They were clearly implying that his girlfriend father's being an economics professor was somehow a critical part of perpetuating the scam.
The people who were scammed were crypto investors who chose to put their money in an unregulated international exchange. Also many many other exchanges have also fallen apart and their parents weren't economics professors.
Give SBF the due credit and blame for what he created.
The connection is more direct than you might think.
They got millions of VC money to spend on advertising. The advertisement campaign influenced people to put money in an unregulated exchange. The fact that mainstream VCs were putting money into this thing also served somewhat as a signal that this might be legit.
The original (root level) comment actually said "surely they should be questioning the system? In particular the VC's". Did the VCs look at the bios of the founders and CEOs? I can't imagine they weren't at least slightly influenced by this. In the crypto world where a major risk would be regulation by the SEC, I can't imagine having the CEO's dad having a relevant political connection wouldn't be a substantial factor for consideration.
The people who were scammed were crypto investors who chose to put their money in an unregulated international exchange. Also many many other exchanges have also fallen apart and their parents weren't economics professors.
Give SBF the due credit and blame for what he created.