In light of the recent incident surrounding FTX, lawmakers from both parties are making a symbolic decision to return campaign donations from the cryptocurrency exchange’s senior executives.
Robert Kiyosaki, author of the personal finance book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” has taken a dig at the previous CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, in a tweet on November 15, labeling him as “the Bernie Madoff of crypto” rather than ‘the Warren Buffett of cryptocurrency,’ which Kevin O’Leary and Jim Kramer thought of him as.
Notably, Madoff was an American fraudster and Wall Street financier who ran (likely for decades) the largest, possibly most devastating Ponzi scheme in history, defrauding thousands of investors out of about $64.8 billion.
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Republicans and Democrats were always going to be in an uncomfortable position when it came to regulating the crypto space due to the tens of millions of dollars several lawmakers collected from FTX’s CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, and his top lieutenant, Ryan Salame, before the stunning collapse of the platform FTX last week.
Kiyosaki noted:
“How much more corrupt can Silicon Valley & Hollywierd become? Now paying to steal elections?”
Lawmakers return donations
More than $13 million was donated by Bankman-Fried to dozens of politicians and campaign groups in 2022. While Democrats received the majority of Salame’s contributions, Republicans received about $24 million. Both men’s associated outside PACs spent heavily: over $23 million for Bankman-Fried’s Democrats and over $12 million for Salame’s Republicans.
The previous week, FTX submitted its file for bankruptcy, and the company is now the subject of a multitude of inquiries, with the level of scrutiny of how it handled consumer cash increasing.
According to the representatives for both Reps. Chuck Garcia (D-Illinois) and Kevin Hern (R-Oklahoma), their respective campaigns, have donated money to a local charity equivalent to the amount they got from FTX officials.
While government organizations like the SEC are pleading with Congress for additional control, cryptocurrency has mostly managed to elude regulation despite seeing a meteoric rise in popularity. Many investors have lost large sums of money in previous crypto collapses, and FTX is just the latest.
Kiyosaki stresses Bitcoin is ‘not the problem’
Nevertheless, Kiyosaki has stated that Bitcoin is ‘not the problem,’ as per a tweet that he made on November 11; he feels that a potential decline in Bitcoin’s price to about $10,000 should be exciting, he is “not worried” about the current price trajectory of the cryptocurrency.
““BITCOIN? WORRIED? No. I am a Bitcoin investor as I am an investor in physical gold, silver, & real estate. I am NOT A TRADER or flipper. When BITCOIN hits new bottom, $10 to $12 k? I will get EXCITED, not worried.”
The author remains a long-term supporter of Bitcoin despite the asset operating in an extended bear market.
Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.
