hace tiempo que no hablamos de los cryptobros, eh?
https://www.ft.com/content/64648e10-cc09-4304-a274-87b66d37d3bc
‘Nightmare’: collapse of leading crypto lender traps investors
Savers who sought high returns via schemes run by Genesis and Gemini can no longer withdraw funds
David* is constantly lying to his mother. When she asks about the savings he is managing for her, he tells her not to worry. In reality, the $100,000 “nest egg” from the sale of her house is trapped at a crypto lending company.
“If I tell her, she’s going to have a heart attack,” says the 37-year-old from New York. “This was her everything.”
Eager to avoid rising inflation eroding his mother’s life savings, the television director last year placed the money with Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins.
Gemini, run by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, offered a product called Earn that appeared to be an attractive haven for investors to leave their cash. Investors could earn more than 7 per cent a year from the scheme when rates at traditional banks were close to zero. [qué podría salir mal???]
David is now one of 340,000 Gemini Earn customers whose funds have been locked up after the group’s lending partner was wrongfooted by shockwaves that cascaded through the crypto market following the failure of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange in November. Their plight has underscored the patchwork of often confusing regulations governing crypto in the US.
The Financial Times spoke to five users who said they believed it was similar to a savings account; in reality the product was a risky crypto lending strategy. “I thought I was just parking the money in a high-yield savings account and I can get it out anytime,” David said.
In exchange for the high interest rates, the Earn product lent out customers’ crypto coins. From February 2021, Gemini took retail investors’ funds and lent them out to crypto broker Genesis, which in turn loaned them to other digital asset market participants.
entonces llega el corralito:
When FTX imploded, nervous investors rushed to pull their money from Genesis. The broker was unable to meet clients’ $827mn worth of withdrawal requests, forcing it to suspend withdrawals from its lending business. On Friday, Genesis’ lending unit filed for bankruptcy.
David was one of many people who entrusted their money to Gemini, persuaded by flashy adverts plastered across New York’s billboards and subways, boasting of the company being regulated. “Finally, a regulated place to buy, sell, and store crypto” read one advert. “What’s the best that could happen?” read another.
Now both Gemini and Genesis have been sued by the Wall Street regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission, which alleges the Earn programme was not properly registered as a securities offering and that ordinary investors “have suffered significant harm”.
Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss said Earn was regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services, and called the SEC’s enforcement action “counterproductive”. He added the company “has always worked hard to comply with all relevant laws”. Genesis did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the lawsuit.
Adding to David’s worries is a family member who he says needs surgery costing tens of thousands of dollars. “My mother’s saying ‘use the money’ and I keep on lying to her, saying I’m trying to get insurance,” he says, adding the significant amount trapped has been emotionally difficult. “I’m going to therapy now. I had some very dark moments.”
In a crypto industry where many big exchanges operate offshore or lack official headquarters, Gemini’s office in midtown Manhattan was a source of reassurance to some customers.
“I knew they were regulated in New York. I totally trusted that Gemini would do the job for us, manage the risk,” said Christine, who lives a few blocks away from Gemini’s office and asked that her surname not be used. The mother of one placed $600,000 into Earn.
la peña metiendo cientos de miles de $ porque les daban un 7% en confeti?? venganomejodas
