This is not correct. They used those bitcoins to try to defend the peg. Here you can see the actual treasury: https://datastudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/b31cc9e5-c54c-44...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31431915
-"15% interest. No surprises."
The company is Stablegains, Inc. and the people to name are Kamil Ryszkowski and Emil Rasmessen, co-founders and, I think, Board members. Copy Ken Paxton, Office of the Attorney General, P. O. Box 12548, Austin, Texas as well as his challenger George P. Bush at P. O. Box 26677, also in Austin. (Stablegains and its founders are in Texas. They are spearheading the criminal complaint.)
Feb. 2, 2022 [1]: "Stablegains' 15% APY is earned using Anchor Protocol, a decentralized lending market."
This is in a giant blue block right above a "get started" link. There is no mention of anything other than Anchor being used to store investor funds.
It seems to me that you are trying to twist the post-crash retrospective into a marketing statement that didn't simply exist before the crash. Where, exactly, is the lie?
[1]: http://web.archive.org/web/20220203225905/https://stablegain...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Paxton#State_securities_fr...
These guys discuss some details (that were known as of this publish date). It closely resembles the 'attack' on GBP in the 90's by a billionaire.
While they're not exactly forthcoming with the risks, their marketing pages[1] were also careful to not make any explicit claims of safety (eg. "your principal is protected", or "you won't lose money"). The most that they claimed were "stable" returns. For good measure there's also a disclaimer mentioning the risks.
>There is a range of safeguards in place to help secure your deposits, however holding and depositing stablecoins with Stablegains and third party lending platforms still carries significant risk. Please carefully read our Terms of Use and Risk disclosures in our Learning Center before making a deposit. Any deposit with Stablegains and third party lending platforms is entirely your responsibility. You understand that your principal is at risk.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220108232821/https://www.stabl...
https://twitter.com/stablegains/status/1523874916206059525
https://web.archive.org/web/20220510035811/https://twitter.c...
- "You will not lose your funds because all loans are 100% asset-backed." (https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680425...)
- "Regardless if crypto markets are soaring or crashing, the value of assets under our management remains stable." (https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402687671...)
It's kind of shocking really that these statements are still up give how many of their other docs have been editted in the last 10 days.
---
Edit: u/ushakov is the hero of the hour for archiving those pages (https://archive.ph/O2lZV, https://archive.ph/ItERp)
These are both explicit examples of explicit claims of safety that are still up on their documentation (at least as of 5 minutes ago)
- "You will not lose your funds because all loans are 100% asset-backed." (https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680425...)
- "Regardless if crypto markets are soaring or crashing, the value of assets under our management remains stable." (https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402687671...)
Edit: Updating link to fix truncated urls
See [1]. If you sell a deposit-like product by saying "you will not lose your funds," and then lose the funds, you go to jail. (First you lose your money.)
>The basis for Stablegains' rate is Anchor Protocol's yield. At the time of writing, Anchor yield is set at 18% - 20% APY and expected to remain so for a long time.
>We expect the rates of open finance protocols to beat those of traditional finance for a very long time.
https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680471...
This is correct. While looking into this for a friend I came across: "for a full year, you'll earn 0.5% APY on what each person you refer deposits" [1]. Still not a pyramid scheme, since 0.5% is a small fraction of the total yield paid out, but pyramidesque.
[1] https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409440197...
As a result of the ICO scams in 2017 for example the infamous Ethereum DAO hack, perhaps that is why at least in the US, the SEC banned unregistered ICOs [0]; more countries to follow.
They have done 'something' about it, but it is not going to 'completely' stop otherwise they would have 'totally' banned all of them, including even registering an ICO with the SEC.
I won't be surprised to see stable-coin regulations this year with only a few of them still surviving.
[0] https://www.whitecase.com/publications/alert/regulation-init...
either the investors didn’t do enough research or they were on it
https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/04/11/web3-a-vc-fu...
Everyone pour one out for u/ushakov, hero of the hour: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31462674
https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680425...
https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402687671...
Stablegains, by their own admission, only invested in stablecoins: https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402687671...
> We do not engage in speculation on the prices of volatile cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ether. We only offer deposits in stablecoins whose value is pegged to one dollar.
> Regardless if crypto markets are soaring or crashing, the value of assets under our management remains stable.
This is hypocritical on its face. You can't have any returns if the assets are stable!
Sure, YC can do whatever they want with its money, but we can all be very disappointed and sad that VC funds are engaging with any of this. YC has been slowly been losing their image for years now, along with the other VC firms, and this just cements it for me.
There is enough information in a ten or 20% yield to come to a conclusion. That doesn't stop unsophisticated investors from getting screwed.
When they do so because they bought magic beans, I have no sympathy. When are lied to and sold deposit-like products [1], it's infuriating.
[1] https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680375...
The whole Terra saga was a typical example of speculative bubble. Everyone knew it was risky, but its sheer size and the caliber of people endorsing it (https://twitter.com/novogratz/status/1478535972560195585) was providing an aura of safety. Too big to fail.
It's also similar to the stock market as a whole before it started correcting. Everyone knew valuations were detached from every fundamental except liquidity, yet everyone went along thinking the music just had to keep going.
They transfered 52,189 BTC between May 7th (When UST dipped to $0.9978, indicating the algo peg was under stress) and the 10th, and another 33,206 when UST hit $0.75. After the insiders were paid off, Terra was free to go to zero.
Presumably we'll only find out what actually happened when Do Kwon is in jail and people start testifying against each other in return for lighter sentences.
> Our main stablecoin is USDC (USD Coin). For every 1 USDC in supply, $1 USD is kept in reserve.
> The other stablecoins we may use are, UST (Terra USD) and DAI.
I'm beginning to agree.
Piercing the corporate veil is reserved for "serious misconduct" [1]. If you're told someone will sell an unlicensed deposit-like product [2], promise depositors (their words) "will not lose [their] funds" [3] and pay a ten or 20% interest rate, and you give them money to do it, you aided and abetted fraud. (At the very least you were grossly negligent with your LPs' money.) You should have to make the people you scammed and hoped to profit off whole.
[1]https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/piercing_the_corporate_veil
[2] https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680375...
[3] https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680425...
[a] Thank you nrmitch https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31462617
"Insane" is subjective. The point is nothing safe yields ten or 20%. Someone saying "you will not lose your funds" [1] when paying above-market yields is lying.
[1] https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680425...
https://web.archive.org/web/20130411113418/https://www.bitfi...
Physics is a science. Math is. Or Biology. Finance is not. Because it deals with the madness of crowds.
> Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street
> And Li's Gaussian copula formula will go down in history as instrumental in causing the unfathomable losses that brought the world financial system to its knees.
> Nassim Nicholas Taleb is particularly harsh when it comes to the copula. "People got very excited about the Gaussian copula because of its mathematical elegance, but the thing never worked," he says. "Co-association between securities is not measurable using correlation," because past history can never prepare you for that one day when everything goes south. "Anything that relies on correlation is charlatanism."
It's not just social media and it is somewhat disingenuous to dismiss the idea that finance, specially specially international finance, does not have (some form of) power [that actually trumps and transcends political power].
This is a somewhat interesting film that I was watching the other day. It's mere existence addresses the first bit -- that perception is certainly not limited to "social media". And of course the film itself is about a super secret gathering of G8 ministers where they struggle with the decision to put in place some (undisclosed) policy change that they all know will have very drastic consequences for the global average joe.
The Confessions (2016): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4647784
“Gold has two major shortcomings in that it is neither of much use nor productive. While gold does have some industrial and decorative purpose, the demand for these purposes is limited and unable to absorb the amount of new gold being mined. And if you own an ounce of gold for eternity, you still end up owning an ounce.” - Buffet
https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in...
In the case of flash loans/swaps, the answer is yes. It's 0. Further, I never have any capital at risk, all of my bots use flash loans/swaps. These transactions are atomic, which means that either all parts of it succeed or they all fail (it's a "revert" in blockchain parlance). So I can borrow $200 million without any prior permission and do an arb/liquidation or anything else I want with it for the life of my transaction, with the only requirement being that I must return it by the end. If my arb/liquidation/whatever succeeds and I return the loan, I keep the profits. If not, it's as if the whole thing never happened. The only risk is the transaction fee, which on the chains I do this on are miniscule.
I realize that it sounds unbelievable, but it exists. My code does thousands of these daily. I am not the only one doing this. See https://eigenphi.io/ . With the exception of sandwich transactions, every one of the bots you see on there is making profits without any capital at risk.
They seemed to have a third kind of token, that you could get as a reward for taking a loan (or depositing UST). But I don't think that by juggling three related tokens around one can generate any value. The only source of money was from people buying any of these tokens.
The support page at Stablegains site says [1]:
> They [Digital finance protocols] are more efficient than traditional finance
I can't see how 30% interest rate overcollateralized loans are "more efficient" than traditional bank loans with rates below 10% per year.
[1] https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680375...
VC doesn’t want to get out early #386. What drives their decisions is far more complex than your pithy summary.
These are colloquial terms [1]. We might as well argue about whether Pop Tarts are ravioli or tacos sandwiches.
https://www.pionline.com/hedge-funds/renaissance-technologie...
I admit my second comment wasn’t much better, sorry.
VCs want to hold on to their successful investments as long as possible, with some limitations depending on the contracts for when LPs expect their money back. VCs obviously do not sellout their successful investment(s) as early as they could, usually they are buying into it and doubling down instead.
In some situations a VC might push to sell early: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/drive-bydeal.asp In others, they won’t, as is mentioned in that article. Perhaps if there is a good IRR they might wish to delay marking to market for as long as possible, so they can tell a story on their existing funds based on numbers that are not realistic? It really depends on the particular fund, the VC, the current market, and the specifics of each investment.
Disclaimer: I am an engineer.
I requested an ACH withdrawal at 5pm pacific on 5.23 It was processed 13 hours later at 645am on 5.24 The conversion rate I received was 0.03850612745 If you view the UST value during that window, it was worth almost twice that rate on average: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/terrausd/
https://etherscan.io/tx/0x6ae021b3bd9848ade6863820092dcf2844...
Just a warning for anyone expecting to get out with even the value of your UST...
Snarkiness, Mockery, Sarcasm are very strongly discouraged or outright “banned” depending on context. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21187460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23482110
Your “replies” are not engaging, and it feels like you are mocking me with strawman shit I never said. That is very unpleasant, and nobody likes that. You have read an awful lot into sentences where I am just trying to be factual.
You have no idea what I think about VCs morally, so why are you responding with moral points?
For example: “To assume that venture capital exists without the primary motivation and purpose of making money is misleading at best and delusional more generally”. Who are you arguing against? Who assumes what? And “delusional” is an unpleasant flamebait word.
>> I admit my second comment wasn’t much better, sorry.
> Placing venture capitalists within some special class whose reasoning or motivations are beyond the understanding of most people is where I take umbrage
I mean, where is your reply even connected to what you quoted? Are you just baiting?
The quality of your two comments is extremely low in my opinion. Please, reread the guidelines (I do regularly), and try and learn to follow the unwritten standards the community follows.