RYVYL Inc. says ‘no exposure to crypto firms’ that filed for bankruptcy

RYVYL announced a letter to shareholders regarding recent events in the cryptocurrency market and the implications on RYVYL, which read in part, "It’s been a tumultuous end to 2022 for the cryptocurrency marketplace with the fall of FTX and BlockFi among other firms, along with the sharp decline in the price of cryptocurrencies and related securities. In the wake of this crises, we at RYVYL now more than ever want to clearly communicate the conviction that we have in our differentiated suite of payment technology solutions that arm us to seize on a fantastic opportunity and emerge as a leader in the digital payments space. RYVYL is not a cryptocurrency firm and has no exposure to crypto firms that have recently filed for bankruptcy protection. The collapse of crypto exchanges only strengthens our position and validates the strategy we have taken. Our smart contract token, known as coyni, has a unique architecture as a USD-pegged stablecoin, backed dollar for dollar in a federally insured custodial account with near real-time attestation, ensuring the continuous health and compliance of the ecosystem. Our technology settles through a proprietary blockchain ledger that we believe is the ideal digital payments product on the market today. To clarify, each coyni digital token is held in a wallet on the platform and matched with one U.S. dollar held in a custodial account by a federally insured financial institution. The dollars backing coyni are not tied up in investments or US treasury notes and are not converted to cryptocurrencies. All industry failures we have seen recently, in both stablecoin and crypto, occurred with ecosystems that did not utilize these safety measures, leading to severe market disruption. We continue to support regulatory oversight along these principles. One of the most significant points of distinction for us is that coyni has near real-time custodial account attestation. This was no small feat and accomplished only after a lengthy review of IT, compliance and, specifically, SOC 2 compliance certification from Armanino, a top accounting, consulting and technology firm in the U.S. The recent crypto market collapse will undoubtedly lead to increased regulatory oversight, something which we welcome and believe will be beneficial to our business and growth trajectory. As oversight increases and stablecoin matures, we believe there will be less need for volatile cryptocurrencies. We believe a stablecoin that is properly pegged to fiat currency, both in coverage and compliance reporting, is equivalent to fiat and is likely to eventually be even better than fiat as it has the potential of being adjusted or hedged by commodity. This is where RYVYL can step in. While some large banks work with the Federal Reserve on a recently announced pilot-program leveraging blockchain backed stablecoin technology, we are already in the market as demonstrated by our successful work in American Samoa. With a closed-loop payment system already in operation, we bring to market our leading-edge digital payment solutions across the banking sector and in multiple countries to quickly achieve scale and market share. While market conditions have made for a challenging year for stocks in our sector and presented obstacles to our acquisition strategy, we believe the latest fallout in the crypto landscape provides all the opportunity we need to become a disruptive force in the digital payments market and deliver sustainable long-term growth for our shareholders."