and the tethers and usdcs right, the stable coins are where we are likely to get

regulation first. What do we expect some real transparency there? Yeah. So, and don't be surprised if you see stable coins come up quite a bit in this hearing today, because you know, there is this bill out there that's being negotiated by Chairwoman Mixing Waters, ranking Em mckenry the Treasury Department, and this bill I actually think has a decent shot of passage early next year. Wait, was this bill co authored

by Sam Bankman Fried? It was not, and so but the House Financial Services Committee is using the FTX collapse as a way to propel it's stable coin bill. This bill actually started when the you know, when we had the stable coin issues earlier this year. But this bill at a high level would allow both bank issuers and non bank issuers to register with regulators. There's still some makeups over the non bank side, but it would also allow stable coins to operate as long as they're backed

up a percent by high quality liquid assets. So don't be surprised if you see a lot of stable coin language. It's honestly they're just using this as a platform to push forward the momentum on that the state the the the ft X Bill, the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act. You know, it's tainted. It's not going to go anywhere. You're not even gonna be able to bring it back

with the same name. Certain provisions are going to be in there, uh, you know, like solidifying Bitcoin and his theorum as commodities, you know, giving the SEC control and potentially you know, having a lot more custody uh discussions. But I was talking to a brokerage earlier this week and the gentleman said, you know, I've been doing custody before computers were invented. So the ideas were actually are

still there. It's just Congress needs to get through the system of trying to figure out how, okay, how do we write the legislative language and get it to a point where both Republicans and Democrats can agree. We invented computers. Bloomberg invented computer We did built them. When I saw the story today, I immediately sent it around to all of my family. It's it's it's it's hugely hopeful. So how far away do you think we are from an actual on the market um medicine to to help, you know,

stop people dying from melanoma from cancer skin cancer. So I think we're a few years away, and not five or ten years. A few years away. I mean basically, what we have to do in twenty three, based on this great data and we know it's real because of a P value is very statistically significant, is we're going

to start a phase free in melanoma three. I guess he's gonna take twelve to eight moves to enroll, and then we need to wait twelve months to get twelveth of survival data and then find the super regulate all. So that's a couple of years. Aware. Now that the data is out, we're gonna go discussing with the f D and over regulatory agencies to see is their way to even accelerate that. So this is to be discussed well,

regulate alls. But that's for me nanoma. The great thing about today is of course for all the families that have you know, kind of a high risk government enoma. But the great news for me today is I think this is kind of immunotherapy two point zero because what we saw over checkpoint and okate you dry and and and all those medicines is a huge ability to impact your immune system to kind of wake up your immune

system to go eat your cancer. But what we've shown this morning for a first time in the history of medicine is our ability to design a product for one human being at the time where we could in our medicine the mutation of your specific cancer. And we've shown this morning, given the huge difference of recurrence and death, we as SCATECH to drop a goal standard. We show that we can teach your t sers which is part of the immune system, to recognize your cancer and then

go eat it. And so I'm very excited about this. Plus this is modern that technology. You know, we made a lot of progressing then, so do I believe we can do better? I do you know it took us forty five days on average to get the drugs to patients from a biopsy. I think you have a line of site to thirty days that we save more lives, and I want to keep pushing the team to even go faster so that we can help as many people

as we can across many cancer types. So, Steven, I mean this seems promising not just in fighting melanoma and fighting skin cancer, but in fighting other cancers as well. Exactly, So I think every solid tumor cancer is fair game now, does he mean it's gonna work everywhere? We will have to do the clinical studies. But the good news, given the safety profile of a product was very good. The safety profile of a combination modern aplust look very similar

to you draw alone. As you know, sometimes with combination you see worst toxicity, and so we're not really viable for patients. And so what's very exciting now is given we are very strong data in a lot of people, our goal is to run several phase freeze at the same time in melanoma obviously, but we're working with colleagues that mark to prioritize which over two most we start in. As you know, cy Ray is using lung cancer and breast cancer in Reynald cancer and many of our cancers,

and so we're gonna try those first. I also want to explore what can we do to people that are metastasies in the cancer I also want to explore in our personalized cancer vaccident MODERNA alone. You have a great news is we have now seventeen billion dollars of cash, and so we want to invest that capital to make new medicine. And this is a great place to invest because there's a big medical need for cancer. Stephan talked to us about the the size of this market. How

do you think about the opportunity for this particular therapeutic. So, I think it's a very big US. One comparator is Kate you drew our sales which is on the run rate of sixteen billion dollar per year and analyst predicted up to thirty billion by when Kit you Drew expires. And so when you look at what k you do I did, Let's go back a bit in history during its face free Kit you do should a forty percent reduction.

We just standard of care then in terms of recurrence and death on the same metrics we showed this morning your forty four percent decrease because draw the new goal standards. And so do I believe the opportunity of moderna PCV down the road as we expand to more cancer types, as we expend to metastatic stage, as we expand too earlier cancer could be as big or even bigger and Kit you draw, I do think so. So I think

it's a very large opportunity. Stuff And how is the approval process evolved over the last several years since the pandemic. When you interact with the FDA and you've done it for obviously for for many many years, has it changed, has it become perhaps easier, more streamline, and how are you finding it? So I think the FDA first has one an amazing job during the pandemic that we all benefited from. I think the FDA has much better understanding

of modern as MN a platform. And I think the f D now understand that this is a platform in the early days if you want to award, of course, to prove to the regulator, which both of you and everybody wishes that are regulators do to protect all of us, to get the clinical data to help us understand what is similar between each drugs of MODERNA. The great news about this product for cancer that we announced this morning is it's one the same chemical matter for making the

AMOUNTY and spike BAX, the COVID nighting vaccine. It's the same lipid chemical, it's the same manufacturing process. So think about the comfort in terms of safety of a product that this provides the regulator and us. So I think the FDA as really a much better understanding of EMMA only as a technology. Then they did a few years ago because we were not able to provide them the data that we have since stuff. And in terms of you know, other cancer treatments, how do you think this

will evolve over the next several years. I mean, obviously, the news you have today with your drug as it relates to me melanomas is a big step forward. And she stepped back and think about cancer broadly defined. How do you think you and your colleagues in in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries will be attacking cancer? Sure? I think we've made two significant scientific massive step forward in

the last let's say five to ten years. One is we now believe a scientific community that cancer is always a disease of mutation of your DNA. So that's an important thing because once you understand thing in science, you are smarter at what tools are deploy to go after a problem. And so that's a big deal. That's just where we were twenty or fty years ago when we kind of no idea where fully was canceled. The second piece is we were so really understood the role of

the immune system. Because what we know today is we all have cancers all the time. I've had cancer all the time in my life, since I was on the planet in a fifty f last fifty years. But because my immune system was able right from the time one cell in my body becomes cancerous ying mutation, because it's a healthy cell that my immune system was able to

identify it and take care of it really quickly. Well, when your immune system is not healthy because we age, because we have a lot of stress in all life, because we're not healthy in term of physical health, mental health, sleep and all those good stuff that is really important for for immune health, well you might have one cancer cell that happiest in your body that your immne system misses, and that cancer cell becomes two and fall and becomes

a tumor. And so what is very significant about those two scientific understanding is once you understand this, you can and go after a solution. So if you figure about iminotherapy one point zero the checkpoints the kids to draw this world, it was about how do you give a big kick in the immune system to kind of quote and quote wake it up to say, hey, guys, you meet something, go go find the thing you missed. And we've seen amazing progress. As I said, the phase three

min anama of kids. You drive alone at the time was forty percent production of recurrence and death. Amazing. Well, the piece we're adding today to arsenal against cancer that we have disability to know for a fact, that we can teach your T cell might ty cells to recognize

mutation that it has missed. So that's that's huge. And then I think the entire field is going to play around those different dimensions to think about what are the things we can combine to get your body the toolday needs to go and eat your cancer, because that's really the best thing, especially for people that I met, the static stage where you have two mols around your bodies because you you cancer is spreading. Disability to teach the immane system how to go clean it up is what

I think is really the future of cancer. Let me ask you switch directions a little and ask you a little bit about COVID, because I know that you are in discussions to provide the Chinese with your vaccine um. What does it look like on the ground there as they start to open up? Is it going to spread rapidly?

So as you see and its reported in the media, it is spreading rapidly, which was expected by every scientist I talked to internally at moderna or externally because as we know, the current vaccine that we're using in China didn't have a great efficacy, a lot of people did not take them, and the like in the US or in Europe or I would say most of the rest of the world where a lot of people vaccinated or

unvaccinated got infected. And when you get infected, it only acts like a booster because you show your immune system how to to to to deal with the virus. And so I think the challenge that is for Chinese people but also the world because of our economy is being so intertwined with each other, is that you're going to see a very fast bread of cases. Unfortunately, you know, I think people at high risk are gonna you know, be very sick, some of them most bitteralized, some of

them dying. So I'm kind of worried about where this is going. This was talked about again for a long time, the immunity coal background of China because of uh, not great vaccines in the past and not infection is going to be He's gonna be complicated. What about delivering vaccines to the you know, massive population um, Have you got the capacity to do that quickly? Will you have partners in providing them vaccines? How quickly will you be able

to get the vaccines to them? What's what's the what's it looked like? So the temple we already be dictated by the Chinese of aurities, because like in every country in the world, we need regulatory approval to have the right to imported product and then with of course, the authorities for deployment. So the temple is reset up by the Chinese authorities and discussions are ongoing. In terms of manufacturing.

The good news is that, if you think about it, we have shipped most of our demand for the winter in the West already, We've shipped most of a vaccine into the US, into Europe, into Japan and Zon. So you have the ensil manufacturing engine of MODELNA both in the US and in Switzerland that can be deployed for China. So we're literally talking, you know, many hundreds of millions of those is could be made available quickly, even Chinese

governments wanted. So, but will you produce vaccines for China here or in Twitzerland or will the Chinese government request that you produce them locally? So if a request is to be made locally for this season. It's impossible to set up you know, clean rooms and transfer the technology and so on in matter of a couple of moss. And we need to move very quickly to the winter.

In China. It's an oven themisphere. Chinese New Year is coming very soon, as you know, where a lot of families migrate and move and spend time together like all Thanksgiving, all Christmas, and so I think the timelines of local manufacturing is just not physically possible for this season. It will have to be out of the U S or Switzerland.

We will be very happy to discuss about setting up manufacturing facility for next year in China and to bring the technology to China, but it's just not possible this year. So stuff on. What have your discussion has been with China over the last several years. Has it been one of they did not want to import an international solution such as moderness or did they feel like they're vaccine

was good enough and maybe how those discussions changed. So we have a discussion with China since the pandemic started, as you know, nothing has happened so far we have all vaccine or or the over a money vaccine. I cannot come on discussions with sovereign as we never do it with any sovereign go on mat As you can understand, we are actively engaged with them to figure out can we be helpful to the situation developing under our eyes

right now? How do you expect this too from a timing perspective, because as you mentioned just recently, I mean we are in December, I mean, and this is kind of we're right into the cold and flu and now COVID season. I guess we can put that and included as well. So it's almost like this year it may be too late. Are you more? Is it planning more about next year? So I think it's not going to be too late in the sense that because so many people have not been infect tailed. I think every day matter,

every week matter. So I think saying let's throw it to our along finea now and wait for a full of twenty three is a public health mistake which I hope will not happen for the sake of a Chinese people and the sake of the world. Um, what we definitely need to do is as so prepare for next year. But the first thing first is really this season. UM, because as we've seen in the West, you see massive

flu and still increasing massive ice V strap COVID. So as many scientists in the public health worre then in companies like ours, have been saying for quite a while this winter was gonna be tough. And you know it's only early December. We already see no numbers increasing after Thanksgiving, Christmas is around the corner, and the New Year holiday and parties, and I think that we're gonna have very complicated January and February in the West like we're would

have been China. Still too many people have not got their omicron specific booster. It's really sad because there's plenty of vaccines in US and Europe available in pharmacist, most people are not getting them and a lot of people are going to get hurt because of it. All right, Stefan Bancell, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate getting your time. Stefan Bancell, chief executive officer from Moderner. Was some really positive news coming out on

melanoma and other answer treatments. We appreciate your time. Thank you. All right, let's bring in any Massa. She covers all this stuff. For Bloomberg News, and Barry Ridholtz is in studio as well, chairman of Redholts Wealth Management, and he's got some podcast thing that he does all the time. We've gotta like a huge Masters in Business and what do you think? What is the current sense of what's happening at f t X. Sam Bankman freed a lot

of news in the last twenty four hours. So what's happened today is we've finally had regulators come in and bring charges against um SPF, and we've got now from the SEC and CFTC more detailed information, some of which was bubbling up and coming to light, but we really have the SEC's account of what was happening at f t X as well as the d o j's charges that have been brought against um SPF, and uh some

of the details in there are pretty striking. You see the comingling of funds between f t X and Alameda. Basically from the outset f t X UM was allowing ALAM to to siphon its customers funds away to make risky bats and fuel political spending, personal lavish real estate spending on SBS account and really that customer money was just going straight into Alimy at his hands. So Barry when you see this, you know, and I don't know. To me, I just felt like I was witnessed. We

are witnessing a new asset class being born. And I don't know what today's action means. The arrest of Sandbank, ben Freed, the you know, the indictments, the testimony in front of Congress, how do you put that in context for what appears to be an asset class trying to be created evolved? Yeah? It to me, this is very

reminiscent of the MF Global debaccle. If you remember about a decade ago, they made a lot of risky bits and when the margin calls came due, they said, hey, clients have all this cass sending their accounts, let's use some of that, which, in case you're living under rock, is very much not allowed by anybody anywhere regardless. And so if you let something like that happen, you go to jail for life. Right, what happened with MF Global

didn't appear that anybody ended up going to jail. Some people got banned, and I believe the vast majority of those borrowed assets were recovered. Um here it seems like the same sort of there's some money sending in clients accounts, and even though we were never given permission to borrow this, there's no margin, there's no rational basis for touching this cash. We're gonna take it because we need it. Uh. The question here is how much of that will be recovered?

And and you know the early outlines up here that it's you know, uh, tens of billions of dollars that are missing. And how much of that is ever gonna be retraced is really the big question. It's the most fascinating thing about this is why when you look at ftfs in the Bahamas really not a U S jurisdiction and and not the normal sort of thing that the SEC or the Justice Department investigates. The vast majority of

their assets were not American. It was other countries. And do we have any sense of what's next for Sam Bankman Freed. I saw some footage just from some sources of him, you know, in the in I guess the custody of the Bahaming authorities to we know what's next. So Sam was arrested last night in the Bahamas, and the next step would be extradition to the US it seems given the criminal charges against him, and uh, you know, we'll see where we go from there. Was the timing?

Is the timing strike you as on I talked to Barry already and he said no, but yeah, because he gets like we were waiting for him to get arrested for weeks. He wasn't. He was going out doing tons of media interview use and having text chats with his friends at Fox and stuff. But then all of a sudden or Vice, either Box or Vice, I can't remember. All of a sudden, Um, you know, hours before he's going to testify in front of Congress, he's arrested, effectively muzzled.

Um does that not strike you as at least curious timing? The timing is interesting. I don't have any authoritative info on why exactly that happened. Of course people have wondered why, but he certainly is out there on the record long before being muzzled with plenty of incriminating material. Alright, Any Massa, thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate that any Massa. Bloomberg News Battery, Red Holtz Master's in Business Podcasts and Red Holts Wealth Management both joining us here round table

and quickly on this crypto stuff. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews with Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you for her. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller N seventy three, and I'm Fall Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio