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Crypto Market Roiled by New Allegations Against Tether, Bitfinex

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Re: Crypto Market Roiled by New Allegations Against Tether, Bitfinex

#141
post #101
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t ask Ross Ulbricht. You’ll have to ask the DEA agents who embezzled money while making unsubstantiated accusations of murder for hire. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/stealing-bitcoin...

The accusations were quite substantiated, his defense was about as laughable as 'my baby brother did it'.

Ulbricht never presented a defense for the murder-for-hire charge because the charge was dropped and never went to trial. Ulbricht has been sentenced to double-life in prison for all non-violent charges.

Re: Crypto Market Roiled by New Allegations Against Tether, Bitfinex

#142
post #8

It's almost like unregulated financial institutions have a tendency to screw over their customers... No one could have predicted this in the consistently solvent, regulated, and trustworthy cryptocurrency market. It's too bad bitfinex got ripped off by a surely unrelated entity. /s Have we learned our lesson yet?

Nah, looks like it was governments confiscating the funds rather than a ponzi:

https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/cryptocapital-co-may-be-cry...

Re: Crypto Market Roiled by New Allegations Against Tether, Bitfinex

#143
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be surprising if the same people weren't behind Crypto Capital? Like, if you were going to embezzle your own exchange with vaguely plausible deniability, how would you do it differently from exactly as done here?

I'm curious who these Merlin and Oz fellows are, does anyone know more about them?

That whole exchange is beyond belief.

> Please, pretty please, can I have my $800 million dollars?

> I haven’t heard back from u in so much weeks.

> U there?

(3 weeks later)

It’s like an Upworker chat log, asking when the bug fix will be done. But for Eight Hundred Million Dollars.

Re: Crypto Market Roiled by New Allegations Against Tether, Bitfinex

#144
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this mean they can't sell/buy/exchange tethers at all!

It appears to mean they can't issue new Tethers nor can they raid the Tether reserves, but it doesn't stop trading in Tethers themselves.

Well they issued some more tethers:

https://whale-alert.io/transaction/bitcoin/0c8c22ee5cd69649f...

on the same date as this court filing. Did the court filing happen due to the new new Tether minting or was it the other way around? Or just a coincidence?

Re: Crypto Market Roiled by New Allegations Against Tether, Bitfinex

#145

Everyone agree's that tether should have a 1-to-1 backing. The delicious irony in it all is that the money in your bank is backed by about $0.10 for every dollar they owe savers. I hope for the day when people expect the same of the banking system that underpins the whole economy.

You fail to understand how bank reserves work. > your bank is backed by about $0.10 for every dollar they owe savers. And the bank has the other $0.90 in long-term assets. While no bank can survive every depositor wanting every dollar out of their chequing account on the same day, there is something auditable backing each dollar of deposit.

No bank can survive 20% of depositors wanting their money over 3 months.

Those long-term assets (aka loans) aren't guaranteed, realisable to pay creditors nor of fixed value.

Re: Crypto Market Roiled by New Allegations Against Tether, Bitfinex

#146
post #17

So why hasn't the bottom fallen out of Tether yet?

Tether functions as sort of the reserve currency of crypto. Many exchanges don't even offer fiat money or banking connections - to use them, you have to send Bitcoin in from another exchange or a personal wallet, then you can convert it into Tether or other altcoins. People who are "getting out of crypto" by selling Bitcoins because they think the price is gonna drop oftentimes are actually buying Tethers. When 80% o…

US government has the power to tax the entire US economy, providing financial backing to the US dollar. This is why fiat currencies weaken with their national economies, and vice versa

Re: Crypto Market Roiled by New Allegations Against Tether, Bitfinex

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstood. With the "Fractional Reserve Banking" system, banks lend out money that is NOT under deposit. They are licensed to lend out money created from nothing. This is the mechanism by which money is created https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-economics/chapte...

Yes everyone knows this. However, the difference is regulation, collateral, and FDIC insurance. There's been a huge number of instances of exchanges or other parties screwing over Bitcoin users, but there has not been a single loss of bank deposits since the FDIC has existed. No one is actually checking that Tether backs their currency 100%, you know.

[deleted]

Re: Crypto Market Roiled by New Allegations Against Tether, Bitfinex

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't someone in that position just start a slow and consistent divestment over a long period of time? Make it business as usual.

The wallets have been untouched for a decade. The first bitcoin to sell from it wouldn't actually crash the market, but the emotional effect of a small chunk of a very large chunk suddenly moving would be fairly big.

I don’t disagree, but it could have the reverse effect.

Everything from just a ton of media attention and some adoption, to maybe something really positive like coins getting deposited to charity wallets (pineapple foundation seemed to get a lot of attention/vitality for donating their bitcoin).

And it would be pretty ironic if it the coins moved and price of bitcoin crashed and actually became a peer to peer electronic currency for the masses.

Re: Crypto Market Roiled by New Allegations Against Tether, Bitfinex

#149
post #30

Cryptocurrency exchanges seem to be full of fraud and deception.

Speaking as someone who was deeply interested in bitcoin in ~2013, cryptocurrency today is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. When someone tells me today that they are working on something related to crypto I make a mental note to never work with them or take anything they do seriously.

I feel exactly the same way.

Re: Crypto Market Roiled by New Allegations Against Tether, Bitfinex

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the maximum leverage you could short with if you had access to those coins... Break the private key, do a 30x leverage short and move the coins!

It is that last bit where it gets sticky. If you tank the market and create systemic insolvency then you might hold $1B of short contracts at an exchange where the operators have packed up and fled to anonymous sandy beaches, and for all your cleverness those contracts and $10 might buy you lunch tomorrow.

> It is that last bit where it gets sticky.

I understand we're doing thought experiments here, but I'd say the really tricky part is breaking the private key.

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