actually, wikipedia was surprisingly insightful:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voat

Swiss-based. Changed to US:

"Switzerland seemed like a great option in the beginning, but when it comes to freedom of speech, the main idea behind Voat, U.S. law by far beats every other candidate country we’ve researched."

founders:

• Atif Colo

• Justin Chastain

Ran out of money.

I wonder how many people used the site.... gui was always meh but the content/community was getting pretty good there at the end... ironically / tragically.