ChainCatcher reports that Justin Sun posted on X platform, stating that First Digital Trust (FDT)'s theft of user funds and FTX's misappropriation of user funds are both very serious and malicious incidents of misappropriating user funds. However, if comparing their severity, First Digital Trust (FDT)'s case is even more serious, at least ten times worse than FTX, for the following reasons:
- FTX misappropriated user funds, and although users were unaware of the misappropriation, at least internally at FTX, SBF created an appearance of pledged lending, representing Alemeda Research by pledging a large number of FTT/SRM/FTX shares/Maps tokens to FTX to borrow user funds. At least on the surface, this looked like a loan with a certain percentage of collateral. In contrast, FDT directly stole assets without user authorization or knowledge, without even going through an internal collateral process.
- SBF misappropriated FTX user funds without authorization, but ultimately invested them, with most going into high-quality companies like Robinhood stock and Anthropic AI, without embezzlement or personal enjoyment. In comparison, FDT's funds appear to have been mostly diverted to private companies, completely embezzled without any meaningful investment.
- After the incident was exposed, SBF's attitude was at least proactive, actively seeking remediation by hiring law firms to try to recover user assets. In contrast, Vincent Chok, after the misappropriation was revealed, continued to deny and pretend nothing happened, showing extreme malicious intent.
- After the FTX incident, US regulatory and law enforcement agencies quickly took action, actively intervening in the FTX bankruptcy process, arresting FTX-related personnel (including SBF), actively controlling the situation, helping users minimize losses, and avoiding significant damage to the US financial reputation.
