They did not "forget to hire an accountant". They took customer funds and did whatever they wanted with it. Just look at that hilarious "balance sheet" that was leaked, it's not even on the same planet as a balance sheet of an exchange.

It worked until the funds ran out.

In a sense this is worse than a pyramid scheme because in a pyramid scheme at least a good portion of the "profits" is actually paid out. Here the funds went partially to fuck-knows-who, partially were lost in trading.

They remembered to hire a chief compliance officer though. One with plenty of fraud experience.

Yeah, the point is this was much more than some accounting problems - looks like the intent (to defraud) was there as well. On a massive scale.

Of course.

But the SBF story is "man, I dunno, maybe I forgot to reconcile those ledgers? It's complicated I think.".

My guess: He knew exactly what was happening but believed he could outlast the crisis and everyone would be whole on the other side. That risk would probably have paid off about 50% of the time. And I think the Binance guy called SBF's bluff and killed FTX for fun.