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A collection of bitcoin, litecoin and ethereum tokens sit in this arranged photograph in Danbury, U.K., on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2017. On Wednesday, billionaire Warren Buffett said on CNBC that most digital coins won’t hold their value.

(Bloomberg) — Two crypto lenders with links to South Korea halted withdrawals in quick succession, a reminder of lingering risks even after regulators around the world tightened oversight of the industry. 

Token prices appeared to shrug off the statements from Delio and Haru Invest, underlining the relatively small corner of the crypto lending market affected by the trouble at the two companies. Still, the freezes highlight the dearth of investor protections that persist among digital-asset lenders, almost a year after a wave of failures took down firms from Celsius Network to Vauld.

There was a “sudden surge of withdrawals on our end in the aftermath of Haru Invest’s withdrawal suspension,” said Delio Chief Executive Officer James Jung via LinkedIn. “We have thus temporarily suspended withdrawals to calm the situation.” Jung said it’s too early to say when his firm may resume withdrawals, and couldn’t give an estimate of the size of Delio’s crypto deposits. 

Delio and Haru both advertise double-digit yields for investors who lend crypto on the platforms. That business model came under heavy scrutiny last year, as operators that made risky investments with client money to deliver promised returns unraveled when prices crashed, costing investors billions of dollars. 

“The source of the issue is centralized platforms offer superficial yields to attract investors, and by doing so, they have to leverage up their positions,” said Cici Lu, founder of blockchain adviser Venn Link Partners. “Centralized platforms who run on unsustainable business models are not out of the woods.”

Haru Invest earlier cited a problem with a service provider for its suspension and subsequently tweeted that it’s taking legal action against a company for allegedly providing management reports containing false information. Haru Invest CEO Hyungsoo Lee didn’t respond to requests for comment. 

Delio holds a so-called Virtual Asset Service Provider license in South Korea and is based in Seoul’s Gangnam district, Jung said. Haru’s website says it’s headquartered in Singapore, although it doesn’t have a digital payments token provider license there. Its office in Singapore’s central business district appeared empty when a Bloomberg reporter visited on Thursday. Haru also has an office in Seoul, its website shows. 

“The Services provided through Haru Platform are currently not regulated by any banking or securities regulator in any jurisdiction,” its website says. “Virtual Assets held in an account with Haru are not protected by any depositor or investor protection insurance scheme.”

What’s Crypto Lending and What are The Risks?: QuickTake

Double-Digit Yields

A South Korean government official who asked not to be identified in line with official policy said the FSS only screens licensed crypto platforms for money-laundering breaches, and Delio’s halt doesn’t appear linked to that. Haru isn’t licensed in South Korea and so doesn’t fall under the FSS’s purview, the official said. 

Delio’s total accumulated transactions mostly span about $1 billion of Bitcoin and $195 million of Ether, based on its webpage. Haru Invest had less than $1 billion of assets under management as of April 18, its website shows.

Delio’s website lists services including deposits, lending and staking — the process of locking up tokens to facilitate the functioning of blockchains in return for rewards. Haru Invest says it deploys an “algorithmic trading model” to generate returns.

Crypto investors seduced by high lending returns got burned in 2022, when a $1.5 trillion digital-asset rout exposed risky practices and led to the bankruptcy of platforms such as Celsius Network. The company at one point had more than $20 billion in user assets. 

‘Business as Usual’

While the fallout from the Haru and Delio suspensions has so far been much more limited, it did touch some other platforms. 

Heybit Global, a crypto robo-adviser that started in South Korea, said in an emailed response to questions that while it has no ties to either Delio or Haru, it’s seen “higher than usual” withdrawal requests “due to the market FUD” — a popular crypto acronym for fear, uncertainty and doubt.

“We are business as usual and there is no issue with the withdrawal or other operation,” the company said.

South Korea has also witnessed a string of scandals linked to virtual tokens, most prominently the collapse of crypto entrepreneur’s Do Kwon’s TerraUSD stablecoin project, which US authorities say led to at least $40 billion of direct losses. Kwon is now under arrest in Montenegro, and the US and South Korea are seeking to have him extradited.  

Read more about crypto in South Korea:

–With assistance from Se Young Lee, Olga Kharif, Muyao Shen and Dave Liedtka.

(Updates with context on the freezes from second paragraph.)

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