311–320 of 421 posts
Summary for newbs: Bitfinex is a crypto exchange kinda based in Hong Kong and kind of based in Taiwan (this seems to change depending on convenience.) Taiwan recently started becoming more rigorous about monitoring international USD wires, and lots of Bitfinex users had their money stranded in Taiwan. Bitfinex stopped supporting US customers because of these difficulties (AFAIK most customers did eventually get their…
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> But it won't take your USDT and turn it back into dollars. that's... unlikely. mainly because if that were true, nobody would want to sell anything at bitfinex, and cryptocurrency prices there would skyrocket. this happened at mtgox when they halted withdraws, BTC prices skyrocketed there.
Has anybody here on HN been able to go $ANYTHING -> USD on Bitfinex? I haven't seen anybody anywhere claim they've gotten USD out of Bitfinex...
https://www.reddit.com/r/bitfinex/comments/7rbfca/ticket_636...
The thread here is about Bitfinex not writing money, but on the thread a couple of similar issues get resolved. Could be shills or Bitfinex oiling squeaky wheels. I too would love to see someone here on hn post about their experiences, though.
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> On many international exchanges, USDT are the easiest way to convert BTC to a (supposedly) USD-backed asset. I'm sorry, but I cannot follow. Let's say you want to sell a BTC, current worth about 10k. So you go to a shady exchange, click sell and 10k of USDT appear in your account. Good, but what is the next step? The next thing you will notice that there is nothing that you can buy for your USDT. You cannot buy a h…
You sell BTC to USDT if you are not looking to cash out of BTC. Instead, if you think that BTC is at a peak in the short term and you simply want to sell at the peak and get back in once it drops, selling to USDT is just fine. That way you can buy back BTC once price drops. When you do want to cash out to real fiat, you have to sell to USD. USDT allows a large number of exchanges to allow you to sell BTC and hold in…
Why not just sell BTC for USD, and keep the USD balance that you get in the exchange? You can buy-back once the price drops. You don't have to wire transfer the money out, the exchange will happily keep it on their books for you.
If your exchange can't keep USD on their books, there's something seriously wrong with the exchange, and you should probably look into taking your business somewhere else.
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Their assets equal liabilities in either case (whether selling USDT directly for USD, or cyclling them through BTC). Call it what you will, but in neither scenario is anyone rich. Tether if backed by USD at the end of the day is revenue neutral. What am I missing?
> Their assets equal liabilities This is irrelevant, though. You can commit fraud without losing any money - Martin Shkreli was famously convicted of fraud a few months ago even though the victims all came out ahead. In the USDT -> BTC -> USD trip, there is a point, namely the BTC part, where more USDT has been issued than USD has been accepted. If they claim USDT is backed by USD, but there were points where that wa…
So, whether their books line up is irrelevant to whether they committed fraud, perhaps, but VERY relevant to the price of bitcoin.
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You're assuming the severity of this news would not cause Tether to devalue while BTC holders exit into real USD or fiat instead of Tether.
I keep reading about these magical places. Say that I have a 1000 BTC. What is the exchange that would allow me to sell 500 BTC and wire money to my account in: a) Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City ( USD ) b) National Westminster Bank in London ( GBP ) c) HSBC ( Paris ), account in Euros. The wire must show up live in 72 business hours and post to the account within 72 * 2 hours.
Second time, though, no problem. Less than 72 hours.
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a little correction. Tether and Bitfinex were exposed in Panama Papers as sister companies. They are not two unrelated as they say they are. Even more reason to stay away from Bitfinex and USDT
Follow the trail related to Bitfinex's CFO (in the Panama papers, and elsewhere). Pretty interesting findings.
Summary for newbs: Bitfinex is a crypto exchange kinda based in Hong Kong and kind of based in Taiwan (this seems to change depending on convenience.) Taiwan recently started becoming more rigorous about monitoring international USD wires, and lots of Bitfinex users had their money stranded in Taiwan. Bitfinex stopped supporting US customers because of these difficulties (AFAIK most customers did eventually get their…
Isn't this kinda similar to the fractional banking system we have already?
This is also moving the goalposts, because they claim that Tether is fully backed, not fractionally. Changing their story there would involve admitting to a billion-plus-dollar fraud.
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I'm guessing the auditors weren't happy with "out of thin air" when they asked where the the backing currency came from. The Tether folks were like "Our balance sheet is really simple! We just add numbers to this column until it evens out, what's the problem?!?" and the auditors are like "that's just fraud".
It's ridiculous; surely they could have made tons of money with USDT legally if they'd just been less greedy: - Create Tether out of thin air - Sell it to people for $1USD each - Put that USD in a bank account to earn interest Hell, there's probably still an opening for someone else to do it right. - Create MyTetheredCrypto out of thin air - Convince people & exchanges to accept it ??? - Sell it for $1USD each - Unli…
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I'm guessing the auditors weren't happy with "out of thin air" when they asked where the the backing currency came from. The Tether folks were like "Our balance sheet is really simple! We just add numbers to this column until it evens out, what's the problem?!?" and the auditors are like "that's just fraud".
It's ridiculous; surely they could have made tons of money with USDT legally if they'd just been less greedy: - Create Tether out of thin air - Sell it to people for $1USD each - Put that USD in a bank account to earn interest Hell, there's probably still an opening for someone else to do it right. - Create MyTetheredCrypto out of thin air - Convince people & exchanges to accept it ??? - Sell it for $1USD each - Unli…
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They claim to have the USD in a bank somewhere which means the US can come after them. This is why Wells Fargo dumped them (which is saying something!).
No. A foreign bank can hold USD without any US oversight.
If they hold it as hard cash, practically, sure. If they want to be allowed to send or receive wires and generally not get sanctioned by the United States, no. The U.S. Treasury claims international jurisdiction over U.S. dollars [1].
[1] https://cblr.columbia.edu/the-u-s-jurisdiction-over-transfer...