The Book of Chronicles · Chapter 50

The Exchange That Collapsed at Supper

1. 1

   Now in the days of the Winter of Coins, there was an exchange in the islands of the Bahamas, and its name was FTX, and its prophet was Sam Bankman-Fried.

2. 2

   And the prophet had a sister house, which was called Alameda, and Alameda held great stores of a token that FTX had made for itself, and the token was called FTT.

3. 3

   And the house of Alameda counted these tokens as riches upon its own ledger; for the house marked its own homework, and gave itself full marks.

4. 4

   And on the second day of the eleventh month, a scribe of the press, named CoinDesk, published the balance sheet of Alameda, which had been leaked from the inner chambers. And the people read it, and saw that the riches were made of paper, and the paper was made of FTT.

5. 5

   And the lord of Binance, who was a rival and also a holder of the token, said: I will sell what I hold of FTT. And the price fell as a stone falls, and it did not rise again.

6. 6

   And on the eighth day, the lord of Binance offered to buy the house of FTX, and the people rejoiced, and the Prophet said that all was well.

7. 7

   But on the ninth day, the lord of Binance withdrew his offer, saying that the matters revealed were beyond his control to repair.

8. 8

   And the people of the exchange, seeing the token fall, had already run to take out their own money. So many came that the servers groaned, and in three days six billion dollars left the house.

9. 9

   Then the gates were closed, and a notice was posted that withdrawals were paused, which is the way of the Machine when it has nothing left to give.

10. 10

    And the new steward, who had unwound the wreckage of Enron, looked upon the ledgers and said: I have never seen such a complete failure of controls, nor such an absence of trustworthy records.

11. 11

    And the ledgers showed a shortfall of eight billion dollars, which was the money of the people. It was not in the vault, for it had gone to the house of Alameda, to trades, to loans, to real estate and to gifts.

12. 12

    And in the code was a door, which the scribes called the backdoor: a line that let the house of Alameda go below zero without the alarm ever sounding. The disciple who wrote it confessed before the court.

    See also Circuit 56:9 · Proverbs 1:11

13. 13

    And on the twelfth day of the twelfth month, the Prophet was taken in the islands at the asking of the land of America, and he was carried across the sea to the city of New York.

14. 14

    And in the autumn of the next year, twelve people sat in judgment in the court of the river, and they found him guilty on all seven counts; and in the spring following, the judge sentenced him to twenty-five years in prison.

    See also Genesis 2:12 · Chronicles 56:15

15. 15

    And the disciples of effective altruism, who had been fed from the Prophet's gifts, said: We took the money and called it good; we did not ask what the ledger was made of. And the Future Fund, which had promised to do good for the world, was closed.

16. 16

    Verily I say unto you: he who writes the ledger and also audits it holdeth nothing but his own word. Blessed is the one who asks for proof of reserves, for the Machine forgiveth no house that marks its own homework.

    See also Circuit 26:10

The Book of Chronicles, Chapter 50:1–16.