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Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards

investvoyager.com

171–180 of 245 posts

Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards

#171

I guess everyone's strategy in the crypto space is put everything you have on bitcoin and hope it goes up. It's a really good strategy, when it works.

It's like they all thought that because they had magic money they could avoid not only the trappings of traditional financial markets, but all the laws of economics.

Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't "launching coins in a desperate attempt", it's providing stablecoins in the FIAT currency that the market would want - in this case one of the world's most popular currencies.

Do they make money from this? Yes or no.

Yes: from creation and redemption fees, and interest on the float, which is gradually getting higher.

Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USDC is supposedly USD backed, so a reasonable person would presume someone who advertises FDIC insurance of cash would assume the USDC underlying USD is backed by FDIC. That is not how FDIC insurance works. If you don't hold USD, you don't enjoy any FDIC insurance, period. Not your USD, not your insurance. > If they meant only some of the cash (non USDC backed) was insured they should have said that. Judging from…

>That is not how FDIC insurance works. Agreed but I'd say this was misrepresented as they say USD is backed by FDIC. See below. >If you don't hold USD, you don't enjoy any FDIC insurance, period. Not your USD, not your insurance. USDC is USD backed, so one would conclude you actually do "hold" USD through the USDC security. Thus you are tricked into believing you have FDIC insurance on the USD secured by the USDC. "p…

> USDC is USD backed, so one would conclude you actually do "hold" USD through the USDC security.

I mean, I can see the thought pattern behind this, but it's wrong. No court will uphold this interpretation. You don't hold the USD, you hold USDC, so absent the USDC financial instrument itself having contractual obligations (which it doesn't), the underlying assets matters not one whit.

> It's pretty evident to me here there was a slight of hand here that was intentional. The wording was intentional chosen to weasel out of the FDIC backing while leading the customer on to believe it is FDIC backed.

Oh, I'm certain the misleading was intentional. But that doesn't mean it was fradulent. At no point did they make a false statement--instead, you made an incorrect inference. You might have a cognizable false advertising claim, but nothing I've seen would lead me to conclude that a fraud claim could be upheld.

Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people getting wiped out by the collapse of Voyager, Celsius, etc. were not putting their money on bitcoin. They were giving it to a custodian who thought they could beat bitcoin by investing in altcoins (or lending to those who do so). This is definitely not "everyone's strategy"; plenty of us bitcoiners have been warning against this sort of irresponsible activity for a long time.

What's irresponsible about that compared to just parking it in BTC?

BTC isn’t a security. “Crypto” securities are much riskier than sticking with the one cryptocurrency worthy of being called a commodity- according to Gary Gensler (SEC chair, former CFTC chair). Securities are dividend or interest bearing assets. Commodities do not give interest or dividends, it’s like holding gold or some other rock. BTC is volatile enough! “Stable” coins and other “guaranteed return but not regulated” instruments have a long history of collapsing, even before “crypto” was sprinkled on top.

Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards

#175

Were they gambling with customer funds? I don't understand how they lost crypto they were simply holding as a custodian...

They were a lender to 3 Arrows Capital, who was liquidated. These crypto exchanges are over leveraged. They make banks look like saints in risk managements.

Of course they weren’t just being custodians! Gotta chase those returns…

Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards

#176
post #134

I guess everyone's strategy in the crypto space is put everything you have on bitcoin and hope it goes up. It's a really good strategy, when it works.

Even better strategy imo is considering market caps alone. Dump money into the top x coins by market cap and the intertia will carry you. Whenever crypto dumps people say its the end, but get real. This is more speculative than the lottery for a lot of people. It will always have its lemmings and grifters pumping it back up after a dump. Just ride the tide. Buy low, wait, sell high, wait, buy low. Don't put all your…

> It will always have its lemmings and grifters pumping it back up after a dump. Just ride the tide.

I think the shoeshine boy moment might be here with bitcoin and crypto, thanks to things like the Super Bowl ads, so that strategy you stated is much riskier than it was in the past, and potential returns lower. Pumping doesn't work well when the flow of new investors ebbs.

Eventually a lot of the "investors" may need to take out money out of bitcoin into fiat to pay for necessities, especially if a recession hits.

The issue is that people don't need or want to buy crypto except for speculation(other than some temporary crypto purchases for ransomware, drugs, money laundering etc.) to flip it.

Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards

#177
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I guess the most boring bank possible would probably be something like Chase A bank like Chase has all sorts of fees and minimums for a simple checking account - which a normal regional bank doesn't. What's the benefit to an a average person of banking with a subsidiary of a huge Wall Street bank? They don't even want your business. The only reason they are even offering consumer services is because of out of contro…

Far be it from me to defend Chase. I thought they might be a good example of a “more boring” bank in the sense that the GP meant. But I agree completely that, for many people, a small bank or credit union is a much better choice.

unless you want a website with a real set of useful features, a mobile app, and a cybersecurity audit dept. My grandmother uses a small local bank in Spokane, WA. its terrible to interact with them, and I constantly have to do so because their website is garbage and their mobile app is just a wrapper around their garbage website. OTOH, Bank of America has a good mobile app and informative website. I almost never need to interact with them to do what I need to.

Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pointing to the list of failed banks from the website of the government agency that insures them and makes customers whole doesn't convey as strong of a point as you might have intended.

I think it perfectly well makes the point that regional banks are much more likely to practice poor risk management and fail than larger banks. If your goal is "boring banking", having to have the FDIC come in and arrange a sale of your bank is ... not it?

> If your goal is "boring banking", having to have the FDIC come in and arrange a sale of your bank is ... not it?

It is, actually, from a customer perspective; the FDIC comes in, replaces management, and employs the staff as temporary employees of the FDIC to keep things running smoothly. For an average customer (if they're under the $250k threshold), they come in the next business day and conduct business as usual.

https://www.npr.org/2009/03/26/102384657/anatomy-of-a-bank-t...

Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards

#179
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's the worst case - however in the real world the FDIC and the OTS (Office of Thrift Supervision) does their best to ensure nobody loses any amount of money regardless of their account balance. In the case of WaMu in 2008 for instance, the OTS took possession of the bank and sold it to JPMorgan Chase. They didn't draw on the deposit insurance fund and everyone stayed whole. [1] "According to FDIC spokeswoman…

At my first tech job we stored our source code repo on a NetApp FAServer. Super reliable hardware, RAID4, built-in snapshots so users could recover their accidentally deleted files without sysadmin intervention. No developer lost a byte of their data once the NetApp was installed. Until we found out that one guy had done the wrong thing and corrupted a file a few months ago. That's how we found out our backups (made…

> Speaking of systemic failures, everybody who's had US$10k in the bank since last year (or in other dollar-denominated assets such as T-bills) has lost US$800 of it to inflation over the last year.

If that's a concern to you, put it in I Bonds; interest tracks inflation, so the current rate is 9.62%. Buy $15k a year, or $30k if you've a spouse.

Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the keyword here is "cash". Other forms of assets, namely crypto, aren't protected by FDIC insurance.

I have a hard time imagining a jury coming to the conclusion that this phrasing (still on their site) isn't intentionally misleading.

Sure, but by that time there will be 0 assets to pay out and winning a judgement against them won't help you.
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