How would we access our money if Wealthfront itself (not the banks) goes under?

There is an unfortunate but interesting situation going on at /r/yotta that another redditor on this sub brought to attention. Yotta is slightly different from Wealthfront, in that Yotta uses a middle man brokerage Synapse to cash sweep into partner banks. (To my understanding, Wealthfront performs the functions of both Yotta and Synapse in this comparison.) After declaring bankruptcy, Synapse revoked the visibility of some banks to their “dashboard”, meaning those banks have no idea how much each user actually holds in their accounts. Because they cannot verify account balances, those banks have paused all ACH transfers in and out, and Yotta users no longer have access to their deposits. This has been going on for more than a week, which can be devastating to anyone who has put all their cash in there.

The FDIC does not step in here because the banks themselves are still up and operational. Users have posted screenshots of FDIC replies redirecting them to the Federal Reserve, and there is generally still no clear direction or resolution.

It seems to me that something similar could happen to us if Wealthfront fails. Without Wealthfront, partner banks cannot verify account balances of individual users.

I think it’s an important consideration to anyone leaving their savings with Wealthfront. Curious if anyone has any additional thoughts on this topic.