Mark Cuban, Mavericks in hot water over Voyager 'Ponzi scheme'

[Eugene]

Source: TechCrunch

Mark Cuban, Mavericks in hot water over Voyager 'Ponzi scheme'

Anita Ramaswamy@anitaramaswamy / 3:42 PM EDT•August 11, 2022

Lawsuits from disgruntled investors are beginning to stack up after crypto prices plummeted over the past few months, leaving them with steep losses. Billionaire Mark Cuban is the latest celebrity on the receiving end of investor ire.

A group of Voyager Digital customers filed a class-action suit in Florida federal court against Cuban, as well as the basketball team he owns, the Dallas Mavericks, alleging their promotion of the crypto platform resulted in more than 3.5 million investors losing $5 billion collectively. Voyager Digital’s CEO, Stephen Ehrlich, was also named as a defendant in the suit.

Voyager, a New Jersey-based crypto firm, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July following a crash in crypto prices that instigated a liquidity crunch on the platform. The firm is one of many that got burned after loaning money, in Voyager’s case worth ~$600 million, to hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). 3AC declared bankruptcy in the wake of the Terra collapse, triggering a domino effect throughout the crypto markets when the hedge fund defaulted on more than $3.5 billion worth of obligations to its lenders.

The plaintiffs in the suit against Cuban described Voyager as “an unregulated and unsustainable fraud, similar to other Ponzi schemes.” They claim in the complaint that Cuban and Ehrlich personally reached out to investors both individually and through a partnership with the Dallas Mavericks, to encourage them to invest with the platform. The lawsuit also specifically calls out Voyager’s Earn Program Accounts (EPAs), claiming they are unregistered securities.

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Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/11/mark-cuban-mavericks-face-lawsuit-over-crypto-voyager-ponzi-scheme/

[TexasTowelie]

1. Article from the Dallas Morning News:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/107863370

[stopdiggin]

2. I always feel a lot better

when I pi** away my own money - rather than have some guy on TV do it for me.

Don't know a solitary thing about unregistered or unregulated 'securities' - but anybody that didn't know that crypto (and particularly all the spin-offs) was a hugely speculative investment ... Really ought to have the keys to the car (or the checkbook) taken away.

[brush]

3. Does Cuban lose his spot on "Shark Tank" now?

Seems he got bitten by bigger sharks.

Ponzi schemes and crypto...neither is the wisest investment platform. And combined together?

I mean even the dullest shark should know better. Wonder in the NBA has been alerted?

[Pinback]

4. Web 3 is going just great

...and is definitely not an enormous grift that's pouring lighter fluid on our already smoldering planet.

https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
- Molly White's excellent compilation of rather jaundiced commentaries, reports, and observations on the whole "Web 3" phenomenon.

About web3isgoinggreat.com:

What is this?
Web3 Is Going Great is a project to track some examples of how things in the blockchains/crypto/web3 technology space aren't actually going as well as its proponents might like you to believe. The timeline tracks events in cryptocurrency and blockchain-based technologies, dating back to the beginning of 2021.

This is a personal project of mine, and reflects my own opinions. If you are looking for an unbiased descriptor of web3 and related technologies, there are short ones in the Glossary, but that is not the goal of this site. I would recommend Wikipedia for that (and if the pages there are lacking, I would strongly encourage you to contribute to them!) If you would like to see a version of this website that takes a different approach or covers a different topic, this is all open-source, so please feel free to fork the code and make your own!

Who am I?
I'm Molly White, a software engineer by trade who is also very passionate about free and open knowledge and resources, and presenting information such that it is more accessible to all. You'll usually find me working on and talking about Wikipedia. I also care very much about equity in the tech industry and online spaces. You can learn more about me on my website or find me on Twitter.