> can you speak to some of your motivations for putting your life savings into these kinds of vehicles?
For sure. My rationale was that keeping crypto in cold storage was effectively currency speculation and didn't really do anything to add value to the world. By instead keeping it in an interest-earning account it could be earning interest independent of the exchange rate with USD and providing some value to the world in the form of liquidity and loans.
It's the same rationale I use to justify keeping money in VTSAX instead of under my mattress.
> providing some value to the world in the form of liquidity and loans.
I'm trying to avoid coming across as blaming or rubbing salt in the wounds, but I just wanted to say that the rates they were offering during times of such low interest rates in general, were really be a huge red flag.
However you feel about cryptocurrency in general (and it's safe to say I'm a sceptic) you have to look at that and think either that something fishy was going on or they had to have an exceptional business model.
Wouldn't the appropriate analogy to BlockFi be to keeping your money in an interest bearing savings account rather than in VTSAX? Since VTSAX isn't a bank choosing to allocate capital in whatever way they choose