Find a flat return for their clients to invest in stablecoins, claiming that comparison site Finder no longer serves clients at a time when interest rates are rising.
“As interest rates rise and macroeconomic conditions change, returns are now more attractive,” the company said in a blog post two days before the shutdown, ironically titled “Seeker’s Income Sinks.”
Yesterday, Find customers were pushed directly to another account “TAUD”, a stable coin linked to the Australian dollar.
“Last year our members earned over 500,000 TAUD and we are proud to be able to offer such a new product to our members,” he wrote.
An updated version of the original post Thursday afternoon said: “We have refunded all of our customers and will no longer be offering our members access.”
Earn offered a fixed return of 4.01%, but there were concerns that the company was using customer capital to invest in crypto – the interest of the founder of the finder, Fred Shebesta – to make a profit. Amidst the collapse of the world’s second largest crypto exchange FTX, fraud and investment Ponzi schemes, and widespread declines in crypto prices, there is growing environmental concern about domestic regulation of crypto investments.
That cycle began with the collapse of the faux stablecoins known as TerraLuna, which led to the demise of several companies, including investor Three Arrows Capital. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was involved in the attempted rescue of some of the companies involved, but now appears poised to pull down several companies associated with his exchange and associated investment house, Alameda Research.
