Cryptocurrency king Sam Bankman-Fried Charged: BBC News Review

39,566 views ・ 2022-12-14

BBC Learning English


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The so-called King of Crypto has been charged with fraud.
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This is News Review from BBC
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Learning English. I'm Neil. And I'm Beth.
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Make sure you watch to the end to learn vocabulary to talk about this story.
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Don't forget to subscribe to this channel,
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like this video, and try the quiz on our website.
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Now, the story.
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3.1 billion dollars.
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That's how much the cryptocurrency exchange company,
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FTX, owes to its 50 largest investors.
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Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO,
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has been arrested and charged with fraud.
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He's accused of transferring FTX
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money into his own hedge fund.
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You have been looking at the headlines,
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Beth. What's the vocabulary?
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We have 'file',
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'rise and fall', and 'white knight'. This is News Review from BBC
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Learning English.
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Let's have a look at our
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first headline. This is from the New York Times:
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So US prosecutors have filed charges,
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and a charge is an accusation that means he needs to go to court.
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He needs to go on trial. But the word
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we're looking at is 'file' - 'to file something'.
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When I do this at home, it means that I take an important document like a passport,
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and I put it somewhere safe that I know -
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I know where it is. Is that the same sense?
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Well, this is 'file' as well, it's also a verb
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but it is a little bit different.
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So, here we're talking about making something official in terms of the law.
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Yeah, and this man has been arrested, and the headline says
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that prosecutors have filed charges.
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So, it's all very official,
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because the prosecutors have legally confirmed that he has been
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charged. Yeah, exactly.
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And there are other words that we can put after 'file' just to show
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that something is official in law.
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Yes. So, a company could file for bankruptcy.
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That means officially declare or say that they have no money.
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Yeah. That's right, or a couple might file for divorce.
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If you're self employed, then you might file your taxes online.
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OK, let's take a look at that again.
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Let's have a look at our next headline.
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This one is from Al Jazeera:
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So, the headline talks about FTX -
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the crypto currency exchange, which has gone bankrupt,
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and talks about the rise and fall of this company.
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Well, I know what 'rise' means: 'go up', and 'fall': 'go down'.
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But, this is a set expression.
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What's the sense? Yeah.
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So, when we talk about the rise of something like a company,
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it means it's getting better and better.
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But then we get the fall.
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There are some problems.
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Maybe a loss of reputation.
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OK. So, this expression, 'rise and fall', is that
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just for companies? Financial stuff like that.
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No. So, it can also be used for people or teams - regimes is another one.
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Anything really that has a period of success and then becomes unsuccessful,
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they lose their success. Yeah.
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And that's really important that when they are successful, this expression
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'rise and fall' means that they're really successful, really dominant,
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and then that goes away quickly.
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Yeah. Now, we do often see this in headlines,
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as we have here, we see it to talk about products.
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Book titles. For example, there's that book:
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The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs.
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I also saw a headline about the rise and fall of DVDs.
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Yeah. DVDs used to be everywhere.
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They were dominant. Now, they're less popular because of streaming. A word
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on pronunciation.
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We've got the expression:
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'the rise and fall of', but said together,
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there's a lot of linking and some of the vowel sounds change.
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So, let's listen to that: 'the rise and fall of'.
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Yeah. 'The rise and fall of'. The rise and fall of the dinosaurs.
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Let's look at that one more time.
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Let's have a look at our next headline. This is from Reuters.
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So, the headline is saying that Sam Bankman-Fried
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has taken a sudden turn - that means he has changed
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from being a white knight to a detainee.
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A 'detainee' is someone who's being held, often by the police like
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in this case, and a 'white knight' is what we're looking at. Now,
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Knight. We all know a knight from myths and fiction - the person
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on a horse with the armour and the sword.
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Saving people.
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Is that what we're talking about?
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Yeah, kind of, that is a knight.
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So, we're looking at 'white knights'.
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It's a fictional, literary character that can be a person or a thing.
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And it rescues or helps people, and
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importantly, a white knight can also be someone that gives financial help.
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OK. So, we have the literal knight on the horse with the armour
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and we've got the metaphorical 'white knight' -
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helping people, helping companies financially.
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Why is the headline calling Sam Bankman-Fried a white knight?
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Well, before the collapse of FTX,
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he said that he was going to give money to fund science and help others.
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He also had a lot of respect from people in the financial world.
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So, people thought he was going to be really helpful to society
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Is this expression -
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'white knight' - is it used very often in an average conversation?
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No, not really.
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So, if someone helps you,
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you're more likely to call them 'helpful', or you might say they are 'generous',
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but we do hear 'white knight' in fictional stories and in headlines.
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OK, let's look at that again.
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We've had 'file' -
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make something official by law.
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'Rise and fall' - something does
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well, and then does badly'. And 'white knight' - someone
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or something that helps others.
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Don't forget there's a quiz on our website at bbclearningenglish.com.
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Thank you for joining us, and goodbye. Bye.
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