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U.S. Regulators to Subpoena Crypto Exchange Bitfinex, Tether

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Re: U.S. Regulators to Subpoena Crypto Exchange Bitfinex, Tether

#381

Post by Nursie »

ffffffffff_ wrote: post #111

A points and a question: Point: USDT is used as a holding point for people wanting to stay in crypto but not be subject to price movement of other coins. This could be used to not trigger a taxable event (even though recently, crypto to crypto transactions were deemed taxable by the IRS). When buying crypto in general, it's much easier/faster to start a transfer from another crypto as opposed to having to move fiat i…

1. If there are no USD backing, why would its value stick to $1?

2. Correct, the claims are a problem. They claim backing and audits and these may constitute fraud

3. If they just print them out of nowhere they are basically printing hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves. If they aren't backed, do you think they could hold value in these circumstances?

4. These magic unbacked tokens are probably a large part of BTC price rises in recent months, and look like extra demand in the marketplace, massively distorting the BTC and altcoin markets.

Re: U.S. Regulators to Subpoena Crypto Exchange Bitfinex, Tether

#382

Post by quickthrower2 »

frakr wrote: post #363
quickthrower2 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think of Edward Snowden. HK helped him.

Did the gov there actually help him? Or just not hinder him?

To not hinder is quite a lot of help. Considering it's going to piss off the superpower.

Re: U.S. Regulators to Subpoena Crypto Exchange Bitfinex, Tether

#383

Post by C14L »

bobjordan wrote: post #375
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Definitely have suprising powers. I once sent a wire payment in USD from my Hong Kong company’s HSBC business bank account directly to my China company’s bank inside China, where my bank in China would convert it to renminbi. I was shocked to find out the bank wire was somehow held up in NYC! Blew my mind. Nothing to do with the USA in this transaction, except the USD. The reason the wire was held up? I had wrote the…

That's where SWIFT is located, afaik.

Re: U.S. Regulators to Subpoena Crypto Exchange Bitfinex, Tether

#384

Post by mr_spothawk »

spookthesunset wrote: post #366
andrewla wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You try it - try to get more than 10,000 USD cash out of your bank, and then tell me how sweet that fiat money is (much less doing this without any questions asked). This is not to send out the ridiculous trope of “fractional reserve banking is a fraud” or anything; Chase, for the moment, is solvent, and recent events have made it clear that the Federal Reserve will sooner barbecue children than let a bank customer n…

One thought though... > inexplicably, kept their position as the market leaders. Only because there is apparently a large segment of people who do not have functioning critical thinking skills. I know HN doesn't like to do politics, but there is a huge overlap, at least in terms of thought process, in the people who support a particular president and those who support bitcoin. Both seem to lack any kind of critical t…

> I know HN doesn't like to do politics, but there is a huge overlap, at least in terms of thought process, in the people who support a particular president and those who support bitcoin.

source?

Re: U.S. Regulators to Subpoena Crypto Exchange Bitfinex, Tether

#385

Post by knlam »

stanleydrew wrote: post #372
jonknee wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way is probably to sell BTC futures, if Tether/Bitfinex go down the market will be chaos and won't have the Tether protection team to bid it back up. Those are cash settled and you will 100% get your money. Shorting on any crypto exchange has a lot more counterparty risk.

Let's say I'm hypothetically inclined to sell BTC futures. Where would I go to do that?

http://www.cboe.com/

Re: U.S. Regulators to Subpoena Crypto Exchange Bitfinex, Tether

#386

Post by seppel »

antonvs wrote: post #345
seppel wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Yes, I get that. But as you mentioned this is "short term". How does it explain that Tether is printing more and more Tethers? Do you think more and more people are selling BTC for USDT for a "short term"? W…

> How does it explain that Tether is printing more and more Tethers? The demand for Tethers is high because the demand to be able to trade is high. > Do you think more and more people are selling BTC for USDT for a "short term"? More and more people have been getting involved in trading as the price of Bitcoin and other cryptos was spiking. Now those people are in the market, but Bitcoin has been dropping. It makes s…

> It's also possible that There's are being used fraudulently to pump BTC.

My point is: How can you pump BTC with USDT? You need somebody to buy your USDT if you want to sell USDT. In fact, you need somebody to buy an enormous amout of USDT if you want to pump BTC.

Pumping BTC is not a one sided thing, and I fail to understand the other side. What I get from this thread is that that nobody really knows who is buying the 100 million USDT per week.

Re: U.S. Regulators to Subpoena Crypto Exchange Bitfinex, Tether

#387

Post by YetAnotherNick »

singularity2001 wrote: post #211
gramstrong wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking crypto investors here. The ones that preach diversification, and then sell every single one of their alt coins when the bitcoin bubble is deflating.

also the selling is often shockingly synchronised. just compare bitcoin and ether charts

What? See ether to btc here: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/

Re: U.S. Regulators to Subpoena Crypto Exchange Bitfinex, Tether

#388

Post by JetSpiegel »

stephen_g wrote: post #378
dfgin wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this kinda similar to the fractional banking system we have already?

Not at all. First of all, banks do have to balance their books. The 'fractional reserve' model taught in school is actually not how banks work in reality, and violates accounting rules. Every single deposit in the bank does need to be backed by something - if banks just stored deposits then they would have to either have the full reserve backing, or other assets (cash, investments, etc.) backing every dollar. Lending…

And yet, Lehmann Brothers went tits up.

Re: U.S. Regulators to Subpoena Crypto Exchange Bitfinex, Tether

#389

Post by dragonwriter »

seppel wrote: post #386
antonvs wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does it explain that Tether is printing more and more Tethers? The demand for Tethers is high because the demand to be able to trade is high. > Do you think more and more people are selling BTC for USDT for a "short term"? More and more people have been getting involved in trading as the price of Bitcoin and other cryptos was spiking. Now those people are in the market, but Bitcoin has been dropping. It makes s…

> It's also possible that There's are being used fraudulently to pump BTC. My point is: How can you pump BTC with USDT? You need somebody to buy your USDT if you want to sell USDT. In fact, you need somebody to buy an enormous amout of USDT if you want to pump BTC. Pumping BTC is not a one sided thing, and I fail to understand the other side. What I get from this thread is that that nobody really knows who is buying…

> How can you pump BTC with USDT?

Get people to believe it's backed 1:1 by USD when it's not, so that it is viewed as equivalent to USD but less problematic in regulatory terms, and then print a bunch of unbacked USDT and use them to buy BTC. To the market, the effect is as if a whole lot more actual USD were chasing BTC, effectively looking like higher demand.

Re: U.S. Regulators to Subpoena Crypto Exchange Bitfinex, Tether

#390

Post by mar77i »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #382
frakr wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the gov there actually help him? Or just not hinder him?

To not hinder is quite a lot of help. Considering it's going to piss off the superpower.

Well the way I understood it, HK doesn't really need to care who they're pissing off, since they're kind of used to pissing off their big brother.
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