Repayoleth

Via Coindesk, an interesting consequence of obscure bankruptcy laws.

Sammy’s NGO posing as a “bitcoin bank” owned about 1/3 of current congresscritters. There’s an interesting difference in how the slaves treated their wages after Sammy’s NGO went into bankruptcy.

Under bankruptcy law, all outstanding payments from a bankrupt company can be clawed back to repay the investors. Thousands of people “deposited” bitcoin in Sammy’s outfit, believing they were storing an asset that could be withdrawn. They didn’t believe they were bribing politicians, so their money needs to be refunded.

Among Sammy’s slaves, several made a public display of contributing their wages to other charities.** This money can and will be clawed back from the charities, who may have already spent it by that time. A large clawback to a small charity could drive it into bankruptcy, so the flashy slaves were NOT DOING ANY FAVORS to their charities.

Other slaves did the right thing for the innocent “depositors”, returning the money to the bankruptcy trustee. There’s a fairly strong Leth here. These repayers tend to be old-fashioned leftists who may retain a slight fragment of empathy for humans other than Bezos.

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** Later thought: This is Effective Altruism in action. Steal money from ordinary people who don’t know they’re participating in a crime. Use the money for criminal purposes. When asked to give the money back to the ordinary people, pass the money down the line to other criminals so it’s not available. Never let the money return to the honest world.