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The Inside Story Of The Roger Ver Vs. CoinFLEX Conflict

The infamous Roger Ver is back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Like many players in the industry, the derivatives exchange CoinFLEX recently ran into financial trouble. Surprisingly, they blamed it all on Roger Ver and the circus started. Luckily for us, Chinese journalist Colin Wu covered “the entire insider details through a source close to the situation” in his newsletter. However, as you can see, it’s an anonymous source. So, take the story we’re about to analyze with a grain of salt. 

The summary of the situation according to Wu:

“On June 24, 2022, the exchange CoinFLEX announced that it made the decision to halt user withdraws, and the price of the platform Token FLEX subsequently plummeted, from $4.30 to less than $1.50 in four hours. At the same time, FlexUSD, the platform’s stablecoin, also began to de-peg, with prices dropping as low as $0.23.”

The funny thing is that both entities were clearly in business together. On May 14th, Roger Ver tweeted, “Interest paying FlexUSD by CoinFLEX  is on its way to being the default stable coin for the whole SmartBCH ecosystem if USDT & USDC don’t move quickly.” How did everything deteriorate so fast? That’s what this article’s about. 

Roger Ver Vs. CoinFLEX, The Play By Play

The story starts with CoinFLEX announcing to their partners that they “opened a special account for Roger Ver.” The account’s characteristics guaranteed that Roger Ver “would not be liquidated immediately if it fell below the maintenance margin, but rather that he would be given sufficient time to make a margin call.” Nothing special here, the man is a high-net-worth individual, deals like this are a dime a dozen in high finance. 

As a guarantee, Roger Ver offered “a margin of BCH,” valued “at around $400.” Then, the Terra collapse happened and the whole crypto market crashed. By the time CoinFLEX ”faced a liquidity crisis,” Bitcoin Cash was worth around $120. It’s still at that price range at the time of writing. This is where things get insane. The biggest revelation of Wu’s story is at the end of this paragraph.

“If that were all, CoinFLEX would have been able to cover its shortfall. However, prior to this, CoinFLEX had issued its own stablecoin, FlexUSD, like other exchanges. At this point, CoinFLEX used FlexUSD to buy a large amount of FLEX from the secondary market and opened short position to hedge the spot price. However, the counterparty to this short position was also Roger Ver!”

As we’ve seen happen again and again, “when the withdrawal restriction announcement was made, CoinFLEX’s total funds began to fall in a cyclical fashion.” And all hell broke loose. 

BCH price chart on Coinbase | Source: BCH/USD on TradingView.com
An All-Out Twitter War

On June 27th, the company’s CEO Mark Lamb tweeted, “CoinFLEX made the decision to halt user withdrawals on June 23, shortly after a long-time customer of CoinFLEX went into negative equity. ” Immediately after, the rumor that Roger Ver was that “long-time customer” began circulating.

The Bitcoin Cash leader went on the offensive and tweeted a statement obviously written by a lawyer. “Recently some rumors have been spreading that I have defaulted on a debt to a counter-party. These rumors are false. Not only do I not have a debt to this counter-party, but this counter-party owes me a substantial sum of money, and I am currently seeking the return of my funds.” How could those two statements be true? Remember that “the counterparty to this short position was also Roger Ver!”

However, Mark Lamb was not having it. Even though both parties were negotiating, Lamb took to Twitter and stated, “CoinFLEX also categorically denies that we have any debts owing to him.” Plus, “Roger Ver owes CoinFLEX $47 Million USDC. We have a written contract with him obligating him to personally guarantee any negative equity on his CoinFLEX account and top up margin regularly.”

Even if CoinFLEX is right in this instance, did they have to air their dirty laundry in public?

Roger Ver Vs. CoinFLEX, The Aftermath

Back to Colin Wu’s newsletter:

“In the end, Roger Ver’s position was completely worn out and turned into negative equity, while CoinFLEX was left with a lot of delisting FLEX. It was revealed that CoinFLEX had a real loss of $120 million, including losses from the de-peg of the stablecoin FlexUSD and the loss of withdrawals (less than $10 million) due to the collapse of the SmartBCH cross-chain bridge, which was built by CoinFLEX.”

And the fact of the matter is that, even if Roger Ver’s debt caused this, CoinFLEX’s risk management team has a few questions to answer. “Roger Ver became almost the only counterparty to the exchange, and this only counterparty had the privilege of not replenishing the margin in time,” Wu concludes. It was an unfortunate sequence of events, but both parties signed those deals and both parties took to Twitter to resolve what should’ve been a private matter. 

Shame all around.

Featured Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay | Charts by TradingView

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Summary Of The Contagion Event That Brought On The Bear Market

Are we in a bear market? Opinions vary, but it certainly feels like one. Markets across the board and across the world are in the red, and the bitcoin and crypto ones are no exception. If you’ve been paying attention, you know how all of this happened, but a refresher course wouldn’t hurt. Using ARK Invest’s latest Bitcoin Monthly report as a guide, let’s go through the tragic sequence of events and evaluate the bitcoin market as it stands.

According to ARK, the road to the bear market went like this: 

“Beginning with the Terra collapse in early May, contagion spread to major crypto lenders including Blockfi, Celsius, Babel, Voyager, CoinFlex, contributing to the insolvency of the once highly-respected hedge fund, Three Arrows Capital (3AC). Since Terra’s collapse, total crypto market capitalization has dropped ~$640 billion.”

Nevertheless, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. “Promisingly, however, recent fallout (Babel, Voyager, CoinFlex, Finblox) appears lower in magnitude compared to Terra, Celsius, and 3AC.” That doesn’t mean the end of the bear market is near, nor that capitulation is already over. Especially if the Mt. Gox victims receive the rumored 150K BTC.

First, let’s follow ARK as they analyze two of the main players in this drama. Then, let’s check the stats of the bitcoin market to see if we can find signs and clues that point out to the end of the capitulation stage. SPOILER ALERT: The jury is still out on that one. Some signs point to an early end, others to further downside. Aren’t bear markets fun?

Celsius And The Bear Market

When Terra fell, the earth trembled. The Luna Foundation Guard sold nearly all of their 80K BTC reserve trying to defend the UST peg to the dollar. This event could’ve been the catalyst for the bear market. The worst was yet to come, though. Several once-respected institutions were heavily exposed to Terra through its Anchor protocol, and the UST collapse sent them all into a still ongoing death spiral. 

According to ARK, “Celsius froze withdrawals on June 12th in response to significant outflows. Its DeFi debt outstanding is $631 million but the magnitude of its nonDeFi exposure is unclear.” There was still hope for its clients, as the company paid several loans. However, Celsius filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, leaving them all high and dry.

The Chief Commercial Officer at Choise.com, Andrey Diyakonov, analyzed the situation for NewsBTC:

“To put things into perspective, we need to turn it upside down, and ask, how much of the recent price action on the markets was influenced by or outright created by Celsius’ actions? What goes around always comes around. It’s so much more ironic given those credible reports that Celsius withdrawals were among those that sent UST and Terra position down the rabbit hole to find out where the bottom is.”

Our team covered that particular claim and the company’s response.

Three Arrows Capital And The Death Spiral

Then, there was “Three Arrows Capital (3AC), a highly regarded crypto hedge fund reportedly managing $18 billion at its peak, appears to be insolvent after taking on too much leverage.” That’s according to ARK, who also says, “Seemingly, 3AC took on excess leverage to try and recover the losses. Its creditors included major players in the industry like Genesis, BlockFi, Voyager, and FTX.”

All of those companies except FTX seem to be counting down to extinction. 

BTC price chart for 07/15/2022 on Velocity | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Is The Bear Market Just Beginning Or About To End?

Is the bottom in? Opinions vary. In a section titled “Market Contagion Sets Bitcoin Into Capitulation,” ARK analyzes all of the indicators and can’t reach a final conclusion. The numbers are extremely interesting, though.

  • “Down 70% from its all-time high, bitcoin is trading at or below some of its most important levels: its 200-week moving average, the general cost basis of the market (realized price), the cost bases of long-term (LTH) and short-term holders (STH), and its 2017 peak.”

This “suggests extremely oversold conditions,” which is a great sign. However…

  • “Historically, global bottoms occur when the MVRV of short-term holders exceeds the MVRV of long-term holders. That condition has not been met, suggesting the potential for more downside.”

The “condition has not been met,” but it’s close. Very close.

  • “This month, miners generated revenues only 45% of that for the last twelve months, breaching a threshold that usually correlates with market bottoms.”

Miners who didn’t practice proper risk management have been selling at the present low levels. Miners who know what they’re doing will keep holding until we come out of the bear market. The question is, how many companies are in the first group and haven’t sold just yet? 

  • “Net realized losses in bitcoin recently reached a 2-year low, breaching 0.5% for only the fourth time since 2013.”

Historically, this suggests capitulation is over. Or is it?

  • “Bitcoin’s net unrealized loss has hit a 3-year low, highlighting that its current market value is nearly 17% lower than that of its aggregate cost basis. Historically, global bottoms have formed when losses hit 25%+.”

If we’re going to reach 25%, that means there’s still a long way to go.

Is the bear market just beginning or about to end? The data is unclear. But capitulation seems to be nearing its end, which would be the first step in the right direction.

Featured Image by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash | Charts by TradingView