Freeway’s withdrawal halt blamed on ‘failed’ trading strategy

Crypto staking platform Freeway pointed at the failure of one of its cryptocurrency trading strategies, along with market conditions as the leading reason for halting user withdrawals earlier this week.

The crypto yield platform on Oct. 23 announced it was halting various transactions relating to its high-yield “Supercharger” product, citing “unprecedented volatility” at the time, without giving any more details at the time, which saw its token price plummet.

In a 22-part Twitter thread on Oct. 25, Freeway shed more light on the situation, revealing that it was “one of Freeway’s trading strategies” that “appears to have failed” and has “dramatically impacted Freeway’s portfolio” and caused a “substantial loss” to its investors.

Freeway explained that an unprecedented rally of the United States dollar, along with crypto volatility led to the failure of the trading strategy. 

“The trading strategy was executed as it was programmed, but the market volatility caused a spike in margin utilization leading to the loss,” it explained.

The platform offers users up to 43% annual yield wards using its Superchargers products. Users can deposit fiat currencies and crypto, which are placed in regulated brokerage accounts that are leveraged for returns.

However, the firm said earlier this week it would be halting buys and deposits and won’t be buying back Superchargers until its new strategies are implemented.

Related: What are DeFi yield aggregators, and how do they work?

In the new post, Freeway said it would be enacting a recovery plan to improve and secure its remaining funds.

The plan would involve bringing in “new expertise” to improve the management of its remaining funds, alternative diversification opportunities for investors, deploying a new product with “impressive projected profitability” (although details have not yet been announced), along with a new Earn and Protect feature that gives greater user protection.

The platform has also confirmed that they had moved out of the “loss-producing” strategy:

“In order for us to resume Supercharger buy-backs we need to be in a position to execute safely. We will therefore need to see significant inroads into the losses before that can happen, and that will take time.”

News of Freeway’s service halt caused its Freeway (FWT) token to plummet 81% to approximately $0.00134. The token is currently priced at $0.00152, according to CoinGecko.