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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   5649 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 13, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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What was actually going on with FTX political donations? SBF by his statements seemed to have plans to make himself a dem Kingmaker in congressional primaries (and he planned to donate huge amounts in 2024 dwarfing his $40MM for the midterm), but his partner Ryan Salame donated ~$27MM exclusively to republicans. FTX looks like it was playing both sides, but only got attention as a dem donor because of SBF's outsized profile. Were they attempting to divide up authority between each other and control the whole game? Salame's own Super PAC, ADFA, was initially reported as a "Crypto PAC" seeking to boost primary candidates more amiable to crypto-friendly legislation, but his twitter feed does have a right wing touch to it. Was Ryan just playing with the smaller capital he had without intention to go bigger latter like SBF? Does anyone know Salame's relation to the EA scene, or how coordinated the two CEO's actions may have been?

Someone looking to steer politics from a particular position would probably see value in influencing both party's primaries. If you just give money to any crypto friendly candidate you're going to hit both sides of the fence although it was probably more sophisticated than that. I'd imagine it's this way for more policy questions that haven't cemented themselves as being divided by party.

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