#yotta

[relaxxilly]

Yeah go my shape oc slop

[jamelalatise]

Yotta at Tofuku-ji Temple for Artists Fair Kyoto 2025

[tartymae]

'I have no money': Thousands of Americans see their savings vanish in Synapse fintech crisis

For 15 years, former Texas schoolteacher Kayla Morris put every dollar she could save into a home for her growing family.

I said it a few months back, but here's yet another reminder why you do not want to keep "mission critical" money with a "financial services" or "banking services" company (such as Chime), even if they say the money is FDIC insured, because to do that, these companies are partnering with a 3rd party bank. And if something goes sideways in that relationship you will be waiting for months (or possibly even years) to access your funds while the dispute is sorted out.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Don’t use Venmo as your checking account

Cash App, Venmo, and Chime don’t have fees. But they don’t have FDIC insurance either.

Adam Clark Estes at Vox:

Some people collect coins or stamps. For a time, I collected debit cards. Not stolen ones! Each one of them had my name on them, right below the logo of the latest banking app I’d decided to try out: Venmo, Cash App, Chime, Varo, Current, Acorns. For the better part of a decade, I did all my banking through these apps, enjoying their slick user experience and lack of fees. The problem with every one of them, however, is that they’re not chartered banks. If the company behind the app went bankrupt, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) would not necessarily come to my rescue. This disaster scenario was a hypothetical worry when I eventually settled for Chase and its FDIC insurance. For millions of others, it became a reality earlier this year when a company called Synapse collapsed and froze them out of their accounts. Users of Yotta, a popular savings app with a built-in lottery, and other apps that relied on Synapse to help manage their accounts couldn’t access their money for months. Now, as hundreds of thousands of Synapse customers’ dollars remain in limbo, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) are calling for banking reforms, and the FDIC is proposing changes to its rules.

Still, a growing number of people are embracing these financial technology, or fintech, services. More than a third of Gen Z and millennials used a fintech app or a digital bank as their primary checking account, according to a 2023 Cornerstone Advisors study. So some questions are worth asking: Is it a bad idea to use an app like Venmo as your main bank? Are digital banks like Chime trustworthy enough? The answer to both questions is yes. Venmo is not a bank, and using it as your primary checking account comes with some risks. Some fintech companies, like Chime, are just as big as traditional banks and offer some nice perks. Again, because they’re nontraditional, there are risks. “You’re not going to go back to a world where everybody works with a small bank and walks into a branch,” Shamir Karkal, co-founder of Simple, one of the first digital banks. “The future is just going to be more fintech, and I think we all just need to get better at it.”

Neobanks and money transmitters, briefly explained

The term fintech can refer to a lot of things, but when you’re talking about everyday services for everyday people, it typically refers to either neobanks or money transmitters. Chime is a neobank. Venmo is a money transmitter. They’re regulated in different ways, but because most of these companies issue debit cards, many people treat them like checking accounts. Fintech apps are not the same thing as FDIC-insured banks.

Neobanks are fintech companies that offer services like checking accounts in partnership with chartered banks, which are FDIC-insured. Neobanks sometimes enlist intermediaries known as banking-as-a-service, or BaaS, companies, which are not FDIC-insured. Still, you will often see the FDIC logo on neobank websites, just like you see it stuck to the glass doors of many brick-and-mortar banks. That logo instills trust, and thanks to their partnerships, neobanks can claim some FDIC protections. But because they do not have bank charters, these neobanks and BaaS companies are not directly FDIC-insured. Instead, neobank customers can be eligible for something called pass-through deposit insurance coverage.

[...] Money transmitters, also known as money services businesses, are even further removed from the perceived safety of the FDIC. Put bluntly, if you’re keeping all your money in a Venmo or Cash App account, you don’t qualify for FDIC insurance. Money transmitters are not neobanks or banks at all but rather completely different legal entities that are regulated by individual states as well as the Department of the Treasury. There are certain protections provided by these agencies, but FDIC insurance is not one of them. So when an app like Yotta or Chime says on its website that it’s FDIC insured, it’s not a lie, but it’s not necessarily true either. Venmo, to its credit, admits in the fine print of its homepage that its parent company PayPal “is not a bank” and “is not FDIC insured.” To confuse you even more, however, certain PayPal services that enlist a chartered bank partner, like a PayPal Mastercard or savings account, might qualify for FDIC insurance. Again, it depends.

[...] That doesn’t necessarily mean that all neobanks and fintech companies are untrustworthy. In some cases, the sheer size and track record of fintech companies can instill quite a bit of trust. Chime, the largest digital bank with roughly 22 million customers, scored a $25 billion valuation in its latest round of funding and is planning to go public next year. Venmo’s parent company, PayPal, is widely considered safe and trustworthy. And don’t expect Block, the $42 billion company that owns Cash App as well as its own chartered bank, to fail any time soon. The truth is, even if there is some false sense of security, fintech apps offer certain customers features that big banks can’t or won’t. One thing that’s made Chime and many other neobanks so popular, for instance, is that they don’t charge so many fees. That’s a huge boon to young people as well as people without bank accounts. If a fintech app is your only option, then you might not care so much about FDIC insurance.

“If you’re poor in America and you’re banking at Chase or Wells Fargo, you’re going to get overdraft fees, minimum balance fees,” Mikula explained. “So there is a real need that [fintech] companies fulfill as a result of your establishment banks essentially not wanting to bank poor people because it’s difficult to do profitably.” As many as 6 percent of Americans were living without a bank account in 2023, according to Federal Reserve data. That share grows to 23 percent for those making less than $23,000 a year. The unbanked population, which disproportionately comprises Black, Hispanic, and undocumented people, is at a greater risk of falling victim to predatory lending practices, including payday loans. Some fintech companies also offer short-term loans, though they’ve been criticized for being predatory as well.

If you have Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, or any fintech or digital banking app, be aware: don’t use them as your primary checking account.

[animalsandskyyy]

random-

what i’ve learned from BOTH the gemini and yotta apps going to shit and freezing my money for who know how long- DONT TRUST MY DAD’S RECOMMENDATIONS ON NEW SAVING AND INVESTMENT APPS😭

[yottabites]

Yotta i made a shimeji of you do you like him pls ....

"Oh my god—?!?!" He laughed, leaning in close to the screen and staring in wonder at the mini him that dashed around the monitor. "Like him? I love him, that is so cute, it's a little guy! A little me! That's so cool. Look at his lil boots... " Yotta coos over the shimeji, pretending to drop it into a png full of lava.

[wtf-fun-factss]

Due to concerns of the rapid growth of total data storage exceeding 1 yottabyte in the 2030s, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) proposed to add two more prefixes to the metric system beyond Yotta- (10^24); Ronna- and Quecca- would be prefixes for 10^27 and 10^30, respectively. – WTF Fun Facts

Source: You know kilo, mega, and giga. Is the metric system ready for ronna and quecca? | Science | AAAS

[pulpsage]

That's a Yotta Cash! New $250,000 rolling "Hot Pot"

That’s a Yotta Cash! New $250,000 rolling “Hot Pot”

Yotta, the lottery savings account is once again mixing things up. This time they are making their savings account more like the lottery with a $250,000 prize that grows the longer someone does not win it. If you are not familiar with Yotta, it is a lottery based savings account that pays you 0.2% APY plus winnings from tickets (up to a grand prize of $10 million). You earn tickets each week…

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