One Sunday evening last month, Lucas Holcomb woke his pregnant wife. “Honey, we just lost $100,000,” he told her.
Mr. Holcomb had taken out a home-equity line of credit and deposited the proceeds with cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network LLC, which offered banklike accounts paying far higher rates than traditional lenders. He liked that the company had big-name institutional investors and touted safeguards meant to protect depositors from the crazy price swings common in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.