A stand-up comedian could not have written the last couple of weeks in the global financial markets. But the markets have made many economic forecasters look like stand-up comedians. In the middle of all this mirth, Hindenburg thought of dropping its latest comedy special, *Block*, which is not the title of a Millennial Dating web-series on Netflix. Hindenburg is slowly beginning to look like a social media financial markets version of the shooting toy girl from Squid Games. When they made the breaking announcement about a breaking announcement, every company CEO was sweating wondering if it was the turn of his company to be roasted in this comedy special. I even went through my own finances to ensure I would not be exposed as the next fraud. That is between me and my C/A.
But eventually, like the Game of Thrones final season the ending was a somewhat tame though still explosive revelations about Block. Block formerly known as Square is co-founded by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey. However, Hindenburg is accusing him of being the Confounder along with co-founder. Perhaps, he is still confounded by what happened at Twitter after his exit. But that is a different comedy special called Elon Musk.
Block was formerly known as Square thus explaining what happens when you try to plug square CEOs into round numbers. Hindenburg has claimed to have talked to former Block employees who estimated that 40-70 per cent of accounts on Block's Cash App platform they reviewed were fake, involved in fraud, or were additional accounts tied to a single individual. Or as Indians would call it, family business. Dorsey’s wealth took a massive hit as he lost more than $500 million on Thursday. It was his Suryakumar Yadav moment. Block’s shares plunged by 15 per cent as did the length of Jack Dorsey’s beard in all this chaos.
The report also alleged that the platform has been used to facilitate criminal activities, including sex trafficking and fraud. Or as Indians would call it, election funding. It further alleged that even when the users were caught engaging in fraud or other prohibited activity, Block blacklisted the account without banning the user. This phenomenon of allowing blacklisted users was so common that rappers bragged about it in hip-hop songs. “Main nahin toh kaun be!!” screamed Shrusti4lyf_365 physically beating up another rapper from Dogri chawl on Twitter.
There are also accusations that the fraud was used to drive up the stock value in 2020 wherein Jack Dorsey and many senior execs dumped their stock at billion-dollar valuations. One of these executives was Indian-origin finance chief Amrita Ahuja. After Raj Rajaratnam, Rajat Sharma, Vijaya Gadde, Amrita follows in the footsteps of illustrious Indian origin alumni who have featured in the scandals section of Financial Times, also known as the Economic Times. One would almost expect an Indian coaching institution to steal their senate investigation photos and palm them off as students who have been killing it abroad as well.
Hindenburg research has short positions in Block taken before launching this attack. That’s a bit like taking out a giant life insurance policy on your spouse just before they accidentally fall off a hotel window, like Russian businessmen. However, Hindenburg has proven to be right on some occasions with Nikola CEO actually facing criminal charges. Hindenburg is like that Indian parent who invariably turns out to be right about how useless your friends are. I am thinking about taking short positions in some of my friends and informing Hindenburg about their less than friendly activities. So, this column is now like a chain mail. Share this article with at least 10 other friends by the end of the day or else you may end up featuring in the next one.
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