The Unsolved Mystery of Steaker: What are the various reasons that have angered the community?

After FTX's bankruptcy reorganization, the well-known Taiwan financial platform Steaker announced that part of the user assets, equivalent to 10.67 million US dollars, were affected. Users only received a response to "wait for the outcome of FTX's bankruptcy reorganization." The platform did not clearly explain whether the disclosure was factual, whether there was any responsibility avoidance, or why the operational rights were transferred.

There are still many unanswered questions in the Steaker victim community, with no proactive actions from Taiwan regulators, leaving users frustrated. What mysterious puzzles lie behind the founder of Steaker, who was once praised by "specific media" as one of the "most influential 21 people in Taiwan's blockchain"?

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"Is Steaker's funds swallowed by FTX?" How to verify

As Steaker is a centralized asset management platform, how the funds deposited by users are actually used and the investment targets are not disclosed or only described on the website. Therefore, users have no way of knowing whether Steaker actually uses the FTX platform.

Through the evidence provided unilaterally by the company in a video here, showing various currency assets within a single account, as well as asset balances, claiming that this is the funds of Steaker users who suffered losses. How can it be verified that the funds in this account indeed belong to Steaker and the assets agreed to be held in custody for users?

Steaker has not provided records of the use of assets and balances for each scheme, nor has it disclosed the total amount of assets under management, making it impossible to prove whether the funds for each scheme are managed separately, let alone whether there are suspicions of "robbing Peter to pay Paul"; there are even community speculations that some advanced users have been compensated.

The affected users of Steaker believe that the company should have the obligation to disclose the on-chain asset transfer records from the Steaker wallet to the FTX wallet, as well as all on-chain records of the wallets belonging to Steaker, to gain trust from users using on-chain information.

Is there a mixed use of funds with XY Finance?

XY Finance, a cross-chain aggregation protocol under the same umbrella as Steaker, sent a letter to investors on 11/10 stating that due to the FTX incident, digital assets valued at two million USD are trapped, including 1.9 million USDC, 2,138,218 TRX, 43,831 YGG, and 4,000 APE. The reason for using the raised funds was "temporary salary expenses and other operating expenses, not for speculative use." The official statement mentions that XY Finance still has $3.2 million in available assets in its treasury, sufficient for two years of operation.

However, apart from USDC, the company's expenditures will be reserved in unstable tokens TRX, YGG, and APE, which is not in line with normal practices. The association may be due to the fact that the gaming guild organization YGG and TRON are investors in XY Finance, hence the token reserves.

XY Finance's investor lineup is strong, with participants such as C.R.E.A.M. Finance's lending agreement's big brother Huang Licheng, notable projects, and venture capital institutions like Dragonfly, Divergence, Lemniscap, Evernew, IVC, and startup incubator AppWorks; as well as Fortune shareholder Chaval Jiaravanon, Chainlink VPE, and Perpetual Protocol founder, among other institutional members.

Additional investors, especially from Asia, have made the lineup impressive. The complete list can be viewed on the official website:

There are also various strategic partners:

In total, 200/200+320*100%= 38% of the funds have been drained, accounting for nearly forty percent of the losses. Whether Steaker and XY Finance's funds are mixed and allocated is also a part requiring clarification by the officials.

Sudden acquisition, the mystery of the new investors' motives

On 11/24, Steaker announced that the company has been acquired by National Standard Capital Asia NSCA on behalf of investors, with CEO Wilson Huang Wei-Xuan remaining in office.

There are peculiar aspects:

• The reason for the acquisition is stated as "valuing Steaker's vision and development, supporting industry deepening," with no indication from the investors whether they will assume user debt, only continuing the claims of "seeking compensation from FTX in accordance with relevant laws," "assisting in protecting user rights," and "SAFU compensation mechanism."
• Steaker's Taiwan registered company "Seychelles-based Sidike Technology Co., Ltd." is still led by founder Huang Wei-Xuan, indicating ongoing operations without director information.
• NSCA, representing the investors, acquired Steaker, which has lost the trust of its users. What is the actual motive behind the acquisition?
• NSCA's website shows offices in Shanghai and Taipei, but upon actual inspection, there is no operational office in Taipei; the actual company registration for NSCA was not found.

Upon investigation, NSCA, the entity representing investors in the acquisition of Steaker, as shown on its website, is an M&A company focusing on mergers and acquisitions, investment banking, and real estate business; with offices in Shanghai and Taipei, and partners operating in Southeast Asia, the United States, and Europe. Founder Thomas Lee manages $2 billion in Singapore REITS real estate investment trusts, serving in various management roles across investment development, supply chain, financial technology, and other industries.

Thomas Lee's registered companies in Taiwan include "Zhongjing Management Consultant" and "Wanmei Industrial." According to sources, he is also an investor in the Taiwan blockchain company BSOS and a user of the company's supply chain finance product Suplex.

Regarding why NSCA represented the investors in the acquisition, Steaker, besides the reasons stated in the announcement, has only mentioned that it is actively formulating better compensation policies for users.

There are speculations within the community about NSCA's motives:

1. Acquiring at a price of 1 RMB, engaging in distressed asset restructuring arbitrage, becoming a creditor of FTX, and partially refunding users
2. Some believe there is a debt relationship between NSCA and Steaker

Steaker did not follow the FSC's anti-money laundering declaration

The Financial Supervisory Commission of Taiwan has stated that overseas platforms like FTX are not within its regulatory scope. However, it remains unknown whether domestic cryptocurrency asset management platforms are willing to comply.

According to the "Regulations for Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing for Virtual Currency Platforms and Trading Businesses", virtual currency platforms and trading businesses are required to complete an anti-money laundering compliance statement.

From the perspective of activities defined by regulated entities in the third and fourth items:

(3) Transfer of virtual currency.
(4) Custody, management of virtual currency, or provision of related management tools.

It is possible that these fall within the scope of regulated entities, depending on whether Steaker's financial products can be interpreted as "custodians of private keys for customers." Draft discussion

Nevertheless, as of the latest anti-money laundering declaration list updated on November 17, 2022, Steaker has not submitted the relevant statement. This has also become a topic of discussion in the current community for recourse to public authority regulation.

Specific media: "Taiwan's 21 most influential blockchain figures"

Occasionally, voices in the community express that believing in Steaker's founder being selected as one of "Taiwan's 21 most influential blockchain figures" added confidence in the platform's products, only to encounter the current outcome.

In reality, media awards and topics are often part of marketing and sponsorship programs, and media interpretations should be taken as reference. Transferring investment risk responsibility to the media is not objective.

According to the investigation, the specific media originated from Taiwan's largest accelerator, AppWorks, a startup hall where most Taiwanese blockchain companies are sure to be housed; thus, the 21 most influential figures selected by the specific media are bound to include outstanding companies from AppWorks. Additionally, related advertisers and investors are also reasonable selections.