Live data from Hacker News

Crypto Market Roiled by New Allegations Against Tether, Bitfinex

bloomberg.com

151–160 of 317 posts

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

#151

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.

Sell a tiny bit and then wait until it recovers. Rinse and repeat.

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

#152
This seemed inevitable for a long time. Tether is very important for maintaining the price of bitcoin, and yet the stablecoin’s financial condition has been an unanswered question. The company has raised every red flag and in a rational market, tether would have been priced at pennies in the dollar, with a corresponding markdown for bitcoin with the loss of “convertibility” to dollars.

And I honestly am surprised how pedestrian the fraud was. It sounds like they had the cash to back tether and just flat out stole it to cover for a trading loss. This has happened countless times before.

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

#153

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.

The person I was replying to actually did not know that. The irony is was that bank deposits are also a ponzi scheme like Tether. Deposits are backed by taxpayer bailouts in some countries. In New Zealand we have fractional reserve banking without the deposit insurance. It's a well regulated ponzi scheme but not guaranteed against a bank run.

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

#154
post #152

This seemed inevitable for a long time. Tether is very important for maintaining the price of bitcoin, and yet the stablecoin’s financial condition has been an unanswered question. The company has raised every red flag and in a rational market, tether would have been priced at pennies in the dollar, with a corresponding markdown for bitcoin with the loss of “convertibility” to dollars. And I honestly am surprised how…

> And I honestly am surprised how pedestrian the fraud was. It sounds like they had the cash to back tether and just flat out stole it to cover for a trading loss. This has happened countless times before.

Where do you see anything like that? The report says that their funds were frozen by Crypto Capital as the result of (claimed) seizure by governments. The funds were borrowed from the Tether reserves to cover that shortfall. AFAIK, nowhere does it state that there was any trading loss.

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

#155
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?

I’m going to refer every libertarian who argues for the abolishment of all forms of regulation to your comment and this post.

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

#156
post #14

Here's the filing: https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/DocumentDisplayServlet...

Skimming through this I've come to some conclusions:- A reliable banking partner is prerequisite to run a fiat-crypto exchange. Loss of banking partner is fatal to an exchange, and should immediately trigger a wind-down. On the flip-side, the banking partner should in good faith, continue to process withdrawals until the wind-down is complete. Bitfinex's refusal to wind-down after the Wells Fargo decision is irrespon…

> Multiple fiat-currency crypto exchanges are not sustainable due to this dynamic.

And yet, multiple-fiat-currency exchanges are, for some reason, sustainable.

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

#157
post #84
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a huge difference: Yes, the bank only holds $0.10 in cash, but at least in the US, the F.D.I.C. backs up every dollar in your bank account up to $250,000. That's a major reason the reserve banking system functions. If there were an F.D.I.C. for tether then I'm sure people would have different expectations (and likewise, if there were no F.D.I.C. for the US banking system).

The FDIC is more a feel-good measure: >"Currently, the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF), which is a fund set aside to cover the insurance obligations of the FDIC, has a required reserve ratio of only 1.35%. And that is only after a decision was made in October of 2015 to raise it, from its original level of 1.15%. Even more daunting, the DIF has until 2020 to reach this new 1.35% required reserve level. This means that,…

> The FDIC is more a feel-good measure

No, it isn't. If the FDIC busts, the government would step in to back it up. Moreover, the FDIC's oversight keeps bank failures to a tiny fraction of the alternative, which we can now measure in the massive rates of fraud and failure around cryptocurrencies.

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

#158
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?

Do you think regulated financial institutions don't cause massive societal harm? Have you seen the big short?

Systems have holes people will go through them

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

#159
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?

The lesson will never be learned. The Ponzi scheme is as old as money itself. It’s never gone away. The one thing that crypto currency truly has revolutionized is the Ponzi scheme. You can do it any number of ways, add any number of twists, and do it over and over again. With crypto you don’t even have to be subtle. When the pot gets big enough you just outright steal it. It’s possible that Satoshi himself will try t…

It's safe to say Satoshi is dead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Finney_(computer_scientist...

Post reply on HN