“The Blind Side.” “The Big Short.” “Moneyball.”

Even if you haven’t read the books, you’ve certainly heard of at least one of these movies.

And all of these portraits of American culture were penned by the same man: Michael Lewis.

Now, Michael Lewis is turning his keen, journalistic eye to Sam Bankman-Fried and the FTX saga.

His new book presents a hot take on SBF and Lewis’s stance is spicy, controversial, and utterly astonishing.

Espresso Shots

☕️ The CFTC-SEC Crypto Clash Continues

The latest blow in the ongoing battle between the SEC and the CFTC over crypto was struck by CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam.

Behnam delivered the keynote address at the Futures Industry Association Expo in Chicago on October 2.

During his speech, Benham celebrated the CFTC’s enforcement action in the digital space, while at the same time recognizing that those actions are a secondary response, and regulatory clarity would eliminate the need for much of the CFTC’s punitive measures.

“In addition to progressing our regulatory agenda, using our enforcement authority to its fullest extent, and seeking your input on issues (that) that will aid in our realization of a ruleset that truly acknowledges where we are in the market evolution, I have continued to advocate for additional authority in the crypto space, demonstrated leadership domestically and internationally in the emerging climate-related financial risk space, and worked closely with Congress on ways to solidify much(-)needed amendments to our authorizing statute,” Benham concluded in the keynote.

In short, the CFTC wants to supersede the SEC as the reigning authority on crypto.

The SEC and the CFTC will continue to duke it out for the time being, but it seems that the organizations are just trading blows and regulatory body shots.

☕️ Wholesale CBDC Coming Soon to Europe

The Governor of France’s central bank broke the silence regarding the prospective launch of a wholesale CBDC in Europe.

“The Eurosystem has started exploring new technologies for the settlement of central bank money, including the issuance of a first type of tokenized CBDC,” said Governor François Villeroy de Galhau. “The eligibility criteria and the call of interest will be published in the coming weeks and experiments will be rolled out over the course of next year, including trials with real transactions.”

The European Central Bank had previously published its intent to move forward with a CBDC, as well as the development of a unique, proprietary distributed ledger.

The European Central Bank’s announcement last June indicated that the CBDC rollout would take place sometime in 2024. But based on the disclosure from France’s central bank, that release could occur in just a few weeks.

A CBDC is, of course, a “Central Bank Digital Currency.” Not to be confused with the French CBDC which stands for “Croissant Breakfast With Delicious Cigarette.”

☕️ California Suit Against Binance.US and CZ

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Binance.US and Changpeng Zhao, citing California’s unfair competition laws.

The lawsuit alleges that Binance sought to monopolize the crypto market by harming FTX, citing the series of tweets from CZ before FTX collapsed.

The suit is brought by plaintiff Nir Lahav and all others similarly situated. Lahav has only so far been identified as a California resident.

Meanwhile, Michael Lewis and his publisher debated whether the jacket of his next financial crime exploration should be “Binance Yellow” or a nautical cover featuring CZ’s yacht.

Spilling the Beans

‘The Big Short’ Author Defends SBF 😳 📉

Sam Bankman-Fried has an uncanny pull on crypto media.

It’s not so much that SBF has captured our hearts and minds, but that SBF and the FTX saga are like a catastrophic, ongoing car crash that we just can’t peel our eyes from.

And we’d thought that in almost a year of coverage, we’d heard every SBF take.

But a new portrait of SBF has been drawn by the author Michael Lewis — and it’s sending all of crypto into a tizzy.

Lewis is, in some respects, the greatest living American finance writer. He got to the dark heart of the financial housing crisis in “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine,” which was adapted into Adam McKay’s 2015 tragicomedy film “The Big Short.”

Now, Lewis, the writer who perhaps spent the most time with SBF — over a hundred interviews in just two years — is detailing what he discovered in his 21st book, “Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon.”

The release of the book coincides with the opening day of SBF’s trial, and the book’s contents are already seriously lifting some eyebrows.

We’re all, to an extent, familiar with SBF. He was a trading prodigy who got too big too fast, playing with customer funds like a child in MS Paint.

We didn’t think there was anything left to say about SBF that would truly shock us, but in an interview with 60 Minutes, Michael Lewis did just that.

Lewis’s first stance, the one that might put him at odds with not only the world of crypto and victims of the FTX imbroglio but also the general public, is that FTX was actually a solid enterprise.

“This isn’t a Ponzi scheme. Like, when you think of a Ponzi scheme, I don’t know, Bernie Madoff, the problem is — there’s no real business there. The dollar coming in is being used to pay the dollar going out. And in this case, they actually had — a great real business.” Lewis said, going on to claim that if the customer run had never happened, FTX would probably still be in business.

It’s a… baffling claim. One that’s already earned Lewis some pushback from The Financial Times, writing that there’s not only a clear divide between crypto exchanges and banks but that “(i)t’s also debatable whether SBF’s trading operations were more legitimate than Madoff’s market-making operation, which was large and separate to his infamous Ponzi scheme.”

But more than Lewis’s assertions about FTX, many have been angered by Lewis’s possibly, oversympathetic depiction of SBF.

Now, Lewis is a writer, and it’s his responsibility to draw out the nuance and conflict in his subject. We’d all be confused if Lewis took two years of interviews to come out with the verdict that SBF is just a bad guy.

But rather than indict Bankman-Fried, Lewis finds him endearing, and even seems to praise him. In the 60 Minutes interview, Lewis took special care to emphasize SBF’s effective altruism.

“What it means in Sam's instance is you can go out and have a career where you do good. You can go be a doctor in Africa. Or you can go out and make as much money as possible and pay people to be doctors in Africa. If you're a doctor in Africa, you get-- you end up saving a certain number of lives, but you're only one doctor. But if you can pay 40 people to become doctors in Africa, you're gonna s-- you're gonna save 40 m-- 40 times the number of lives.”

Lewis also recently revealed that SBF was contemplating paying Trump $5 billion not to run for office again.

Wildly, Lewis claimed toward the end of the interview that “there is still a Sam-Bankman-Fried-shaped hole in the world that now needs filling.”

Generously, we can infer that Lewis meant another ludicrously rich person trying to effect altruism on a global scale and not a new, financial super-criminal.

But Lewis has certainly ruffled some feathers before most of the public has even had a chance to crack his book.

History is ultimately written by the victors, not biographers. And the jury is still out on Sam Bankman-Fried, both literally and metaphorically.

We’re as curious as anyone to know whether SBF’s story will end up one of a misunderstood hero or a hapless villain, now that he’s been booked, again, both literally and metaphorically.

Crypto 101

Wholesale CBDC: Retail CBDCs cater to individuals and businesses.

Wholesale CBDCs, such as the one that may soon go into effect in the EU, are designed for financial institutions and larger settlements between banks.

The Last Sip

The Last Sip: We couldn’t cover Michael Lewis without mentioning the recent controversy around “The Blind Side.” Michael Oher, the subject of the movie, said that the Tuohys — the wealthy white family that took him in — made millions off the film adaption. Lewis has countered that nobody involved with the book made that much.

“Everybody should be mad at the Hollywood studio system,” said Lewis. “Michael Oher should join the writers' strike. It’s outrageous how Hollywood accounting works, but the money is not in the Tuohys’ pockets.”

If the ex-offensive-lineman had joined the recently concluded writers’ strike, Oher would have been the largest presence on the picket line, roughly the size of six Hollywood screenwriters combined.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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