Saturday, August 12, 2023

Rubenstein: Conflicted Interviewer for Galaxy's Novogratz


Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein talked crypto two days in a row on Bloomberg.  On August 8th he said BitCoin is not going away on Bloomberg Wealth:   CoinDesk ran a piece on the interview:

“A lot of people around the world want to be able to trade in a currency that their government can’t know what they have and they want to be able to move it around rightly or wrongly and so I don’t think bitcoin is going away,” he said during an appearance on Bloomberg TV Tuesday.

August 9th Rubenstein interviewed Galaxy founder and CEO Mike Novogratz.  Novogratz said:
"In the excitement of building this crypto industry we attracted a lot of frauds, bad actors, criminals..."
Galaxy lost money it held within FTX's exchange.  He "never assumed he was dealing with a sociopath" when interacting with FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

In neither interview did Rubenstein disclose his investment in Paxos, a crypto infrastructure firm that is minting PayPal's recently announced stablecoin.  Paxos was ordered to stop issuing Binance's BUSD stablecoin in February. 
 
Rubenstein only generically referred to the SEC's position on crypto, staying silent on Paxos' BUSD.
 

Novogratz was critical of the SEC for protecting the public from "frauds, bad actors and criminals."

Both men referred to Blackrock's Larry Fink turning from a BitCoin opponent to applying to the SEC for a BitCoin ETF.  Later they brought up Sam Altman's Wellcoin (with its retinal scan verification) and the potential for rapid gains in an AI hype cycle.

When asked if "Carlyle is announcing BitCoin advocacy" Rubenstein said "I don't think so."  Carlyle may not be but co-founder and policy making billionaire David Rubenstein certainly has been in full crypto promotion mode.

A wise friend noted after hearing Rubenstein and Novogratz on Bloomberg.

Doesn't that tell you everything you need to know about Bitcoin and the elite involvement?  They don't want to be controlled.  They're out of control.

They control both sides of the political aisle, the White House, the Supreme Court and set the legislative agenda . . And we tolerate this . . Being sold as freedom. . 

They should shut down all their loopholes, close all the tax havens, be sanctioned. They are the traitors, pushing their desires to the detriment of our country  All made possible by the Fed channeling money to the inside circle  

Hear hear! Bravo for calling out the lot, not just a legendary PEU founder and the elder statesman of crypto.

Update:  John Reed Stark of JRS Consulting revealed how the SEC protects investors from crypto self-dealing on his Twitter feed.  

 ...the SEC's crypto-enforcement sweep will never end -- because, as explained below, the SEC's threefold mission (to protect investors; to maintain fair, orderly and efficient markets; and to facilitate capital formation) is far too critical for the SEC to relent.

The SEC is protecting investors from Novogratz and Rubenstein's conflict of interests.