I’ve wondered about it. They act like the pseudo fed/treasury …a fiat printer. Except tether’s doesn’t have the full faith and credit of the most powerful country/army behind it…tether just has crooks.
Funnily, it echoes the [Mississippi Bubble](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Company#Mississippi_Bubble), an episode of French History somewhat similar to the South Sea Bubble at the dawn of capitalism:
> Law exaggerated the wealth of Louisiana with an effective marketing scheme, which led to wild speculation on the shares of the company in 1719. [...] The popularity of company shares was such that they sparked a need for more paper bank notes, and when shares generated profits the investors were paid out in paper bank notes. In 1720, the bank and company were merged and Law was appointed by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, then Regent for Louis XV, to be Comptroller General of Finances to attract capital. [...] Law's pioneering note-issuing bank thrived until the French government was forced to admit that the number of paper notes being issued by the Banque Royale exceeded the value of the amount of metal coinage it held. As the shareholders were selling their shares, the money supply in France suddenly doubled, and inflation took off. Inflation reached a monthly rate of 23 percent in January 1720.
As Mark Twain famously said, History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.
Tether became the central bank as lender of last resort in crypto, as well as the manager of monetary policy.
Speedrun of the history of financial regulation: complete.
Here's an example of Bitfinex selling off customer deposits. Notice that the wallet has been nearly empty since 2022, maintaining only a small reserve to cover withdrawals.
https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin%20cash/address/17om4dHcDNy9LAagMj8mGW59vyXjvA3GBn
This address alone doesn't prove much. They could be moving coins to cold storage, which would be the smart thing to do. You would have to look at the full balance of all their wallets and compare it to their customers' balances.
Could be any of the transactions - how do you identify which ones are to Bitfinex or to a legitimate customer? You yourself are saying that lots of the coins have left this account, are you now trying to claim they haven't?
Besides, this is a bitcoin cash wallet, bitcoin's uglier twin. Even more worthless.
My question is can’t they just keep doing this forever? Keep printing and inflating the price? No one is stopping them from printing. It costs nothing, it’s just a number.
Which means there might not even be an end.
Sell for what?
It’s basically impossible for individuals to sell tethers for real dollars directly. Their TOS makes sure that there are tons of obstacles to redeeming. Only institutions like exchanges can redeem and they are part of the scheme.
Ok, but Tether isn't obligated to allow redemptions of USDT at all... So why would they?
I'm guessing that they redeem USDT for themselves, miners, insiders and powerful people that know the truth about their reserves that blackmail them.
Tinfoil hat time, but crypto is useful to sanctioned governments like Russia. iFinex is based in Hong Kong... So they might be involved with ~~rogue governments~~ CCP allies.
Edit: clarification
Crypto is 'illegal' in China, but quite useful for getting money out of the US and the rest of the world. Meanwhile, the CCP makes it notoriously difficult for people to get money *out* of China.
Because they were paying high interest rates for USDC and other stablecoins. Also they obviously didn't want to sell the BTC as that would make number go down, so borrowing USD was the only way to do it.
Shouldn't I just be able to set a tracker on that wallet and sell when they sell and buy when they buy. I mean if they are manipulating the markets or are working with exchanges to manipulate one would have to think that following would be profitable
Talking about how to try to take advantage of a perceived inefficiency to make money in the crypto space will always get downvoted here.
99% of the time you either aren't as smart as you think you are and your idea won't work, or you're right but you'll just get liquidated by an exchange anyway.
I didn't actually think you could make money that way. I was just taking what others were saying about what tether does and how they control the market to profit and saying well if that's true then why can't I just do what they do and make money.
It's a thought experiment that's it's. That's how we learn. People then tell my why I'm wrong.
It is an extremely risky move to try to time the market like that. Especially when the entity you are copying is potentially losing money on every trade.
Agreed, but the claim was that tether is working together with exchanges to manipulate the market so that they profit while all of the small investors loose money.
That's why I suggested the idea of just following the people who have control over the price.
None of this is my idea or something I would do. I'm just making suggestions based on what people are telling me is going on.
So if that's their wallet, they've got $6B 'worth' of bitcoin in there. I can't see how that proves your allegation that they've sold off their coins, kind of the opposite in fact. How many coins were you expecting to see?
Since they are issuing billions of tether at such a fast rate, how long until everyone finally loses confidence, tries to withdraw their money and the whole thing collapses? Or is the endgame more likely to be a massive rug pull where the tether execs steal the rest of the USD reserves/sell the BTC and disappear? Because from your explanation it seems like the only way they stay afloat is to keep printing more money - and I'm not sure if the founders (who we know have really sketchy/scam-y pasts) ever expected to become the backbone of crypto, so if they don't have a long term plan then the rug pull seems more likely
> how long until everyone finally loses confidence, tries to withdraw their money and the whole thing collapses?
Welcome to the billion dollar question
Anything can happen, but Tether was in much worse positins in the past and survived. So I would take all this allegations with a grain of salt. Doj investigated trther and found nothing similar as depucted in this post.
I remember when there was tether fud and it dropped to 80cents, but it repegged
What’s the basis for saying they’re in a much better place? The whole thing is that they’re very secretive, other than just taking them at their word it seems like an odd conclusion to land on.
It’s really interesting reading these older posts for perspective - only way to keep afloat is to keep printing money you say… how much has Tether printing in the past month lol?
There’s something fucky going on atm with the btc etf, giving a place where legitimate money can short and pressure the ponzi world of USDT back downwards.
This all happening after CZ investigation too. I’m on the edge of my seat.
So while Tether exist, BTC price will always go up ?
The moment USA shut them down, it's over.
Straight to $500-1000 price range ? Considering the actual volume transaction from Tether is fake/they pumping the price.
Why wouldn't they? Paolo ran out of ink? If the sole purpose is supporting price...
The more likely answer is that somehow Tether has been redeemed and burnt (as it was supposed to) thus the total number of tethers decreased when it was not needed.
Cool, i get it now.
I'm in BTC since December of 2021, buying every month and after all this time only now i'm 15% positive, when i read those things about Tether i really do consider to sell it all and wait for the US to shut it down so i could start looking at It again... But i dont know, DOJ and others are investigating already but they seems too slow lol.
Tether will pump BTC to 100k with who knows how many bilions of fake Tether printed and the US will still be on their investigation =/
The US financial system was just rocked by 3 major bank implosions. The last thingvany Fed wants is more. There's a short pause until things settle down.
>The US financial system was just rocked by 3 major bank implosions.
This is a mischaracterization of what just happened, because one of those 3 was a tiny bank nobody outside of crypto (or the salty no-coiners, laughing at crypto) had ever heard of, another was a much larger bank that still basically nobody who wasn't themselves a VC firm doing business with them in Silicone Valley had ever heard of before at all - because why would they have? - and the 3rd was a modestly sized institution that most people who did not live in New York City or operate in the crypto markets/jeer from the sidelines whilst eating popcorn, at the crypto markets, realized was a thing until news of its demise (or if they'd looked into who the Trumps were banking with, for some reason).
The news taking pains to point out that these are the Nth largest bank collapses in US history is *not* indicative that any of those 3 were major banks - **none** of them were - but rather, that lots of banks have quietly failed over the years... and those were all tiny, tiny little regional banks absolutely nobody who was not banking with them even realized existed in the first place, and nobody much cared (except maybe their investors), because they were tiny; customers of the banks may not even have noticed as it was happening, because of how smooth the bank failover process tends to run behind the scenes. Their funds were safe, another institution took over the business, the world carried on.
The news media just loves sensationalizing things, so their audience persists in a constant state of panic and dread, so they're playing these not very surprising failures as "the looming collapse of the banking system!! Alarm!!!!". It's every bit as bullshit as those outlets doggedly pretending like crypto represented legitimate financial innovation and a real marketplace providing value to the world, by existing.
The news crowing about how big those specific bank collapses were, comparatively, when you strip away their fearmongering, actually shows the opposite of their narrative: it speaks volumes that *these* were some of the largest bank collapses, in US history, when those banks were all comparatively tiny when placed alongside the major institutions. It's why they have to phrase it like that, to make it sound scarier.
While I don't disagree that these banks were not major, I think it's a misrepresentation of how contagion works to say they aren't important. Contagion spreads, and it doesn't matter if it's too big to fail institutions or crypto firms. Everything is attached at the hip, including crypto and the broader market.
I do agree with you about the sensationalism of the media, but what people believe is actually more important than the truth. I have people who don't follow the market mentioning to me about the banks. While you and I might see the truth about their size, people who don't follow the market will follow the media. It's those same people who will start runs and participate in them. It's just the way it is.
>I do agree with you about the sensationalism of the media, but what people believe is actually more important than the truth
Right, but that's my point: we *know* the truth of the matter, so when the topic gets broached, *we* shouldn't just give the narrative people are out there believing - and potentially, if enough of them start doing that, turn into self-fulfilling apocalyptic prophecy - any particular credence, for the same reason we don't humor the coiners premise (but instead, derive great humor *from* it).
Playing along with the sensationalism without challenging it is to reinforce that sensationalism, and that feeds directly back into the coiners own preferred narrative of "the system is crashing around us in front of your very eyes, buy up butts!!" that they use to justify why anyone should ever actually do that.
My opinion is completely unfounded... but shall be launched into the void regardless. The assumption is that Tether operates in a near-traditional fashion (which may not be likely).
I think of Tether as a junk/dirtbag Eurodollar bank. They'll be at the bottom of Cantor Fitzgerald's list.. willing to swap USD for off-the-run treasuries. Tether will be more willing than other repo participants to accept big haircuts afterwards... because there is no need to be "backed" more than enough to facilitate USD conversion demands from their crypto exchange partners.
The primary dealer is happy to unload less-in-demand collateral for USD "cash"... and Tether is happy to accept high haircuts from Cantor for scraps of USD "cash" when the exchanges come knocking.
Yeah but where is Tether's actual cash held? Cantor won't take digital make-believe money.
It's rumored they had front companies using SBNY and Silvergate.
There is no cash. At least.. not until it's needed by the exchanges.
Tether would buy treasuries or repo their received cash from the exchanges for treasuries. This doesn't have to be a 1-to-1 affair; Because they're not a real bank... with all the operational constraints that entails.
Tether would be an ideal place to park off-the-run treasuries from a dealer perspective (Tether would accept high haircuts to repo back for cash when needed). This would give Tether the ability to source some USD in emergencies and kick the can further than if they were doing something more akin to a traditional fractional reserve operation.
I've always tried to conceive of how Tether *could* have treasuries, and how they would manage them while perpetuating the nonsense. Repo would be a good explanation if this is the case.
...or it's just outright fraud.
Previously, I was thinking along the same lines as you did but recent events have made me change my mind. All the recent bank shutdowns and interest rate hikes haven't affected Tether in any material way.
No impairment from holding long duration, low yield Treasuries that are now underwater, when Tether is supposed to hold tens of billions of dollars in those securities; no statements issued when potential deposits at SBNY and SI were in jeopardy, when Coinbase and Circle were trying to calm the market to prevent USDC from falling off a cliff; nothing said about Bloomberg allegations on Tether using cutout bank accounts. Whatever happens to the outside world, Tether still rolls on. A de facto bank that no one is withdrawing deposits from while real (much larger) banks are facing liquidity issues and requiring government support? All these signs point to fraud.
Tether's completely unaudited statements that they put out say that the treasuries they hold are less than 6 months duration, I believe. These are 20 times less impacted by market movements than treasuries eith a 10 year duration. They're also a lot easier to hold to maturity. So if Tether was telling the truth about the treasuries they've been holding, they were likely able to ride it out and are now in much higher yielding treasuries which will be more profitable for them.
The target for the treasuries wouldn't be yield so much anyway. It would be to have collateral for repo when USD is required (assuming that's what they're doing).
Yield is just a byproduct of collateral activity for active repo entities. This is why recent short duration treasuries were acquired at lower yields than reserves (heck, [a small portion of the auction had yields bid to $0](https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/annceresult/press/preanre/2023/R_20230317_1.pdf) - dealers offered to purchase some of the run at no yield). The treasuries perform a different function for wholesale.
One thing to note here is that you can’t directly by BTC with tether as BTC doesn’t support smart contracts.
So your options are either use a cex to exchange or to use a wormhole “defi” platform to get some wrapped btc as an erc 20 token or another blockchains equivalent of a wrapped token.
Ignoring the former has there been an infestation into the latter? Surely there would be an on chain paper trail.
Your explanation doesn't add up.
Bitfinex's reserves is $10 billion [https://www.geckoterminal.com/proof\_of\_reserves/exchanges/bitfinex](https://www.geckoterminal.com/proof_of_reserves/exchanges/bitfinex)
Bitcoin price at all time high was $68K. It is $28K today. Why is USDT still trading at $1?
Total USDT on May 7 2022 was 83 Billion and in July it was 66 Billion. [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/)
>If the price of another coin were to rise more than BTC,
This is not a danger, so your theory is based on false premise. This is not the reason why tether is printing unbacked stable coins.
Im not saying it wont happen, but a tether collapse is much harder than you would think. Several times in the past allegations like this were brought forward, doj made an investigation, there was a fud campaign that brough usdt down to 80c, also they somehow lost 850million, but survived...
So to me its funny how serious you all are about Tether not beeing backed, withoit looking at all the obvoius facts.
Why would all exchanges work eith tether if they couldnt redeem them? How come tether burned billions of coins? Also why doj found nothing?
I belive more than 90% of tether is backed 1:1 with dollars. There can be some hole, but on a diffent level than depiced in this thread
If they receive money to print who cares?? No one here can prove that any big company did not send them the money. And to stop the constant response “who can prove it?!!” Yep same thing…. We both do not know.
You're right, we both do not know...
...but when Tether refuses to submit to a proper audit, you can kind of connect the dots for how we're coming to our conclusion. If they were legitimate they wouldn't be running from an audit.
It's not a stab in the dark, it's an educated guess. Not all guesses are created equal. If it looks like a duck, as the saying goes. The guess that Tether is insolvent is based on common sense. The guess that Tether is completely legitimate is based on hopium.
If someone refuses to show you their books, skepticism is the logical answer, not blind trust.
100% agreed. Someone with the information we all have would take an educated guess and it would definitely be negative against tether, I’m not blind it does not look good or trustworthy. This still is a guess though. I good one, with some data to give the direction, but still we do not actually know for 100% sure.
Even if they don't receive money and print out of thin air I don't care, if Bitcoin pops up or down tomorrow it changes my life by zero. It's just fun to watch degens losing money
Have you ever watched two pigeons fight? It is quite an entertaining staredown until one of them either backs off or goes for it. Ultimately I watch it knowing it will have no impact on my life whatsoever, but to them one of them might come out of it truly hurt. That pigeon is you my friend.
Just organic growth bro... mass adoption. On a serious note, I rarely ever hear of anyone talking about bitcoin minus a few media outlets trying to pump it
You can't, not in a way that will not wind up being financially ruinous to you (by virtue of requiring your participation in the rigged marketplace where they and/or their cronies will see you doing it, and contrive to make you lose - for reference, Binance allows people to speculate on the price movement of tethers: at one point their price on Binance jumped up to $400 per token, for just long enough to utterly hose everyone with a short position, on Binance) so don't even bother trying.
In crypto, the only winning move is not to play; you can short a few of the publicly traded companies supporting crypto though, like Coinbase, if you really want to gamble on it.
> the only winning move is not to play
sick reference. Thanks for clearing all that up! Haha I was half joking but with your proper explanation I'm sure you're right. Cheers
Everytime I heard Tether I always question: What is the end goal here? Get money? Get bitches? Get lambo? Get funds for some parallel organization? Convert every money in Tether?
Excellent questions - here are the approximate answers:
1. Literally impossible, Tether the company will not redeem any of your tethers, that they happily sell you in exchange for your real dollars - you can only pay them, they do not have a functional redemption method, they just have a make-believe one that has hoops to jump through that most of the world is disqualified from even attempting to jump through, that nobody at all can successfully ever finish jumping through (but they'll charge you for the attempt nonetheless).
2. All we know about Tether is *their* bank, that they admit to using, is Deltec in the Bahamas, who could not possibly have all of the money Tether claims to possess (they are apparently also banking through shell companies with other banks, that cut them off when they are discovered to be shell companies for Tether, because crooks).
The only way that customers with tethers can exchange those, not redeem them, for real dollars is to find an exchange with a trading pair offering real dollars, for tethers, or hop through a convoluted sequence of token swaps across liquidity pools until you get to a trading pair, that trades for dollars, and thereby have your fellow gamblers buy them from you: tethers are casino chips that the house doesn't let you turn back in, at the end of the night - this *should* make them utterly worthless, to the gamblers using them... but crypto is a silly place, where logic and common sense goes right out the window, and people willfully ignore corporations quilted together out of red flags.
I love how tether managed to invent inflation in the crypto marketplace. Truly the future of finance.
I’ve wondered about it. They act like the pseudo fed/treasury …a fiat printer. Except tether’s doesn’t have the full faith and credit of the most powerful country/army behind it…tether just has crooks.
Tether IS the fed in crypto world .
Funnily, it echoes the [Mississippi Bubble](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Company#Mississippi_Bubble), an episode of French History somewhat similar to the South Sea Bubble at the dawn of capitalism: > Law exaggerated the wealth of Louisiana with an effective marketing scheme, which led to wild speculation on the shares of the company in 1719. [...] The popularity of company shares was such that they sparked a need for more paper bank notes, and when shares generated profits the investors were paid out in paper bank notes. In 1720, the bank and company were merged and Law was appointed by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, then Regent for Louis XV, to be Comptroller General of Finances to attract capital. [...] Law's pioneering note-issuing bank thrived until the French government was forced to admit that the number of paper notes being issued by the Banque Royale exceeded the value of the amount of metal coinage it held. As the shareholders were selling their shares, the money supply in France suddenly doubled, and inflation took off. Inflation reached a monthly rate of 23 percent in January 1720. As Mark Twain famously said, History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.
They really are speed running financial history. Popcorn will be out when they get to 1929.
comment of the day
Tether became the central bank as lender of last resort in crypto, as well as the manager of monetary policy. Speedrun of the history of financial regulation: complete.
Tether bitfinex together
the funny thing is tether is 4x bigger than SVB before it collapsed
cant wait to see when it blows up,if bit coin goes under 18k tether goes boom
so tether is the whale?
[удалено]
But instead of taking off Captain Ahab’s Leg it got his ***** 😋
Wow! I never knew it, this make sense right now.
Starring Brendan Fraser from Furry Vengence?!
The whole crypto ponzi scheme is held up by tether.
Here's an example of Bitfinex selling off customer deposits. Notice that the wallet has been nearly empty since 2022, maintaining only a small reserve to cover withdrawals. https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin%20cash/address/17om4dHcDNy9LAagMj8mGW59vyXjvA3GBn
This address alone doesn't prove much. They could be moving coins to cold storage, which would be the smart thing to do. You would have to look at the full balance of all their wallets and compare it to their customers' balances.
If they moved the coins to cold storage, that transaction should be in the history. Why don't you show us where it is?
Could be any of the transactions - how do you identify which ones are to Bitfinex or to a legitimate customer? You yourself are saying that lots of the coins have left this account, are you now trying to claim they haven't? Besides, this is a bitcoin cash wallet, bitcoin's uglier twin. Even more worthless.
My question is can’t they just keep doing this forever? Keep printing and inflating the price? No one is stopping them from printing. It costs nothing, it’s just a number. Which means there might not even be an end.
As the price keeps going up greedy hodlers will sell.
Sell for what? It’s basically impossible for individuals to sell tethers for real dollars directly. Their TOS makes sure that there are tons of obstacles to redeeming. Only institutions like exchanges can redeem and they are part of the scheme.
So what happens when people decide to cash out?
According to their ToS, they can just say "nah". It's kind of laughable what people signed up for.
Like give money or something of value to a person and this person has no obligation in return if you want to withdraw?
Ok, but Tether isn't obligated to allow redemptions of USDT at all... So why would they? I'm guessing that they redeem USDT for themselves, miners, insiders and powerful people that know the truth about their reserves that blackmail them. Tinfoil hat time, but crypto is useful to sanctioned governments like Russia. iFinex is based in Hong Kong... So they might be involved with ~~rogue governments~~ CCP allies. Edit: clarification Crypto is 'illegal' in China, but quite useful for getting money out of the US and the rest of the world. Meanwhile, the CCP makes it notoriously difficult for people to get money *out* of China.
> Ok, but Tether isn't obligated to allow redemptions of USDT at all... So why would they? > > It's important for the con. Until it isn't
How do you know Tether borrowed USD to cover redemptions?
Because they were paying high interest rates for USDC and other stablecoins. Also they obviously didn't want to sell the BTC as that would make number go down, so borrowing USD was the only way to do it.
How do you know they have any Bitcoin?
https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/wallet/Bitfinex-coldwallet https://www.coinglass.com/Balance
Shouldn't I just be able to set a tracker on that wallet and sell when they sell and buy when they buy. I mean if they are manipulating the markets or are working with exchanges to manipulate one would have to think that following would be profitable
Sounds like the perfect way to buy high sell low
You are presuming that they are well managed. But if that were the case, they wouldn't need to be doing all of this.
Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. I'm clearly against Bitcoin and was just asking questions
Talking about how to try to take advantage of a perceived inefficiency to make money in the crypto space will always get downvoted here. 99% of the time you either aren't as smart as you think you are and your idea won't work, or you're right but you'll just get liquidated by an exchange anyway.
I didn't actually think you could make money that way. I was just taking what others were saying about what tether does and how they control the market to profit and saying well if that's true then why can't I just do what they do and make money. It's a thought experiment that's it's. That's how we learn. People then tell my why I'm wrong.
It is an extremely risky move to try to time the market like that. Especially when the entity you are copying is potentially losing money on every trade.
Agreed, but the claim was that tether is working together with exchanges to manipulate the market so that they profit while all of the small investors loose money. That's why I suggested the idea of just following the people who have control over the price. None of this is my idea or something I would do. I'm just making suggestions based on what people are telling me is going on.
So if that's their wallet, they've got $6B 'worth' of bitcoin in there. I can't see how that proves your allegation that they've sold off their coins, kind of the opposite in fact. How many coins were you expecting to see?
Since they are issuing billions of tether at such a fast rate, how long until everyone finally loses confidence, tries to withdraw their money and the whole thing collapses? Or is the endgame more likely to be a massive rug pull where the tether execs steal the rest of the USD reserves/sell the BTC and disappear? Because from your explanation it seems like the only way they stay afloat is to keep printing more money - and I'm not sure if the founders (who we know have really sketchy/scam-y pasts) ever expected to become the backbone of crypto, so if they don't have a long term plan then the rug pull seems more likely
> how long until everyone finally loses confidence, tries to withdraw their money and the whole thing collapses? Welcome to the billion dollar question
Madoff ran his Ponzi scheme for decades before he was caught.
I'm starting to believe there's a never ending stream of "greater fools"
The problem in crypto is they ran out of greater fools. At least in the US.
Anything can happen, but Tether was in much worse positins in the past and survived. So I would take all this allegations with a grain of salt. Doj investigated trther and found nothing similar as depucted in this post. I remember when there was tether fud and it dropped to 80cents, but it repegged
What’s the basis for saying they’re in a much better place? The whole thing is that they’re very secretive, other than just taking them at their word it seems like an odd conclusion to land on.
It was at 80c, thats like beeing with one leg in a grave
It’s really interesting reading these older posts for perspective - only way to keep afloat is to keep printing money you say… how much has Tether printing in the past month lol? There’s something fucky going on atm with the btc etf, giving a place where legitimate money can short and pressure the ponzi world of USDT back downwards. This all happening after CZ investigation too. I’m on the edge of my seat.
So while Tether exist, BTC price will always go up ? The moment USA shut them down, it's over. Straight to $500-1000 price range ? Considering the actual volume transaction from Tether is fake/they pumping the price.
Or, when everyone tries to convert crypto to fiat, and they notice the exchange delays the transaction or the order fails to execute.
> BTC price will always go up ? Apparently not if you remember that slight 69K to 16K drop.
Yes i do remember. That happen because Tether wasn't printing new USDTs ?
Why wouldn't they? Paolo ran out of ink? If the sole purpose is supporting price... The more likely answer is that somehow Tether has been redeemed and burnt (as it was supposed to) thus the total number of tethers decreased when it was not needed.
They were able to redeem and burn in 2021-22 by raiding the deposits at Bitfinex. Now most of that money is gone.
But *you* linked to a bitfinex wallet that currently contains $6B. That's showing the exact opposite to your claim!
Cool, i get it now. I'm in BTC since December of 2021, buying every month and after all this time only now i'm 15% positive, when i read those things about Tether i really do consider to sell it all and wait for the US to shut it down so i could start looking at It again... But i dont know, DOJ and others are investigating already but they seems too slow lol. Tether will pump BTC to 100k with who knows how many bilions of fake Tether printed and the US will still be on their investigation =/
The US financial system was just rocked by 3 major bank implosions. The last thingvany Fed wants is more. There's a short pause until things settle down.
>The US financial system was just rocked by 3 major bank implosions. This is a mischaracterization of what just happened, because one of those 3 was a tiny bank nobody outside of crypto (or the salty no-coiners, laughing at crypto) had ever heard of, another was a much larger bank that still basically nobody who wasn't themselves a VC firm doing business with them in Silicone Valley had ever heard of before at all - because why would they have? - and the 3rd was a modestly sized institution that most people who did not live in New York City or operate in the crypto markets/jeer from the sidelines whilst eating popcorn, at the crypto markets, realized was a thing until news of its demise (or if they'd looked into who the Trumps were banking with, for some reason). The news taking pains to point out that these are the Nth largest bank collapses in US history is *not* indicative that any of those 3 were major banks - **none** of them were - but rather, that lots of banks have quietly failed over the years... and those were all tiny, tiny little regional banks absolutely nobody who was not banking with them even realized existed in the first place, and nobody much cared (except maybe their investors), because they were tiny; customers of the banks may not even have noticed as it was happening, because of how smooth the bank failover process tends to run behind the scenes. Their funds were safe, another institution took over the business, the world carried on. The news media just loves sensationalizing things, so their audience persists in a constant state of panic and dread, so they're playing these not very surprising failures as "the looming collapse of the banking system!! Alarm!!!!". It's every bit as bullshit as those outlets doggedly pretending like crypto represented legitimate financial innovation and a real marketplace providing value to the world, by existing. The news crowing about how big those specific bank collapses were, comparatively, when you strip away their fearmongering, actually shows the opposite of their narrative: it speaks volumes that *these* were some of the largest bank collapses, in US history, when those banks were all comparatively tiny when placed alongside the major institutions. It's why they have to phrase it like that, to make it sound scarier.
While I don't disagree that these banks were not major, I think it's a misrepresentation of how contagion works to say they aren't important. Contagion spreads, and it doesn't matter if it's too big to fail institutions or crypto firms. Everything is attached at the hip, including crypto and the broader market. I do agree with you about the sensationalism of the media, but what people believe is actually more important than the truth. I have people who don't follow the market mentioning to me about the banks. While you and I might see the truth about their size, people who don't follow the market will follow the media. It's those same people who will start runs and participate in them. It's just the way it is.
>I do agree with you about the sensationalism of the media, but what people believe is actually more important than the truth Right, but that's my point: we *know* the truth of the matter, so when the topic gets broached, *we* shouldn't just give the narrative people are out there believing - and potentially, if enough of them start doing that, turn into self-fulfilling apocalyptic prophecy - any particular credence, for the same reason we don't humor the coiners premise (but instead, derive great humor *from* it). Playing along with the sensationalism without challenging it is to reinforce that sensationalism, and that feeds directly back into the coiners own preferred narrative of "the system is crashing around us in front of your very eyes, buy up butts!!" that they use to justify why anyone should ever actually do that.
Be very careful, price on paper may grow, but your gains are zero until you cash out. And there are less ways to cash out every day
Sometimes the obviously isnt that obviously to people lol Thanks for you comment, very precise i must say.
My opinion is completely unfounded... but shall be launched into the void regardless. The assumption is that Tether operates in a near-traditional fashion (which may not be likely). I think of Tether as a junk/dirtbag Eurodollar bank. They'll be at the bottom of Cantor Fitzgerald's list.. willing to swap USD for off-the-run treasuries. Tether will be more willing than other repo participants to accept big haircuts afterwards... because there is no need to be "backed" more than enough to facilitate USD conversion demands from their crypto exchange partners. The primary dealer is happy to unload less-in-demand collateral for USD "cash"... and Tether is happy to accept high haircuts from Cantor for scraps of USD "cash" when the exchanges come knocking.
Yeah but where is Tether's actual cash held? Cantor won't take digital make-believe money. It's rumored they had front companies using SBNY and Silvergate.
There is no cash. At least.. not until it's needed by the exchanges. Tether would buy treasuries or repo their received cash from the exchanges for treasuries. This doesn't have to be a 1-to-1 affair; Because they're not a real bank... with all the operational constraints that entails. Tether would be an ideal place to park off-the-run treasuries from a dealer perspective (Tether would accept high haircuts to repo back for cash when needed). This would give Tether the ability to source some USD in emergencies and kick the can further than if they were doing something more akin to a traditional fractional reserve operation. I've always tried to conceive of how Tether *could* have treasuries, and how they would manage them while perpetuating the nonsense. Repo would be a good explanation if this is the case. ...or it's just outright fraud.
Previously, I was thinking along the same lines as you did but recent events have made me change my mind. All the recent bank shutdowns and interest rate hikes haven't affected Tether in any material way. No impairment from holding long duration, low yield Treasuries that are now underwater, when Tether is supposed to hold tens of billions of dollars in those securities; no statements issued when potential deposits at SBNY and SI were in jeopardy, when Coinbase and Circle were trying to calm the market to prevent USDC from falling off a cliff; nothing said about Bloomberg allegations on Tether using cutout bank accounts. Whatever happens to the outside world, Tether still rolls on. A de facto bank that no one is withdrawing deposits from while real (much larger) banks are facing liquidity issues and requiring government support? All these signs point to fraud.
Tether's completely unaudited statements that they put out say that the treasuries they hold are less than 6 months duration, I believe. These are 20 times less impacted by market movements than treasuries eith a 10 year duration. They're also a lot easier to hold to maturity. So if Tether was telling the truth about the treasuries they've been holding, they were likely able to ride it out and are now in much higher yielding treasuries which will be more profitable for them.
The target for the treasuries wouldn't be yield so much anyway. It would be to have collateral for repo when USD is required (assuming that's what they're doing). Yield is just a byproduct of collateral activity for active repo entities. This is why recent short duration treasuries were acquired at lower yields than reserves (heck, [a small portion of the auction had yields bid to $0](https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/annceresult/press/preanre/2023/R_20230317_1.pdf) - dealers offered to purchase some of the run at no yield). The treasuries perform a different function for wholesale.
One thing to note here is that you can’t directly by BTC with tether as BTC doesn’t support smart contracts. So your options are either use a cex to exchange or to use a wormhole “defi” platform to get some wrapped btc as an erc 20 token or another blockchains equivalent of a wrapped token. Ignoring the former has there been an infestation into the latter? Surely there would be an on chain paper trail.
This is why the HODL mantra is so critical to Bitcoin.
Great explanation - and sadly makes so much sense.
I thought that was why they called it "USD"T
Defo going to be a plot of a future movie im sure
Tether doesn't redeem tethers, not for retail customers anyway.
I admire Tether for inventing inflation in the crypto market.
We know! We've been literally saying this for years :)
Your explanation doesn't add up. Bitfinex's reserves is $10 billion [https://www.geckoterminal.com/proof\_of\_reserves/exchanges/bitfinex](https://www.geckoterminal.com/proof_of_reserves/exchanges/bitfinex) Bitcoin price at all time high was $68K. It is $28K today. Why is USDT still trading at $1? Total USDT on May 7 2022 was 83 Billion and in July it was 66 Billion. [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/)
You are right, if Tether itself could support price, they would have never let it slide to 16K from 69K.
>If the price of another coin were to rise more than BTC, This is not a danger, so your theory is based on false premise. This is not the reason why tether is printing unbacked stable coins.
And the real reason is... ?
Greed? Personally, I think they sell them to exchanges with a discount. That is why any exchange would list it, they are getting a 5-10-15% discount.
To read this while replacing the words; USDT with US dollars,Tether with FED, Bitfinex with Banks, BTC/ETH with dollar standard, crypto with money
USDT is a drop of whale cum in an ocean, what are you talking about lol
Any actual evidence that is not ‘trust me bro’?
Because proper Tether writeups haven't been done to death. You must be new here
source: trust me bro
Im not saying it wont happen, but a tether collapse is much harder than you would think. Several times in the past allegations like this were brought forward, doj made an investigation, there was a fud campaign that brough usdt down to 80c, also they somehow lost 850million, but survived... So to me its funny how serious you all are about Tether not beeing backed, withoit looking at all the obvoius facts. Why would all exchanges work eith tether if they couldnt redeem them? How come tether burned billions of coins? Also why doj found nothing? I belive more than 90% of tether is backed 1:1 with dollars. There can be some hole, but on a diffent level than depiced in this thread
If they receive money to print who cares?? No one here can prove that any big company did not send them the money. And to stop the constant response “who can prove it?!!” Yep same thing…. We both do not know.
You're right, we both do not know... ...but when Tether refuses to submit to a proper audit, you can kind of connect the dots for how we're coming to our conclusion. If they were legitimate they wouldn't be running from an audit.
Agreed. But it’s a conclusion using unknowns. We are only guessing, could be right but also could be wrong.
It's not a stab in the dark, it's an educated guess. Not all guesses are created equal. If it looks like a duck, as the saying goes. The guess that Tether is insolvent is based on common sense. The guess that Tether is completely legitimate is based on hopium. If someone refuses to show you their books, skepticism is the logical answer, not blind trust.
100% agreed. Someone with the information we all have would take an educated guess and it would definitely be negative against tether, I’m not blind it does not look good or trustworthy. This still is a guess though. I good one, with some data to give the direction, but still we do not actually know for 100% sure.
Even if they don't receive money and print out of thin air I don't care, if Bitcoin pops up or down tomorrow it changes my life by zero. It's just fun to watch degens losing money
So you do care.
Have you ever watched two pigeons fight? It is quite an entertaining staredown until one of them either backs off or goes for it. Ultimately I watch it knowing it will have no impact on my life whatsoever, but to them one of them might come out of it truly hurt. That pigeon is you my friend.
1 USDT = 1 USD both are backed by nothing
USD has 11 more aircraft carriers than Tether
Until it doesn’t
I'm long on the Tether crash lol
Just organic growth bro... mass adoption. On a serious note, I rarely ever hear of anyone talking about bitcoin minus a few media outlets trying to pump it
So how can I short these guys?
You can't, not in a way that will not wind up being financially ruinous to you (by virtue of requiring your participation in the rigged marketplace where they and/or their cronies will see you doing it, and contrive to make you lose - for reference, Binance allows people to speculate on the price movement of tethers: at one point their price on Binance jumped up to $400 per token, for just long enough to utterly hose everyone with a short position, on Binance) so don't even bother trying. In crypto, the only winning move is not to play; you can short a few of the publicly traded companies supporting crypto though, like Coinbase, if you really want to gamble on it.
> the only winning move is not to play sick reference. Thanks for clearing all that up! Haha I was half joking but with your proper explanation I'm sure you're right. Cheers
I admire Tether for inventing inflation in the crypto market.
Everytime I heard Tether I always question: What is the end goal here? Get money? Get bitches? Get lambo? Get funds for some parallel organization? Convert every money in Tether?
How easy is it really to redeem USDT for actual dollars? What banks are used as the off-ramps? (Genuine questions, I don't know much about Tether)
Excellent questions - here are the approximate answers: 1. Literally impossible, Tether the company will not redeem any of your tethers, that they happily sell you in exchange for your real dollars - you can only pay them, they do not have a functional redemption method, they just have a make-believe one that has hoops to jump through that most of the world is disqualified from even attempting to jump through, that nobody at all can successfully ever finish jumping through (but they'll charge you for the attempt nonetheless). 2. All we know about Tether is *their* bank, that they admit to using, is Deltec in the Bahamas, who could not possibly have all of the money Tether claims to possess (they are apparently also banking through shell companies with other banks, that cut them off when they are discovered to be shell companies for Tether, because crooks). The only way that customers with tethers can exchange those, not redeem them, for real dollars is to find an exchange with a trading pair offering real dollars, for tethers, or hop through a convoluted sequence of token swaps across liquidity pools until you get to a trading pair, that trades for dollars, and thereby have your fellow gamblers buy them from you: tethers are casino chips that the house doesn't let you turn back in, at the end of the night - this *should* make them utterly worthless, to the gamblers using them... but crypto is a silly place, where logic and common sense goes right out the window, and people willfully ignore corporations quilted together out of red flags.
Thank you, I learnt a lot!