Ex-FTX Executive Ryan Salame Sentenced to Over 7 Years in Prison
Ex-FTX Executive Ryan Salame Sentenced to Over 7.5 Years in Prison
The Facts
On Tuesday, Ryan Salame, former executive at cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for campaign finance law violations and for operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
Ryan Salame, the former top executive at the defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for campaign finance law violations and for operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
The Spin
The FTX saga has revealed an intrinsic problem with cryptocurrency that was bigger than Sam Bankman-Fried or any of his underlings. What FTX was found guilty of is par for the course in the cryptocurrency world, as an entity built on imaginary tokens it produced itself. This problem doesn't end with FTX, and it may be the fatal flaw at the heart of all cryptocurrency ventures.
While Bankman-Fried's mistakes have cast a shadow over the crypto world, the fact is that too much regulation, not a lack of it, made this possible. By keeping centralized deposits, FTX was tempted to skim off customers' money. The blockchain allows decentralized exchanges that use "smart contracts" to have every cent accounted for. What brought down FTX was a flaw in humanity, not cryptocurrency itself.
