By shorting LUNA, the Terra Classic native token, Uprise, a crypto custodial service, and AI trading platform lost almost all of its customers’ assets.
Uprise, South Korean crypto investing startup platform, reportedly lost 99 percent of its assets worth approximately $20 million when it was liquidated shorting the LUNA token.
The trading desk of Uprise Heybit employs artificial intelligence (AI) trading system designed to mitigate the hazards of leveraged trading.
On July 6, local news portal Seoul Economic Daily stated that Uprise’s AI, dubbed a robo-advisor, made a disastrous misread on the LUNA token in May, causing it to plummet from $60 to fractions of a penny. The system shorted LUNA but was liquidated along the road because of the token’s odd price fluctuations, resulting in $20 million in consumer losses and $3 million in system losses. Uprise lost nearly all of its assets in total.
The majority of users of Uprise’s Heybit service are high-net-worth individuals and corporations that stake their cryptocurrency in exchange for the yield created by AI trading on futures markets. The company has received funding from the Hashed crypto investment firm, Kakao Ventures, as well as other banks and venture capital organizations.
The firm has ceased services but has not officially informed its clients about the damages. According to an Uprise official, Seoul Economic Daily:
“Due to great unexpected volatility in the market, there has been damage to customer assets. We plan to finalize the report on our virtual asset business soon.”
Uprise management is working on a compensation scheme for its clients, in addition, to publicly alerting them so that the company can continue to operate.
With Uprise in the spotlight, the Seoul Economic Daily noted that it has not been registered as a virtual asset service provider (VASP). It was stated that Uprise managers believe the company can avoid registration as a VASP because it does not collect Korean Won or actively invest in virtual assets, only futures.
Registration lets crypto exchanges comply with the Financial Action Task Force’s infamous Travel Rule.
Uprise is the most recent centralized cryptocurrency service provider to disclose major losses as a result of the Terra incident and subsequent spread. It joins BlockFi, Celsius, and Voyager Digital as companies that have had to take dramatic measures to stay afloat. The FTX US exchange has an option to purchase BlockFi, Celsius has begun unwinding loans, and Voyager declared bankruptcy on July 5.
