The WSJ had some great reporting on the SPV games recently and found $3 trillion in liabilities being kept off balance sheets by playing these sorts of things. However this time around it seems like most folks aren’t getting fooled.

This part is confusing a lot of people. This isn't a secret account trick that makes debt go 'poof' without any consequences.

Companies have debts, assets, and liabilities. They can't keep the assets, move the debt to another vehicle, and do it all without incurring any liabilities.

They move the GPU assets into the SPV. Their assets on the books are decreased.

In return, they get funds they can use to pay down debts, buy more assets (more GPUs), or keep on the balance sheet.

In the process, they incur liabilities because they have to continue paying the SPV to lease the GPUs.

EDIT: Since it wasn't clear, debts are a subset of liabilities. They get the debt off the book, but they trade it for a liability because they are contractually obligated to continue paying to use those GPUs. This is why "keeping the debt off the books" isn't a dramatic game-changing reveal. They're still paying.

Investors know this. Anyone who understands basic financial accounting knows this.

A lot of the shallow reporting and comments avoid discussing these tradeoffs because it feels more scandalous that way. It's not unlike when we're discussing homeowners and someone interrupts to say "Well actually, don't you know, it's the bank who owns the home!" as if that completely changes the situation.

As far as I’m aware it’s all legal, but also shady and doesn't inspire confidence. You wouldn’t be trying to obfuscate your debts if you didn’t think transparency to your investors would make you look bad

I also have DDR4 and an ancient 1080 8GB, both perform well at 1440p. I built the box months before cryptotokens went exponential in 2017 and it has carried me ever since.