- Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban will be deposed for his promotion of the now-defunct crypto lender Voyager.
- Cuban had promoted the company as being "as close to risk-free as you're gonna get."
Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban will be deposed next month in connection to his promotion of Voyager, the crypto lender described as a "Ponzi scheme" in a class action lawsuit.
The lawsuit, which was originally filed in August, aims to hold Cuban and Voyager CEO Steve Ehrlich responsible for over $5 billion in lost customer funds. Cuban requested to split his deposition in court over two hearings, though that request was denied yesterday, according to court documents, with orders for Cuban to deliver his testimony in one session on February 2.
Voyager investors have claimed that Cuban and Ehrlich roped in naive customers to the platform, as Cuban, an avid cryptocurrency investor, touted the crypto exchange on numerous occasions to his followers. Cuban previously stated that he was a customer of Voyager himself, and claimed it was "as close to risk-free as you're gonna get in the crypto universe."
Cuban's basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks, also entered a five-year partnership with the now-bankrupt crypto exchange. At one point, the the team ran a promotion wherein Mavericks fans would receive $100 worth of Bitcoin if they deposited $100 into Voyager.
"The Deceptive Voyager Platform … was an unregulated and unsustainable fraud, similar to other Ponzi schemes," the class action complaint reads. "Defendants Mark Cuban and Stephen Ehrlich were key players who personally reached out to investors, individually and through the Dallas Mavericks, to induce them to invest in the Deceptive Voyager Platform."
Voyager declared bankruptcy last summer and was part of a chain of bankruptcies among crypto firms stemming from the collapse of Terra-Luna, which sparked a massive sell-off in digital assets. The firm is going through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Binance.US has made a $1 billion bid to buy the assets of the defunct firm, though the deal is being scrutinized by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which raised a limited objection to the transaction.