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Businesses The Almighty Buck

Crypto Broker Voyager Digital Files for Bankruptcy (protocol.com) 52

Posted by msmash from the oops-I-did-it-again dept.
Crypto broker Voyager Digital has filed for bankruptcy protection, days after suspending all trading and withdrawals on its service. From a report: Voyager announced late Tuesday that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York federal court. The company said prolonged volatility in the crypto markets and the default by Three Arrows Capital on a $666 million loan from Voyager required decisive action. "This comprehensive reorganization is the best way to protect assets on the platform and maximize value for all stakeholders, including customers," Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich said in a statement. Three Arrows, a crypto hedge fund also known as 3AC, has itself filed for bankruptcy after being ordered to liquidate by a court in the British Virgin Islands. Three Arrows had bet big on the Terra crypto ecosystem that collapsed in value in May when its stablecoin, UST, lost its peg to the dollar. The bankruptcy for Voyager comes despite Alameda Research, a crypto company run by Sam Bankman-Fried, extending two credit lines to the crypto broker: one for about $200 million and the other for about 15,000 bitcoin.
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Crypto Broker Voyager Digital Files for Bankruptcy More

Crypto Broker Voyager Digital Files for Bankruptcy

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  • Can't help that they did that NBA promotion where they gave anyone that signed up for an account $100 in BitCoin (mine is now worth like $35).

  • Hedge funds: meh, we lost a few million dollars. Have to recoup them elsewhere.
    Average crypto enthusiast: there goes my savings. Have to find a second job.

    Waiting to hear more about Venezuela and their huge betting on crypto.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      "Crypto Hedge Fund" is a contradiction in terms. As unregulated (Sorry, decentralized!) hedge funds are inherently one step away from bankruptcy at all times.

  • Quote from the header, ""This comprehensive reorganization is the best way to protect assets on the platform and maximize value for all stakeholders, including customers," Aren't customers literally at the bottom of the food chain? IRS/state tax are at the top, followed by employee paychecks, and then lenders. So that Sam guy will be most likely get his money back as I'd bet he made himself a "senior" debt. And then the other lenders will get some of their money back, and then of course lastly customers wil

    • "Aren't customers literally at the bottom of the food chain?"

      Generally, yes. Unsecured debts are second last, only ahead of shareholders. All this business about maximizing value for a stakeholders is just boilerplate nonsense spewed out during the destructive unwinding of such an entity. It's horseshit, and everybody knows it.

    • fdic! when an bank goes under you get your funds back up to X in all cases

      • This is not a bank.

      • Voyager advertised their customer accounts as being FDIC-insured. That claim is even still on their web site.

        SPOILER: they're not.

        Voyager execs are going to prison.

        • Voyager advertised their customer accounts as being FDIC-insured. That claim is even still on their web site.

          SPOILER: they're not.

          Voyager execs are going to prison.

          That FDIC-insured notice only applies if the Metropolitan Commercial Bank, the bank Voyager partnered with, goes under.

          Per https://www.mcbankny.com/fdic-coverage-available-to-voyager-customers [mcbankny.com]

          Metropolitan Commercial Bank maintains an omnibus account specifically designated for the benefit of Voyager customers. The omnibus account holds US Dollars only. It does not hold cryptocurrency or any other asset. Voyager is responsible for maintaining records to determine the ownership and amount of each of its custo

          • Their marketing material says otherwise.

            "Through our strategic relationships with our banking partners, all customers’ USD held with Voyager is now FDIC insured. That means that in the rare event your USD funds are compromised due to the company or our banking partner’s failure, you are guaranteed a full reimbursement (up to $250,000)."
            https://invest-voyager.medium.... [medium.com] ..due to the company's failure your funds are FDIC-insured...

            Here's a much better breakdown by a banking expert: https://www.co [coppolacomment.com]

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gweihir ( 88907 )

              USD you paid in, yes, because they are actually kept at MCB and your second link even quotes that these go into an account at MCB, not at Voyager. Crapcoins, no and anything else were you told Voyager to do something with your USD, no again. Sorry, all gone. Or rather, duh!, told you so.

              • MCB is not responsible for Voyager customer funds, Voyager is. Voyager customers ARE NOT customers of MCB. MCB even put out a release yesterday stating that to dispel any confusion. Zero Voyager customer dollars are FDIC-insured.

            • Sure, if you deposit US Dollars, and keep it as US Dollars, then you get FDIC coverage because those US Dollars are held in an account covered by FDIC insurance.

              As soon as you use those dollars to buy crypto, that insurance winks out of existence and you're on your own. Just like if you bought stocks through Fidelity or E-trade and the company you bought stock in goes to $0.00.

              This isn't a hard concept. FDIC does not protect speculative horseshit investments, and never has.

              • Wrong. You are not a customer of MCB, you are a customer of Voyager. MCB's FDIC insurance does not apply to you. MCB and Voyager have now made this explicitly clear, this isn't speculation or guessing. Voyager customer deposits are gone. In a few years you might get a few pennies on the dollar after all the other creditors get paid their pennies on the dollar.

                • Then they can have a fun time in court, because according to other people they had language on their web site saying that deposits were secured with FDIC insurance. That's fraud.

                  And you are absolutely correct that I am not a customer of MCB, nor am I a customer of Voyager or any other bullshit crypto money furnace. I'm working with the information presented in this discussion. I have no horse in this race, other than extracting entertainment value of watching a bunch of people that were told exactly what

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by gweihir ( 88907 )

                  Maybe have a look at the information linked. Unless https://www.coppolacomment.com... [coppolacomment.com] is directly lying, Voyager claimed that by paying depositing USD to Voyager, you did became a customer of the bank and, as long as they stayed UDS, they were with the bank and FDIC insured. There are some problems with that claim though. Now, if Voyager lied about this in their TOC, then they committed fraud. If the bank knew about this, they committed fraud as well, as a bank is required to actively deny such a claim as s

                  • Voyager's TOC can not convey any liability on MCB. MCB's statement is pretty clear that no FDIC insurance will be forthcoming as they are not at risk of failure. Voyager is. Voyager is not a bank and doesn't get to piggy-back off of MCB's FDIC insurance, that's just silly.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by gweihir ( 88907 )

                      So the excuse is essentially that Voyager was allowed to took the USD out of the MCB account? Hmm. That may actually work.

                    • It's Voyager's bank account, why wouldn't they be able to move money in or out? The point is whatever Voyager customer money is lost or missing is not MCB's (or the FDIC's) problem.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by gweihir ( 88907 )

                      On the Voyager side they would not be allowed to move money out if they do not have a buy order. Because that would be fraud. On MCB's side, sure, should be fine.

                  • By the way Frances Coppola is one of the foremost experts in bank/finance regulations and loves studying crypto. She started as a programmer in the 80's and wrote a lot of the infrastructure still used globally. Her politics suck but she knows this stuff inside out.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Well, being able to read gives you certain advantages in this world. Apparently some people are not familiar with that idea though.

            Also, who anybody could think a crapcoin scam could even get FDIC insurance is beyond me.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by splutty ( 43475 )

        FDIC protection means you have to keep to certain regulation. A "Crypto Hedge Fund" following regulations is like saying you're certain that the trenchcoated gentleman on the corner is certainly selling completely legal medicines.

      • Yeah, because FDIC covers crypto-bros all of a sudden?

        In order to be FDIC insured, you have to have a bank charter. None of these crypto dipshits have that.

  • Seems like we will need to start accumulate them in, say, a "Crapcoin scam operations collapsed today" posting.

  • All about collapsing companies and crypto . people loosing their shirts.
    the whole thing will be collapsed into a pile of dust in no time at all.

    there's no bouncing back when investor confidence is gone.
    good riddance.

    • You know what? You're right: it's almost as if this cryptocurrency thing was at best a fad, at worst a scam. Whodathunk it eh? I mean nobody could have seen that coming in a million years...

      • You know what? You're right: it's almost as if this cryptocurrency thing was at best a fad, at worst a scam. Whodathunk it eh? I mean nobody could have seen that coming in a million years...

        At least when all the crypto scams collapse there will still be NFTs to invest in! :-)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        What I did not see coming was that this would go for so long. Well, I did not before the pandemic gave me an update on the prevalence and magnitude of human stupidity.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      You keep using that word "Investor", I don't think you know what that means.

      (Yes I'm being sarcastic, but reading 'investor' in the same sentence as 'crypto coin' always makes my head hurt)

  • Good. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2022 @11:41AM (#62678496)

    I'm glad these cryptocurrency companies are going under because they produce nothing (it's literally just numbers which are purely conceptual) but waste a lot of electricity doing it.

    • Wish we could also find the pump and dump scammers who pumped Crypto beyond all reasonable expectations.

      At least a few of the promoters knowingly sold/promoted/advised people. Even if we cant jail them, we should at least claw back their ill gotten gains, to serve as a warning to the next pump and dump artists.

  • Chapter 11, IIUC, is for companies that have reasonable assets with which to pay off their creditors.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Well, they try to cam the bankruptcy court as well. So their normal modus. I somehow doubt the will get that chapter 11 protection. But filing for it lets them keep up the charade a little bit longer.

    • Chapter 11, IIUC, is for companies that have reasonable assets with which to pay off their creditors.

      Probably to muddy the waters a little bit longer to allow the connected people to get anything of value out of the company while they can. By the time this is kicked back for a Chapter 22, there will only be liabilities and the less-connected dummies will be left holding less than nothing....

      • Sorry, meant to say this will probably be kicked back for Chapter 7 (or whatever the 'liquidation' haha, chapter for this type of company may be.)

  • ...mine a few more digitals?

    ROTFLMAO! Oh, crypto's *so* much safer than government money....

  • "This comprehensive reorganization is the best way to protect assets on the platform and maximize value for all stakeholders, including customers"

    Interesting how some phrases accidentally let slip what the real priority of some companies is (Notice how "customers" is added as a afterthought).

  • Isn't this where some dipshit crypto-bro comes in and says to "buy the dip and HODL!!" or some such bullshit because they are desperate for other people's money to bail out their out-of-position speculation that paid off earlier speculators that got the fuck out when nobody was looking?

    Waiting for further dominos to tip in the coming weeks, and cause some real financial indigestion amongst the easily bilked...

  • Frankly, who cares about all those crypto scams? If anyone was idiot enough to buy into them, tough luck. Slashdot shouldn't waste a pixel on those stories. In any case they are all going to collapse; do we really need to know about every single one of them?

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