Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by nunez » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 4:04 AM UTC

vba616 wrote: post #150

woodruffw wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, that's a good point. I guess the most boring bank possible would probably be something like Chase. That being said, it looks like we average around 4 regional bank failures a year in the US. There are a little under 5000 banks in the US, almost all of which are regional, so that leaves a 0.08% chance that any particular one of them will fail (all things being equal, which they probably aren't).

>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…

chase definitely absolutely cares about consumer banking, and they are leagues above most credit unions

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

#192

Post by Asparagirl » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 4:08 AM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #106

arcticbull wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you're right, however, do you have a source on how much has been lost in the last 89 years? I've had a lot of trouble finding anything more than that one bank that had $30M in assets losing $500K in total one time in Texas in the last 5 years.

The failure of IndyMac is the poster-child of the modern era - losses on uninsured deposits were certainly into the multiple hundreds of millions; it's really that case which prompted the increase of the FDIC insurance limit.

Yup. About 10,000 people (well, 10,000 depositors, some of which were actually companies or trusts or things like that, not all people) lost more than $270 million in total uninsured funds that were over the FDIC limits in the IndyMac collapse.

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

#193

Post by nunez » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 4:15 AM UTC

marcell wrote: post #28

Animats wrote: post #23

Another one? Tether is looking stressed. In the last three months, a lot of Tether has been cashed out. Look at the chart for Market Cap -> Last 3 months.[1] From US$82 billion to US$66 billion. Today, US$200 million was cashed out. Every few days, their market cap drops suddenly. At this rate, in a few months we'll find out how much backing Tether really has, because it is being paid out. Stablecoins have two stable…

Tether's market cap dropping without a price drop is indication that they are liquid and able to handle (to date) almost $20 billion in withdrawal over a 1 month period. That is impressive and a sign of their robustness. They are passing a stress test so far. Their blog counters much of the FUD out there: https://tether.to/en/news/

why?

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

#194

Post by roywiggins » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 4:34 AM UTC

atwood22 wrote: post #188

roywiggins wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like it would be pretty binary. That is, withdrawals would be orderly... until they are suddenly not . It's not very good evidence for the state of their backing now . Maybe they've chewed through all their liquid assets and will explode tomorrow, maybe not. That is, withdrawals wouldn't shake the Tether price at all until someone is told "no you can't withdraw today" and decides to sell their Tethers on the…

Yes, it’s possible that Tether is suddenly unable to be exchanged for dollars, but it’s pretty impressive they’ve been able to handle a sudden outflow of 20B. They’ve certainly proven their most harsh critics wrong, but there is still risk of course.

I dunno, if I put $80 of cash into a black box and pull out $20, that doesn't tell you that much about the remaining $60, just that the box wasn't secretly a paper shredder the whole time. Which is great news for the lucky early redeemer. Not much use to later redeemers though, if it turns out that the remainder was eaten by hungry rodents.

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

#195

Post by aenis » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 4:56 AM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #125

propogandist wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they have committed to being audited by a Top 12 accounting firm, which is laughable https://twitter.com/WatcherGuru/status/1538815060298063873

Their audit has been forthcoming for over 5 years at this point. I wouldn't hold my breath. (Also note that attestation ≠ audit.)

One only needs to look at the "signature" under the attestation doc to know its fraud.

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

#196

Post by kragen » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 4:59 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #179

kragen wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Series I bonds are not available to the 95% of people that aren't US citizens, residents, or employees; they're nontransferable, and that's who the Treasury sells them to. See https://savingsbonds.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds/res_i....

The government here also indexed a lot of things to inflation: pensions, certain bonds, etc. So when they couldn't pay their debts about 20 years ago they started falsifying the official inflation rate. Poof, no more problem! What do you think the US government will do with I bonds if it's insolvent? It'll default, sneakily or openly.

You can't reduce the risks of systemic failure by centralizing harder. To manage risk you need to diversify, not double down.

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

#197

Post by bastawhiz » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 5:02 AM UTC

323 wrote: post #155

uncletammy wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At this rate, in a few months we'll find out how much backing Tether really has, because it is being paid out. As someone who's been watching Tether since it's inception, I say don't count on it. They've managed to continuously escape the consequences of running a dangerous fractional reserve system. The main beneficiaries of this system are now companies with incredibly deep pockets who aren't afraid of deploying…

Have you ever considered for a nano-second the alternative that they actually might have the reserves to back it all up?

Based on what evidence besides their word? There's been innumerable investigations and analyses which, while not 100% conclusive, raise mountains of evidence to the contrary. And they've already been caught lying with Bitfinex.

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

#198

Post by BoiledCabbage » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 5:16 AM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #92

woodruffw wrote: post #63

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?

First, it's a bit of a distraction OP's point was that they want a bank to be a bank - not that smaller banks are better than larger banks. They just happen to use a smaller bank.

Second, there are over 4,000 banks in the US. The fact that fewer than 0.1% fail per year is actually a really strong argument on how much safer banks are.

And finally that those few that did fail were insured by the US govt is the icing on the cake.

None of this was true for crypto over the past few years.

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

#199

Post by chii » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 6:01 AM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #85

ansible wrote: post #4

I sometimes wonder if I'm the only one who just wants a bank to be a bank. I've been with the same relatively small regional bank for 30 years. I have a checking account, savings account and that's it. They've been stable this entire time, and I've never worried my money was going to disappear. As another sign of being an old man, I'm old enough to remember the phrase "as safe as money in the bank". You see, when I w…

If we get interest rates back up to better levels (IMHO 6 to 7 percent mortgages) they might even be able to pay interest on savings without selling loans! Unfortunately lowering rates is used to "fix" the economy. This is a failed strategy.

> they might even be able to pay interest on savings without selling loans!

loans are the source of revenue. Selling more of it is the goal of a bank.

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

#200

Post by chii » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 6:04 AM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #56

barnbuilder wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may feel like your accounts are stable and nothing is disappearing but by CPI inflation calculations ( https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm ), any money you had in that account 30 years ago has lost half its buying power. If you want to keep the money that you have worked for over the long term, your checking and savings account are not going to cut it.

Half in 30 years? That’s pretty good! Ethereum fell by that much in a couple weeks. On the way up in a bull market it’s all roses, but in a bear market, these things can crash hard. Money losing value gradually — Demurrage — makes people actually spend money rather than hoard it. If you want the money to earn interest, you will have to take some risk. Invest in some assets. Usually, stocks or real estate or (finally…

> he only way everyone can pay back more money than is in existence is if the money supply is increased in the meantime. So inflation happens.

or the lent money is used to produce more goods and services, which the increased money supply would represent (otherwise, you'd get deflation, which discourages spending, and spiral downwards towards depression).