Two days after I published my last post, the ship went down. Voyager Digital filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The bankruptcy filing revealed the extent of its indebtedness. Tragically, most of its creditors are customers, some of whom hold claims worth millions of dollars. But its largest creditor is Alameda Research, to whom it owes $75m. This is the maximum that Voyager could draw down from Alameda's credit line in a 30-day period. So it appears that Alameda did not pull its...
Read More »The sinking of Voyager
Friday was quite a day. The crypto lender BlockFi provisionally agreed a bailout deal with FTX. The hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), already in compulsory liquidation in its home territory the British Virgin Islands, filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in the United States. And the crypto broker Voyager suspended trading and withdrawals. Voyager's press release revealed a massive hole in its balance sheet. Some 58% of its loan book consists of loans to 3AC:And its loan book is...
Read More »Too Good To Be True
"USD-backed stablecoin is 10x better than your savings account," runs the headline on an unsolicited press release in my inbox yesterday. And it goes on to explain: The average interest rate for savings accounts in the US currently stands at 0.09%, with some German banks even charging negative interest rates. Universal Protocol, a coalition of leading blockchain organizations, including Uphold, Cred, Blockchain at Berkeley, and Bittrex Global, has recently introduced interest rates of 10%...
Read More »Too Good To Be True
"USD-backed stablecoin is 10x better than your savings account," runs the headline on an unsolicited press release in my inbox yesterday. And it goes on to explain: The average interest rate for savings accounts in the US currently stands at 0.09%, with some German banks even charging negative interest rates. Universal Protocol, a coalition of leading blockchain organizations, including Uphold, Cred, Blockchain at Berkeley, and Bittrex Global, has recently introduced interest rates of 10%...
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