not your keys, not your coins
Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards
21–30 of 245 posts
Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards
#22I 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…
Aren't retail and investment banking separate spaces? Aren't depository accounts insured to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars by the FDIC? Isn't Voyager a crypto exchange? I tend to keep my money in local credit unions as well, but I'm struggling to understand how this discussion is germane to Voyager's actions here. EDIT: See https://www.investvoyager.com/blog/voyager-is-now-fdic-insur...
Because Voyager has tried to position itself as a crypto-based alternative to banking. From the front page:
> Build your wealth
> Earn up to 12% annual rewards. Beat your bank by earning top rewards each month on 39 digital assets with no lockups.
They explicitly touted their benefits over using a traditional bank before they issued this notice. They also issued debit cards that they are now deactivating.
Fundamentally, crypto has staked its future on replacing the banking system, citing various issues with the Fed, etc. But the regulatory environment in banking (the FDIC) creates a much more stable environment in which to transact than these platforms do.
Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards
#23Another 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 values: 1 and 0.
Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards
#24I 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…
You probably also remember when bank buildings were designed to look like historic buildings, in order to foster a sense of trust and permanence. Today, banks look like coffee shops and low-rent cell phone stores.
Or like car dealerships, with all those little glass offices.
Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards
#25I saw this on their site: > FDIC INSURED ON USD $250,000 > You USD is held by our banking partner, Metropolitan Commercial Bank, which is FDIC insured, so the cash you hold with Voyager is protected. So does that mean anyone with less than $250k is guaranteed their money? Is there any legal backing?
Voyager Wallet
You can transfer assets from an external wallet to your Voyager account/wallet. Like Coinbase, the account wallet is not yours (i.e., not your keys, not your coin). If Voyager wants to freeze your account, along with any assets in it, they can. And there isn’t much you can do about it.
No, you're fucked. It used to take up to 2 days to transfer it out of Voyager, before everyone (not a whale) was completely fucked.
Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards
#26I saw this on their site: > FDIC INSURED ON USD $250,000 > You USD is held by our banking partner, Metropolitan Commercial Bank, which is FDIC insured, so the cash you hold with Voyager is protected. So does that mean anyone with less than $250k is guaranteed their money? Is there any legal backing?
Seems like a marketing spin to lure customers into a false sense of security. From the fine print in the user agreement:
"Cash in the Account is insured up to $250,000 per depositor by the FDIC in the event the Bank fails if specific insurance deposit requirements are met. FDIC insurance does not protect against the failure of Voyager or any Custodian (as defined below) or malfeasance by any Voyager or Custodian employee."
Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Leach%E2%80%93Bl... >the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999...repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, removing barriers in the market among banking companies, securities companies, and insurance companies that prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company FDIC insurance end…
> especially in the modern era of 0% reserve requirements They’ve been replaced with capital requirements, which make a lot more sense in modern finance than reserve requirements.
What's the current state of those capital requirements in US banks?
Is this the latest requirement? https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/bcre...
(4.5%)
And how do banks actually measure up to this minimum?
Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards
#28Another 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/
Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards
#29I 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…
Voyager may have marketed itself as a bank of some form, but it was never a bank.
Re: Voyager suspends trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards
#30Earlier 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?
Once someone sends their bitcoin or "crypto" to a lending platform, they no longer own this asset. What they now have is an IOU for that asset that the platform may be unwilling or unable to fulfill in the future, as appears to be the case with Voyager and numerous others before it.