5 ms·

> While we have informed users that there are no absolute guarantees against risks I'm... uh.... fairly certain this was not the crux of their marketing which

> While we have informed users that there are no absolute guarantees against risks I'm... uh.... fairly certain this was not the crux of their marketing which severly downplayed the underlying risk. There is also a huge spectrum between "we cannot guarantee that there is 0 risk" (which seems to be what the above sentence is saying), and "there exists a risk that all of your funds disappears in 24 hours". It seems like there is some serious rewriting of history going on here. Question though, do the founders here have any potential criminal liability from this whole situation (including apparently lying about what they were doing with their customers funds)?

perihelions 4y ago
This was their old marketing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31431915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31431915 -"15% interest. No surprises."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nrmitchi 4y ago
  Thank you! I was looking for that image (which I'd seen before) but couldn't find it. Will be interesting to hear the argument "Well technically there were no surprises here, because customers should not be surprised when they lose all their money investing in risky assets. Therefore, technically, we did not lie."
- TheDudeMan 4y ago
  To be fair, the collapse of an algorithmic stablecoin is no surprise ;)
  - lmohseni 4y ago
    15% interest? No, surprises!
  - puranjay 4y ago
    I can tell you right now that there is absolutely no safe yield in crypto currently that goes beyond 4% on a “safe” stablecoin like USDC. For truly safe (as in, huge value locked, never been hacked), the yield is more like 1.5-2% All the high yield is in algoponzis or new protocols that carry massive protocol risk
    - elliekelly 4y ago
      There is absolutely no safe crypto. Full stop.
      - TheDudeMan 4y ago
        There is also no safe stock, right? (No need to list the differences between stocks and cryptocurrencies.)
    - ceeplusplus 4y ago
      Eh, there are CeFi lenders like BlockFi/Gemini offering 7%. It's not zero risk, but the loans are partly collateralized and the borrowers are institutional entities who aren't your everyday scammer. It's better than unsecured corporate bonds in my view.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  > "15% interest. No surprises." I’m honestly not surprised about how things turned out.
- gus_massa 4y ago
  Was it 15% monthly or 15% annual?
  - nrmitchi 4y ago
    Well 15% monthly woud be ~535% annual and at that point you're well past "highly unlikely" and into "I'm printing money in my 20k sqft basement" territory.
    - gus_massa 4y ago
      We had a big Ponzi that exploded last month in Argentina (and extended to a few nearby countries). They promised a monthly interest from 7.5% to 20% (and IIRC they has even better offers for special "investors"). For example see https://www.ambito.com/informacion-general/generacion-zoe/leonardo-cositorto-y-otras-tres-personas-seran-imputados-11-estafas-n5444029 https://www.ambito.com/informacion-general/generacion-zoe/le... autotranslation https://www-ambito-com.translate.goog/informacion-general/generacion-zoe/leonardo-cositorto-y-otras-tres-personas-seran-imputados-11-estafas-n5444029?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=es&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-ambito-com.translate.goog/informacion-general/ge...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Terry_Roll 4y ago
  Dont rely on any websites & webpages existing like this link. I can show you links where even the Wayback machine has removed content, most people will know how Google Cache has removed content, so print all copies and have hard copies safely stored away where they cant be destroyed. Houses will be broken into in order to destroy evidence, I know I've had it done to me! This may be your only chance to out the criminals that run the world!
  - gruez 4y ago
    >Houses will be broken into in order to destroy evidence, I know I've had it done to me! >This may be your only chance to out the criminals that run the world! Given that the screenshot is an (instagram?) ad, there's probably such a huge papertrail that can be subpoenaed that you don't have to worry about the founder breaking into your house to destroy the only copy of the marketing materials.
    - Terry_Roll 4y ago
  - midasuni 4y ago
    Maybe you could store it on the blcokchain…
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      That would quite legitimately work.
      - Terry_Roll 4y ago
        I love the hubris people have in technology.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
gruez 4y ago
>Question though, do the founders here have any potential criminal liability from this whole situation (including apparently lying about what they were doing with their customers funds)? 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.stablegains.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220108232821/https://www.stabl...
- nrmitchi 4y ago
  > careful to not make any explicit claims of safety (eg. "your principal is protected", or "you won't lose money"). 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/4402680425745 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/4402687671185 https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402687671...) Edit: Updating link to fix truncated urls
  - gruez 4y ago
    Thanks for unearthing this. In light of this, I'll admit it looks pretty bad for them.
  - jdasdf 4y ago
    And now those are gone. These people need to be in jail. Deleting evidence isn't going to look good in front of the judge.
nrmitchi 4y ago
Further little notes from their documentation that, lets just say, "downplay the risk": - "You will not lose your funds because all loans are 100% asset-backed." (https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680425745 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/4402687671185-Do-you-invest-in-volatile-cryptos-What-happens-if-crypto-markets-crash- 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/O2lZV, https://archive.ph/ItERp https://archive.ph/ItERp)
- ushakov 4y ago
  archived for future reference https://archive.ph/O2lZV https://archive.ph/O2lZV https://archive.ph/ItERp https://archive.ph/ItERp
- Hamuko 4y ago
  >How long do you expect users can earn such high yields? >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/4402680471953-How-long-do-you-expect-users-can-earn-such-high-yields- https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680471...
  - nrmitchi 4y ago
    Both of those were good to, but I didn't include them because both are either "expectations", or a reference to someone else's expectation/statement, and are not definitive statements.
  - insta_anon 4y ago
    https://archive.is/Rw891 https://archive.is/Rw891 archived just in case

perihelions 4y ago

This was their old marketing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31431915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31431915 -"15% interest. No surprises."

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nrmitchi 4y ago
Thank you! I was looking for that image (which I'd seen before) but couldn't find it. Will be interesting to hear the argument "Well technically there were no surprises here, because customers should not be surprised when they lose all their money investing in risky assets. Therefore, technically, we did not lie."
TheDudeMan 4y ago
To be fair, the collapse of an algorithmic stablecoin is no surprise ;)
- lmohseni 4y ago
  15% interest? No, surprises!
- puranjay 4y ago
  I can tell you right now that there is absolutely no safe yield in crypto currently that goes beyond 4% on a “safe” stablecoin like USDC. For truly safe (as in, huge value locked, never been hacked), the yield is more like 1.5-2% All the high yield is in algoponzis or new protocols that carry massive protocol risk
  - elliekelly 4y ago
    There is absolutely no safe crypto. Full stop.
    - TheDudeMan 4y ago
      There is also no safe stock, right? (No need to list the differences between stocks and cryptocurrencies.)
  - ceeplusplus 4y ago
    Eh, there are CeFi lenders like BlockFi/Gemini offering 7%. It's not zero risk, but the loans are partly collateralized and the borrowers are institutional entities who aren't your everyday scammer. It's better than unsecured corporate bonds in my view.
UncleEntity 4y ago
> "15% interest. No surprises." I’m honestly not surprised about how things turned out.
gus_massa 4y ago
Was it 15% monthly or 15% annual?
- nrmitchi 4y ago
  Well 15% monthly woud be ~535% annual and at that point you're well past "highly unlikely" and into "I'm printing money in my 20k sqft basement" territory.
  - gus_massa 4y ago
    We had a big Ponzi that exploded last month in Argentina (and extended to a few nearby countries). They promised a monthly interest from 7.5% to 20% (and IIRC they has even better offers for special "investors"). For example see https://www.ambito.com/informacion-general/generacion-zoe/leonardo-cositorto-y-otras-tres-personas-seran-imputados-11-estafas-n5444029 https://www.ambito.com/informacion-general/generacion-zoe/le... autotranslation https://www-ambito-com.translate.goog/informacion-general/generacion-zoe/leonardo-cositorto-y-otras-tres-personas-seran-imputados-11-estafas-n5444029?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=es&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-ambito-com.translate.goog/informacion-general/ge...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Terry_Roll 4y ago
Dont rely on any websites & webpages existing like this link. I can show you links where even the Wayback machine has removed content, most people will know how Google Cache has removed content, so print all copies and have hard copies safely stored away where they cant be destroyed. Houses will be broken into in order to destroy evidence, I know I've had it done to me! This may be your only chance to out the criminals that run the world!
- gruez 4y ago
  >Houses will be broken into in order to destroy evidence, I know I've had it done to me! >This may be your only chance to out the criminals that run the world! Given that the screenshot is an (instagram?) ad, there's probably such a huge papertrail that can be subpoenaed that you don't have to worry about the founder breaking into your house to destroy the only copy of the marketing materials.
  - Terry_Roll 4y ago
- midasuni 4y ago
  Maybe you could store it on the blcokchain…
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    That would quite legitimately work.
    - Terry_Roll 4y ago
      I love the hubris people have in technology.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

gruez 4y ago

>Question though, do the founders here have any potential criminal liability from this whole situation (including apparently lying about what they were doing with their customers funds)? 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.stablegains.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220108232821/https://www.stabl...

nrmitchi 4y ago
> careful to not make any explicit claims of safety (eg. "your principal is protected", or "you won't lose money"). 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/4402680425745 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/4402687671185 https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402687671...) Edit: Updating link to fix truncated urls
- gruez 4y ago
  Thanks for unearthing this. In light of this, I'll admit it looks pretty bad for them.
- jdasdf 4y ago
  And now those are gone. These people need to be in jail. Deleting evidence isn't going to look good in front of the judge.

nrmitchi 4y ago

Further little notes from their documentation that, lets just say, "downplay the risk": - "You will not lose your funds because all loans are 100% asset-backed." (https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680425745 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/4402687671185-Do-you-invest-in-volatile-cryptos-What-happens-if-crypto-markets-crash- 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/O2lZV, https://archive.ph/ItERp https://archive.ph/ItERp)

ushakov 4y ago
archived for future reference https://archive.ph/O2lZV https://archive.ph/O2lZV https://archive.ph/ItERp https://archive.ph/ItERp
Hamuko 4y ago
>How long do you expect users can earn such high yields? >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/4402680471953-How-long-do-you-expect-users-can-earn-such-high-yields- https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680471...
- nrmitchi 4y ago
  Both of those were good to, but I didn't include them because both are either "expectations", or a reference to someone else's expectation/statement, and are not definitive statements.
- insta_anon 4y ago
  https://archive.is/Rw891 https://archive.is/Rw891 archived just in case