TOLDJA! SBF Democratic donations theory is all wet
As predicted more than two weeks ago on Factland, a conspiracy theory making the rounds that SBF won’t face tough criminal charges because he donated millions to Democrats was, in fact, false. The founder of the FTX crypto exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried, was arrested and held without bail in the Bahamas this week, while awaiting extradition to the U.S., where authorities have alleged he orchestrated a massive fraud, evaporating billions in investor assets.
Can such speculative claims be fact checked? At Factland, we let the community decide.
Our process is an experimental approach to misinformation, using Web 3 technology with the aim of creating a trust-less, decentralized fact checking layer for the Internet. Anyone can upload a claim, place a stake on whether it is true or false and submit evidence to support their opinion. If a claim is disputed, an anonymous random sample jury is assembled to review the facts, and issue a verdict and rewards to participants.
Factland does not pretend to represent the final word or truth of the matter, just the opinion of the people reviewing the case. If you disagree, you can appeal and have a decision reconsidered (this feature is not yet live, bear with us during our beta phase!)
To learn more, visit us at Factland.org, follow @FactlandDAO on Twitter, and meet the core team and community on Discord.
Also notable this week:
A lot of people recently fumed that Spain deliberately threw its World Cup match with Japan, in order to end Germany's campaign early – an interesting theory, but one that came with scant evidence. See our verdict below.
Meanwhile. scientists at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's Nuclear Ignition Facility in California announced a breakthrough in fusion energy that could pave the way for cheap clean power. Are the results exaggerated? The verdict is still pending.
Read on to catch up with the latest!
Recent Verdicts
Spain intentionally lost to Japan to knock Germany out of World Cup
FALSE - 300 $FACT staked
A lot of people are Tweeting Spain lost on purpose to Japan to face easier opponents in the knock out stages.
See the evidence here.
Ethereum is insolvent
FALSE - 250 $FACT staked
@0xfoobar: hearing rumors that ethereum is insolvent, withdrawals are disabled for all staked eth
See the evidence here.
FTX is insolvent
TRUE - 250 $FACT staked
From Coindesk: Fears over another 'Three Arrows' event, but this time tied to FTX and its hybrid investment fund/market maker Alameda Research, gripped the markets Tuesday morning Asia time, sending FTX's exchange token FTT down nearly 20%.
See the evidence here.
Open claims
Fusion breakthrough achieved promising clean cheap power
300 $FACT staked
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore Lab, after decades of research, broke through a major barrier, extracting more energy from a controlled fusion reaction than the energy put in.
This was an open claim at the time the newsletter was sent, you can still stake on the outcome, submit evidence and comment here.
Bahama’s Fox Hill Prison, where SBF will be held without bail, is “one of the top 5 worst… in the world”
200 $FACT staked
Sam Bankman-Fried, disgraced CEO of the FTX crypto exchange, has been arrested, denied bail and remanded to custody in Fox Hill Prison in the Bahamas while awaiting extradition to the U.S. to face myriad criminal fraud and money laundering charges. Some Twitter posts paint a dire portrait of the facility, with @AutismCapital declaring it one of the top 5 worst prisons in the world.
This was an open claim at the time the newsletter was sent, you can still stake on the outcome, submit evidence and comment here.
Hate speech on Twitter has jumped since Musk took over
400 $FACT staked
The New York Times published an article citing findings from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups that study online platforms that show a sharp increase in slurs on Twitter since Elon Musk took over the company, adding these researchers "had never seen such a sharp increase in hate speech, problematic content and formerly banned accounts in such a short period on a mainstream social media platform."
This was an open claim at the time the newsletter was sent, you can still stake on the outcome, submit evidence and comment here.
FTX investor losses much less than other crypto crises
200 $FACT staked
Chainalysis, a blockchain research company, says it has come up with a method for measuring the total wallet value of the crypto market. Looking at the data they say real investor losses at FTX were about $9B compared to $20.5B related to the depegging of Terra's UST token and $33B with the collapse of Celsius and Three Arrows Capital.
This was an open claim at the time the newsletter was sent, you can still stake on the outcome, submit evidence and comment here.
People are more likely to lose crypto by holding it in a cold wallet than by putting it on a centralized exchange
200 $FACT staked
“For most people, for 99% of people today, asking them to hold crypto on their own, they will end up losing it,” Changpeng Zhao (aka CZ), CEO of crypto exchange Binance, said Wednesday in a Twitter Space.
This was an open claim at the time the newsletter was sent, you can still stake on the outcome, submit evidence and comment here.
Thanks for your interest in making the Internet more accountable!
The Factland team