Makes sense

Sammy’s trial will begin next week. Bloomberg’s pregame analysis says that a jury will be easy enough to select.

Makes sense. The bitcoin fraud seems HUGE to a techie type like me, but it never involved a large part of the population and didn’t gather much mainstream media coverage until last year. Sammy’s fraud was even more exclusive, mainly catering to rich fuckheads and tech types. He didn’t prey on poor or middle-class suckers. Dillinger’s rule.

The analysts in the bitcoin world are treating the case as primarily ABOUT bitcoin. The judge and the prosecutors seem to recognize that Sammy is a traditional stock fraudster. Bitcoin is a new and unfamiliar gimmick, especially suitable for swindling. The bitcoiners attribute all sorts of magic qualities to this nonexistent technology, which wouldn’t work with old familiar gimmicks like perpetual motion or gasoline additives or gold mine stocks.

Real jury selection is vastly different from the media version. The goal is to reject people who specifically WANT to be on this jury for whatever reason. Everyone in the room should HATE being there, and should need to get DONE AND OUT as fast as possible.

For bitcoin frauds those WANTERS are less than 10% of the population, and for Sammy’s fraud probably less than 1%.

Odd sidenote: Sammy’s trial isn’t a big deal in the usual techie circles. I don’t see anything new on Quora or Substack, and very little on Reddit.