Yea, they’ve been disabled (as shown in the date as you mentioned). And it’s no surprise. FTX bailed them out earlier this year, and BlockFi was even shown on the released balance sheet.
Sure - but the banner about "BlockFi is not able to operate business as usual" is still on their home page.. seems relevant until (if?) they resume operations.
Their website still has a yellow notice at the top:
> “We have limited platform activity, including pausing client withdrawals as allowed under our Terms. We request that clients not deposit to BlockFi Wallet or Interest Accounts at this time.”
You can't prevent someone from sending funds to a crypto address.
An address of an insolvent company may not be able to legally return funds; i.e. once they receive funds they may have a fiduciary duty to distribute them in a certain way, for example by order of a bankruptcy court.
tl;dr: They may only be able to ask people not to deposit, but not prevent them from depositing. And if users do deposit, they might not be allowed to give it back.
Quote:
> We are shocked and dismayed by the news regarding FTX and Alameda. We, like the rest of the world, found out about this situation through Twitter. Given the lack of clarity on the status of FTX.com, FTX US and Alameda, we are not able to operate business as usual.
Which is also funny because its not like the customer support reps are going to be able to assist in any way. They're just as in-the-dark as the public, or only just barely aware of how bad things are. Even so, its not like they are going to be able to calm anyone down.
I'm sure each one of them wants to give some kind of reassurance to panicked customers but is powerless to help and is worried about saying anything that could get them in trouble legally.
I'm really SHOCKED that a company that was offering 8% interest on deposits mid 2021, when the fed tax rate was around 0%, ended up being a HUGE PONZI. You can't trust nobody, a guy can't get his 500% greater returns in peace no more.
A lot (most?) of what's happening in Crypto is quite at odds with the proposed direction in the bitcoin paper (e.g. transparency, (de)centralization) So while a much needed correction for 'crypto' in general, this is not necessarily bad for bitcoin long term.
If you look at the existence of alternative coins as an attack on (your preferred) cryptocurrency, then every shitcoin implosion is a good thing.
In the long run it seems unlikely there will be more than a couple surviving cryptocurrencies (see: Metcalfe's Law), and there will be a lot of chaos between now and then.
Naaa this is the best thing to happen to bitcoin. Over the last 2 years bitcoin was being eaten up by wall street and technocrats.
The OG crypto people were being bribed by all the money coming in and the ones that remained "pure" were being shunned as "toxic btc maxis".
This is like a massive wildfire that gets rid of all the "overgrowth". If it wasn't for this, there was a non zero chance that bitcoin would slowly die out.
Worse we would've ended up in a dystopian future of CBDCs and social credit etc.
"We intend to communicate as frequently as possible going forward but anticipate that this will be less frequent than what our clients and other stakeholders are used to."
I'm sure it takes a little time to solve this issue to the degree any customer should expect from them... Researching non-extradition countries with decent quality of life and decent buying power for your... their money.
The crypto exchange world is coming apart. FTX, BlockFi, maybe Crypto.com. Institutional investors are getting out.
If either Binance or Tether goes down, it's all over. Both are opaque and probably have less reserves then they claim. As withdrawals continue, we'll find out who really has assets.
People who like to read financial statements are awaiting the filings in the FTX bankruptcy. For the first time, all those related companies have to file public financial statements under penalty of perjury. Expect a lot of "They did what with that money?!"
What may well happen now is that US crypto exchanges, and those that deal with US persons, will be required to become brokers, dealers, or "national securities exchanges" under the Securities Act of 1934, like real stock exchanges.[1] The SEC can now do this, because, last week they finally won the first big lawsuit on whether crypto is a security.[2] Now they can tell all crypto issuers to register and file an S-1 under penalty of perjury, and tell all exchanges to register as brokers, dealers, or exchanges.
The crypto community will scream and demand Congress exempt them. No one in Washington will listen any more. Do regulated US exchanges go bust and lose billions of customer funds? No. Any questions?
Crypto companies wanted special regulations for crypto, but it's too late for that. They'll probably have to become broker-dealers. Series 7 exams. Registered representatives. FINRA regulation. SIPC insurance. Audits. Compliance departments.
(I've had a US broker go bust when they were holding stock of mine. I got it out in about a week, after making a lot of phone calls.)
It's not the end of the crypto world. Gemini will probably become a regulated exchange. Maybe Coinbase.
Coinbase basically played by the rules, wanted to work with the SEC, takes public audits and a 1:1 ratio between liabilities and reserves in US dollars (not their own funny money tokens). And yet they were surpassed in # of users by growth hacking crypto gamesmen like SBF who wanted to drum up the largest possible liquidity pool to use however they pleased with no oversight or regulation.
Not quite. They wanted a new set of rules, ones they wrote, just for crypto. Here they are: [1]
What Coinbase wanted:
"Our financial regulatory system is predicated on the
ongoing existence of a series of separate financial market
intermediaries — exchanges, transfer agents, clearing houses,
custodians, and traditional brokers — because it never
contemplated that distributed ledger and blockchain technology
could exist. A new framework for how we regulate digital
assets will ensure that innovation can occur in ways that are
not hampered by the difficulty of transitioning from our legacy
market structure."
That's exactly how FTX got into trouble. They were an exchange, a transfer agent, a clearing house, and a broker. Also a market maker and a trader. No separation of functions or funds. Blockchain didn't help.
"Responsibility over
digital assets markets should be assigned to a single federal
regulator. Its authority would include a new registration process
established for marketplaces for digital assets (MDAs) and
appropriate disclosures to inform purchasers of digital assets.
Additionally, in the tradition of other markets, a dedicated
self-regulatory organization (SRO) should be established to
strengthen the oversight regime and provide more granular
oversight of MDAs. Together, they should formulate new rules
that permit the full range of digital asset services within a
single entity: digital asset trading, transfer, custody, clearing,
settlement, money payment, staking, borrowing and lending, and
related incidental services."
Again, note the "full range of digital asset services within a
single entity".
And again, that's the problem, not the solution.
That's close to a traditional "bucket shop", a fake broker that pretends to do trades but really just makes entries on its own books.
They wanted a "new registration process" with "appropriate disclosures". That means
a "litepaper" instead of an S-1 filing under penalty of perjury. And a "self-regulatory organization". Also, although they don't say it here, they wanted regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, not the Securities and Exchange Commission. The CFTC only regulates what are basically derivatives. The underlying assets are something real, or at least semi-real like ETFs. So the CFTC isn't set up to evaluate initial public offerings.
There's more, but you get the idea. They wanted to go on with what they're doing without having to disclose much, be audited much, or be responsible for much.
It's now clear that regulation of crypto requires the two basic SEC functions - disclosures from issuers, and separation of functions and outside audits of those who handle other people's money.
Lack of the first one is why crypto has "rug pulls", and lack of the second is why it has exchange collapses.