Talk:Ben Delo

Non-neutral editing
In recent weeks, two different IP accounts have removed good faith edits to this article in what appears to be an attempt to remove content that may appear negative and add positive content. I appeal to the editor or editors to create a Wikipedia account where it will be easier to reach a consensus for the content of this article. I also appeal for that editor or editors to read the policy on biographical articles at WP:BLP Seaweed (talk) 19:23, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

COI requests March 2023
Could these changes be considered? Thank you! Forrestal962 (talk) 22:20, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: need to adjust requests for accuracy, temporarily removing. Sorry for any confusion. Forrestal962 (talk) 01:38, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Just added back, it should be more clear now. Forrestal962 (talk) 22:42, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Request 1 - The Times
Could this detail ( "In 2018 The Times in incorrectly reported that Delo had been included in the Sunday Times Rich List for that year following ruling by Independent Press Standards Organisation." ) be altered? It currently seems to be an un-encyclopedic synthesis of two unrelated sources (Times in 2018 & 2020 IPSO complaint), and also without context.

For context, could this detail be added to the front of the sentence, to clarify his billionaire status in 2018 wasn't incorrectly reported, only his inclusion in the list?


 * In 2018, The Times reported that Delo was the United Kingdom's youngest self-made billionaire. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/wheres-wallet-can-you-spot-ben-delo-the-uks-first-bitcoin-billionaire-llp2fk2rt

About the rest, I would like to request the retraction detail be removed entirely (for being a bit silly and trivial I think, and also for being sourced from a government complaint entry instead of a newspaper article). It also appears to be in error as is, since the IPSO complaint details the 2020 article "Bitcoin tycoon’s £5m gift gives Oxford the jitters" as the one with the redaction, not the 2018 article actually linked and referenced right now. Also, the IPSO article notes that the 2020 redaction was done preemptively by The Times before the IPSO complaint was filed in 2020 for other reasons.

But if the responder feels the info should stay, have it at least rewritten for clarity and accuracy?


 * In 2018, The Times reported that Delo was the United Kingdom's youngest self-made billionaire. As noted in a 2020 IPSO complaint, The Times removed a reference that he had been included in the 2018 Sunday Times Rich List.

Request 2 - Descriptors

 * Could "philanthropist" be added to the infobox's "occupation" row to better reflect the page?
 * Also, could "philanthropist" be added to the descriptors in the page's first sentence?
 * Could "mathematician" also be added to the lead sentence (it's already in the infobox)? Concerning whether to use "former," note that he has fairly recently published work in mathematics (source).

Request 3 - Mersenne Prime
I'm sorry there aren't many newspaper sources, but could it be mentioned he's associated with the GIMPS project? Maybe this could be added?
 * Delo is associated with Mersenne.org and the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, a collaborative internet project to find Mersenne prime numbers.


 * Thank you! Forrestal962 (talk) 22:42, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done PK650 (talk) 00:53, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

April 2023 requests
Could these requests be considered? Forrestal962 (talk) 18:13, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Plurality of violations
In the lead paragraph, can "pled guilty to United States Bank Secrecy Act violations" be modified to "pled guilty to a single United States Bank Secrecy Act violation"? As to the reason why, the Justice Department doc used as reference lower on the page states that "Hayes... and Delo... pled guilty to one count each of violating the Bank Secrecy Act." The CFTC doc also linked on the page describes it as a single count as well, making the plural violations inaccurate.

With the same rationale, could the wording be changed in the lower part of the page from "Delo and his BitMEX cofounder had pled guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations" to "Delo and his BitMEX cofounder had pled guilty to one Bank Secrecy Act violation each"?

Inaccurate sentence in lead
In the lead paragraph, can "and a $10m fine." be removed? To explain, the civil monetary penalty was unrelated to the Bank Secrecy Act violation, occurring as part of a separate civil case a month earlier (see the Bank Secrecy Act violations section). Being even a little inaccurate like it is and a sensitive detail, it would be preferable to have it promptly removed per WP:BLPREMOVE and also maybe per WP:BALANCE (in the latter case, as a temporary means of balancing the page, since so much of both the lead and page body right now are so focused on the legal matters at the moment, comparative to general career stuff or inventions/cultural impact).
 * Yes check.svg Done With a few minor copyedits — SamX &#91;talk · contribs · he/him&#93; 04:34, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much ^_^ Forrestal962 (talk) 14:32, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Request May 2023
Thank you for responding to the prior requests, I appreciate the attention to the matter. I had two more I was hoping to have considered by the community as well as well. Forrestal962 (talk) 14:36, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

New content
Possible to add new content?

In April 2023, Delo funded a scholarship program at The International School for Government at King’s College London, which provides Commonwealth civil servants with access to accredited post-graduate courses on policymaking and governance.

Delo has been credited with inventing the perpetual swap in 2016, which has become "hugely popular in the highly parochial world of crypto trading due to the way it allows speculators to take synthetic positions that avoid the risk, cost and friction associated with having to move or manage actual cryptocurrency." In August 2022, Izabella Kaminska at Bloomberg described Delo as "the BitMEX co-founder most responsible for the perpetual swap’s invention."

Bank Secrecy Act Violations Heading
Concerning the "Bank Secrecy Act violations" section, the heading is loaded in connotation, inaccurate in that it uses the plural for violations instead of the singular (see prior request), and also it seems to violate WP:CSECTION, which recommends against sections entirely dedicated to controversies. Could the heading be changed perhaps to "Legal matters" please?
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: I've changed Bank Secrecy Act violations to Bank Secrecy Act violation in the header, but haven't made any other changes. The intent of WP:CSECTION is to prevent catch-all sections that function as dumping grounds for negative aspects of an article's topic. Per the policy page, titles should simply name the event, for example, "2009 boycott" or "Hunting incident". For example, the article Prince Andrew, Duke of York has an entire section titled Allegations of sexual abuse. Since the primary focus of the section in question is Delo's Bank Secrecy Act violation, the section title is perfectly acceptable. If he were to become involved in an unrelated legal issue such as a lawsuit or separate criminal charge, Legal issues would be a more appropriate section title.
 * I haven't added the new content (for the time being) because of sourcing issues. The source you provided for the KCL scholarship is self-published by the King's College of London, and therefore would not be considered reliable. If you can find an independent, reliable source that covers the scholarship, such as an article in The Wall Street Journal, I'd be happy to add it. The source you've provided for the claim that Delo invented the perpetual swap is an opinion piece, and is therefore subject to WP:RSOPINION. Indeed, the article perpetual futures attributes their invention to Robert Shiller. Given this, the claim that Delo invented perpetual futures seems tenuous at best. If you can find a reliable source that details innovations he made with that practice, then it would be suitable for inclusion in the article. SamX (talk) 04:32, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Response
Thanks for getting to the requests! Your arguments make sense, I apologize if I misinterpret one in some way, but in terms of improving the edits:

1) I understand wanting a better source for the philanthropy detail, but third-party news is lacking. Since this press release from King's College London is from the horse's mouth, however, could it not be used to source basic facts according to WP:PRIMARY, for having been reputably published by an accredited university? Also, this is from a local publication of repute:, and this is a reputable government mouthpiece (I know via blog format, but solid proof I would think that the program exists beyond press content):

2) Concerning the CSECTION argument, there are actually multiple cases in that section: the first section is a civil case, and the second is a criminal case, so "Legal matters" would be superb, if that could be added in as the new title. Thanks!

I was trying to think of other ways to balance the page and maybe help with WP:UNDUE, since the heading and content still leaves a lot of focus on the violation overall, though. But even as a subsection of history with a completely neutral title like a date, the paragraph would still take up a lot of space. Maybe consider doing that anyways for now, and delete the heading and just move into "History," the text itself unchanged?

3) About the Perpetual futures detail, I suppose I just took the op-ed writer at face value because of the author looking very reputable (it looks like Miss Izabella Kaminska was a long-term editor at the Financial Times, and was editor of their Alphaville paper), and didn't look at the perpetual futures page itself. Does the reputation of the writer give the op-ed any more weight, I wonder? Or maybe according to WP:RSOPINION, it would need to be reworded to clearly be Miss Kaminska's sole opinion? Also, Bloomberg here refers as the creator as Delo's company BitMex. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-25/end-of-risk-free-returns-leads-to-bitcoin-perpetuals-dominance

Forrestal962 (talk) 23:17, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Sry forgot to do the ping: 22:38, 23 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi, just following up on your talk page message. I agree with your caveat about WP:PRIMARY, however the fact is that the statement may not be notable in the first place, unless independent sourcing is provided that establishes this. I have changed the subsection to legal matters as per your interpretation. As for the paragraph on the index, I think deleting your first suggested sentence makes the paragraph better reflect the source. Best, PK650 (talk) 07:23, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Returning to the lawsuits section
There is a long-term disagreement on how to title the lawsuits section on the Ben Delo page.

For history, an editor changed the title "Legal problems" to "Money laundering conviction" on February 27, 2024, arguing they were "renaming a euphamsitic (sic) heading" (diff). This undid an earlier change (diff) from July 2023, where after discussion on the matter, an editor partially implemented a request I'd made to change "Bank Secrecy Act violation" to "Legal matters."

After that discussion, on September 3, 2023, a different editor changed "Legal Matters" to "Legal problems" (diff), I suppose to add a more negative tone. I disagreed with this edit but didn't find it odd enough to make a fuss.

This most recent change, though, to "Money laundering conviction," I disagree with on several levels. I respect that the editor has been involved with the page a long time, and that they clearly disagree with using a milder synonym in the title than "convictions". However, I would appreciate a third opinion to help find a compromise. My problems with the edit specifically:

1) "Conviction" is arguably a strained interpretation of the source material

The word "conviction" isn't used once in the BLP's text, and also isn't used in any of the references (including the triumphant gvmt press releases), so its use to me smells of synthesis or implying a conclusion not stated by the sources. "Conviction" is typically used for a verdict handed down by a judge or jury, but in this case, Delo accepted a plea deal and pled guilty to one charge before any verdict was reached, with the other charges dropped. "Admission of guilt" and "conviction" are not interchangeable synonyms in this case, though, because as noted in the government press release (see bottom of link), the charge Delo admitted to was still being treated as an allegation in regard to related cases, hence "As to HAYES’ and DELO’s co-defendants, the entirety of the text of the Indictment, and the description of the Indictment set forth herein, constitute only allegations, and every fact described should be treated as an allegation."

In conclusion, in plea bargain cases like this, I feel "pled guilty" is far more accurate than "conviction," even if the two are sometimes mixed up in common vernacular.

2) Heading is not even close to as neutral as possible

Splitting hairs on legal terminology aside, I disagree that "convictions" is the least-loaded option for the heading, per WP:BLPSTYLE (which recommends "do not label people with contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision, unless a person is commonly described that way in reliable sources.") As is, "convictions" is the first eye-catching title that pops out of the navigation box, likely leading readers to go in with negative preconceptions before they've even read the page.

3) Plurality again

Plurality has been discussed a few times for this section before, with a major conclusion from that discussion being that there are actually two separate cases being discussed, with only one resulting in a guilty plea (see Reuters).

As such, focusing on just that 'one' outcome (i.e. "Conviction," "guilty plea," "fine," etc.) means the title does a poor job encapsulating the section at large. Hence, a title that encapsulates the full chain of legal events ("Legal matters," "Legal issues," something like that) would be much more useful and less misleading to readers.

Thanks for your time and opinion, Forrestal962 (talk) 02:00, 7 April 2024 (UTC)


 * It seems like the primary issue here is with the word "convictions". Maybe we could just take that out, so that the title of the section is simply "Money laundering"? Gbear605 (talk) 02:16, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hmm. "Money laundering" I feel wouldn't encapsulate the section either. There was more nuance to the cases than just money laundering, with a lot of impact on the legal world of crypto at the time; and just saying "money laundering" I personally feel gives the impression that he is a professional money launderer, not a crypto guy navigating murky legal territory with the SEC. My two cents at least. Forrestal962 (talk) 02:31, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * "Willful failure in anti-money laundering" is probably the most accurate description - he pled guilty "to violating the Bank Secrecy Act (the “BSA”) by willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an anti-money laundering (“AML”) program at BitMEX" per the government press release - but a bit of a mouthful. I'm not sure how to make it any shorter without losing a key part of it though, and a somewhat length section header is fine. Gbear605 (talk) 02:45, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Gbear605 It appears that the previous discussion mentioned connotations, but I still don't see the issue with "Bank Secrecy Act violation", if that's what he pled guilty to. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 07:05, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I very much appreciate the input so far. On my end, I think 'Bank Secrecy Act violation' is an improvement on Seaweed's switch, since it's more specific - but I dislike that it would also roll back an earlier discussion about that same heading running amiss of WP:CSECTION, which basically says don't create sections just on controversies or critical content. To clarify, I don't think this section's prose is a CSECTION violation, since it covers at least the bare minimum of nuance - but focusing the heading on just the negative end result I do think runs amiss of CSECTION and the guidelines I linked earlier, and also doesn't really encapsulate the two lawsuits involved. I suppose that means my vote would be for reverting to "Legal issues" or "Legal problems," at this point. Other broader options like "SEC cases" seem unconventional for a standalone umbrella heading, even if it might be fine for a subheading if the section were larger. Forrestal962 (talk) 01:59, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't think that "Bank Secrecy Act violation" runs afoul of CSECTION. CSECTION is more about not having a section dedicated to just criticizing the topic of the article, but it rather encourages grouping of sections based on individual events and having section titles specific to the events. In this case, the whole section is about the same event, so grouping it together makes sense. I think having a generic "legal issues" section would actually run afoul of CSECTION (since "legal issues" just seems like a slightly more specific way to say "controversies"). Gbear605 (talk) 02:33, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, I didn't see it that way originally, but your point about 'legal issues' being its own CSECTION violation does make sense. I wonder if "SEC cases" would actually work, thinking about it. No negative connotation, covers the plurality issue, just as specific more or less as your recommendation? I wonder if Seaweed would find it to be acceptable as well. Forrestal962 (talk) 03:36, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Would you mind explaining the separate cases better to me? Reading the section right now, it looks like there was just one case, to which Delo originally plead not-guilty and then plead guilty. I think that we need to explain this better in the section, especially if the section title is changed to be a plural. Gbear605 (talk) 03:41, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The prose does a poor job explaining it, sorry I should have clarified; but my understanding is the fine was for the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission: source from May 5, 2022), while a US Attorney's Office indictment was parallel (source reads "Concurrent with the filing of the CFTC complaint, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York indicted Hayes, Delo, Reed, and one other individual on charges of willfully causing BitMEX to violate the Bank Secrecy Act and conspiracy to commit that same offense."). Either way, I was obviously ignorant of the exact government institutions involved, so "SEC cases" completely doesn't work. And I doubt switching to "CFTC and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York cases" serves readers, so I'm back to the drawing board. Wondering if "Legal cases" would be meaningfully less loaded than "Legal issues." Oh, and agree on modifying the prose for clarity, but would prefer a non-COI editor do it independently. Forrestal962 (talk) 04:31, 9 April 2024 (UTC)