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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> covering deposits up to $100k

Unless Binance does this as a unilateral act of goodwill, it would be difficult for them to acquire FTX in a way that pays out to customers while stiffing lenders and shareholders.

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You can stiff shareholders. They know the risk. They are getting near zero in all scenarios including buyout and liquidation. Buyout they may get some cents on the dollar and liquidation they get zero.

They will immediately be sued by shareholders. So you can stiff them and then play with them in court and see if that's cheaper. all for what? taking billions in someone else's debt? Whats the upside?

If they sue and block the acquisition. The company will go bankrupt and get liquidated and they get zero.

zero percent of some other insolvent company's liabilities? That's the right amount of someone else's liabilities to volunteer to take. Again what's the upside of taking an insolvent exchange when you already are the default competition to that exchange? Why pay money to fund the competitor's failure?

if binance assumes $6b in liabilities for no gain they'll be acting against their shareholders best interest and be on the way to bankruptcy anyways.

No one here can say what the upside of assuming all those liabilities is. Aside from 'goodwill' and 'the entire crypto market will crash', what actual reason is there for binance to buy an insolvent exchange?

buy a copy of their books.

gift humans credits on new exchange.

Those credits would become liabilities. By taking them on, Binance would go from solvent to insolvent, using the strict definition of "assets < liabilities". Goodwill alone won't bring the money back.

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