In 2022, after her family had a series of health scares, Kayla Morris sold her house. She cleared $280,000, representing 15 years of her life savings. She decided to put it all into an account on a money-saving app called Yotta, which operates like a normal savings program, except instead of offering a small dividend, it pays out daily sweepstakes-style rewards. Yotta promised its users their deposits were safe, just as if the money were in an FDIC-insured bank account.
That proved to be disastrously wrong. After Yotta users’ funds were frozen in May following the bankruptcy of one of its partners in fintech infrastructure, Morris waited months to find out whether she would ever regain access to her nest egg, spending hours trying to track down her money. In early November, she got an answer: She would receive just $500.
