wry Posted June 8, 2019 #1 Posted June 8, 2019 There is an alt coin named Clam. It is a proof of stake coin rather than proof of work, and as far as I know its main use is for players on another leading gambling site. As most of you know Poloniex is a leading exchange based in the USA that allows its users outside of the USA to loan their coins out on margin to other lenders. It's a pretty clever system and I've used it in the past. However, last week Clam experienced a massive crash in price that happened so quickly the markets could not adjust. As a result, Poloniex traders who had borrowed Clam on margin could not sell in time to cover their margin requirements. Apparently, over a thousand BTC was essentially lost due to this crash. What makes this remarkable is that in order to cover the losses from all the traders who could no longer pay their loans, Poloniex reduced the Bitcoin balances of all its margin traders by 16.2%. So if you were loaning on Poloniex you just lost 16.2% of your coins. Wowza. Needless to say, people are a bit upset. Does anyone here loan on Poloniex? It seems to me lots of alt coins could be vulnerable to a pump and dump like happened to clam, Poloniex itself identified BTS FCT and MAID as other coins it was suspending margin lending in due to low trading volume, so it seems like they are mindful of the threat. Anyway, I found the story pretty unbelievable, so here's the official Poloniex explanation and announcement: https://medium.com/circle-trader/overview-of-btc-margin-lending-pool-losses-a2f0905aaa56
rdbase Posted June 8, 2019 #2 Posted June 8, 2019 I first heard of clam by noticing it you can claim it when you are holding other coins in a wallet. But hard to hear about people losing so much bitcoin over this small known altcoin.
sdsdfbsfsd Posted June 9, 2019 #3 Posted June 9, 2019 this is such horrible news im just glad im just one of them lucky people who left the poloniex exchange years ago,thanks for sharing it though
barbaris Posted June 9, 2019 #4 Posted June 9, 2019 Yes, this is a major loss. But never heard of this coin. I think many traders were shocked when they saw this drop. A thousand bitcoins is a fairly large amount, but for Poloniex this is probably not too much.
CntryBoy Posted June 9, 2019 #5 Posted June 9, 2019 That is insane! I've heard of Clams but never dealt with them in any way. Luckily I stopped using Poloniex quite a while ago....
allisonn Posted June 9, 2019 #6 Posted June 9, 2019 Always thought about loaning on the platform but the problem is that it's impossible for a retail user to assess what risks he/she is taking. Making money for free is a sucker's bet. I'm always skeptical of those deposit/lend for interest offers because stuff just doesn't add up, and it's likely you are being exposed to unknown amounts of risk from various angles, and that's just assuming it's legit. If I could use money to make more money appear, I wouldn't even tell my mom, much less open it to random people on the internet.
wry Posted June 9, 2019 Author #7 Posted June 9, 2019 1 hour ago, allisonn said: I'm always skeptical of those deposit/lend for interest offers because stuff just doesn't add up, I think this is what surprised me the most, Poloniex is a totally legit exchange and I had loaned margin funds (a long time ago, think start of ETH, and I stopped awhile ago) and it was a nice way to get some income on your crypto holdings, or some of your crypto holdings. However, as you noted, clearly there were much larger risks than anyone anticipated due to the lack of liquidity in the CLAM market. To wake up one day and see you lost 16.2% of your Bitcoins because a coin you may never have heard of imploded had to be one hell of a shock. Really amazed. Poloniex says it will continue to try and recover funds from defaulted accounts, it will be interesting to see how that goes.
rajamishra Posted June 9, 2019 #8 Posted June 9, 2019 hello wryy when this alts launched within a few months its added to sites LG that time its on the peak ,i also played in that coin its all most 700k to 2700k for one coin,in that time btc on peak too after gradually BTC downgrade and calm too .may be that reasons the losses may so high.
allisonn Posted June 9, 2019 #9 Posted June 9, 2019 14 minutes ago, wry said: I think this is what surprised me the most, Poloniex is a totally legit exchange and I had loaned margin funds (a long time ago, think start of ETH, and I stopped awhile ago) and it was a nice way to get some income on your crypto holdings, or some of your crypto holdings. However, as you noted, clearly there were much larger risks than anyone anticipated due to the lack of liquidity in the CLAM market. To wake up one day and see you lost 16.2% of your Bitcoins because a coin you may never have heard of imploded had to be one hell of a shock. Really amazed. Poloniex says it will continue to try and recover funds from defaulted accounts, it will be interesting to see how that goes. Kinda random but I think if I wanted to go in on lending on Poloniex this would be a decent chance. Many burned lenders will have pulled out in disgust and there might be more attractive rates available. It's not about the liquidity in alt markets specifically, they just didn't anticipate where the threat was coming from, and it's unlikely this will be the last oops event ever. On the lenders' side, they didn't care that their money was going into a pool that would be ground zero for every possible risk ever because hey, free money. It's unlikely they will recover 100% of the losses, and quite probable they will make whole the deficit from their current or future profits. As long as they don't go under, everything is negotiable.
Kate Posted June 11, 2019 #10 Posted June 11, 2019 Damn the thing is i know this con because they ate a site that provides people tasks to do in return you get clam cobs but i was never into it because the withdrawal takes 2 whole weeks and the coin is not a coin with a good future in my head.
DreamStage Posted June 12, 2019 #11 Posted June 12, 2019 Thank for such pleasent information regarding Poloniex latest situation concerning financial investments. I have been in that situation once upon a time but was able to cashout before any kind of equal event. It also takes some responsability for owners to realize what can and not happen (Including investors) when taking into consideration ALTs volatile prices and quick market changes. Edit: Will lookout for any further news coming from them
wry Posted August 13, 2019 Author #12 Posted August 13, 2019 UPDATE!!! Saw this news story today about how Poloniex is trying to make its users whole from this debacle. They are suspending trading fees to help users recoup their losses as well as recovering coins from accounts who defaulted. I thought it was a bit encouraging! Link: https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-traders-who-lost-big-in-poloniex-flash-crash-receive-bitcoin-refunds
Featured Comment
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.