Are custodied crypto funds at risk? Industry veterans explain
With rumors of insolvency flying high among crypto firms such as Celsius and Three Arrows Capital, investors couldn't help but ask a simple question: What happened to all the funds that were supposedly under "safe custody?" As it turns out, a small fraction of crypto firms began leveraged trading with customers' deposits to deliver promised high APY returns on supposedly fixed-income instruments. Things worked out well when the market was thought to have endless potential.
However, as token prices plunged, such firms simultaneously suffered heavy losses on their positions and an increase in withdrawal requests as investors rushed to protect their capital. The combination of selling pressures led to lower coin prices and the likely obliteration of investors' initial principal as firms allegedly became insolvent.
Not all asset custodians took enormous risks with clients' deposits during the bull market in an attempt to attract more capital. At the European Blockchain Convention in Barcelona, Cointelegraph news editor Aaron Wood spoke to Bit.com's business development lead, Leslie Hsu. Bit.com is a centralized crypto exchange launched in March 2020 in Seychelles. Here's what Hsu had to say:
However, Hsu explained that due to a concept known as regulatory arbitrage, it would be difficult for administrative bodies to crack down on supposed bad actor custodians that take unreasonable risks with clients' capital. "Different countries all have different regulations. For example, like in the U.S., they only allow U.S. domiciled entities to trade over there. Right now, there's no single piece of international legislation covering all potential crypto-related issues." In some jurisdictions, gambling laws even take precedence over
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