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Tether price manipulation

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Re: Tether price manipulation

#421
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been wondering if Tether is really a scam for a long time. In all these analyses, one key point is missing: arbitrage traders have to make up for the sell pressure on USDT when Tethers are being printed and sold for BTC. Can anyone show me how there is a plausible mechanism/scheme/conspiracy that keeps the USD/USDT exchange rate stable while a crazy amount of illegitimate Tethers are being printed? Edit: typo an…

It's just that conspiracy theories and doom stories are nice to write about. USDT market cap is lower than that of GBTC. So it's not possible that USDT is inflating 90% of the price of Bitcoin. Most people writing about USDT don't understand how arbitrage markets work, and don't understand that liquid markets are quick to resolve themselves (unlike ponzi schemes where you can hide the missing assets for a long time).…

[deleted]

Re: Tether price manipulation

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. Yes, it can. The U.S. government has in fact seized Bitcoin directly and sold it at auction several times. It is arguably the single largest non-exchange seller of Bitcoin in Bitcoin's history.

It can only be taken in these events: 1) Seed phrases are discovered (ie. plaintext document or physical artifact). 2) Seed phrases are handed over by willing party. If #1 doesn't exist, then #2 is the only option.

Nobody here seems interested in actually understanding how BTC works. It looks like a circle jerk of pseudo intellectuals coping with not buying early.

Re: Tether price manipulation

#423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The killer app for Bitcoin is escaping government fiat money that is backed by literally nothing at all and is being printed at increasingly alarming rates. 40% of all USD ever created were “made” in 2020. That will have repercussions for decades and isn’t a currency I want to stay in. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1 Ironically (or not) Bitcoin was created in 2009 right when that graph gets really crazy.

> government fiat money that is backed by literally nothing at all It would be really nice for people to spend even a few minutes thinking about how money works, or open a textbook even just to learn what you disagree with. It's tiresome to explain over and over and over again to people how the "full faith and credit of the United States" is not "nothing at all" but in fact a guarantee of great value, at least as goo…

Whats is the value of the full faith and credit of Venezuela, Argentina, Ukraine, India, Mexico etc etc?

Please do share your limited US centric view!

Re: Tether price manipulation

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most global payments are transactions, not cash transfers, and the transacting parties have banking relationships that make those transfers low cost and strictly superior to Bitcoin.

As a freelancer based in EU working on some US projects, I'm forced to pay 5.5% fee to PayPal or some fix fee to the banks (SWIFT payment). Plus conversion fee from USD to EUR (or my local currency). That's too high for just a simple thing as receiving money from different country. Really looking forward for that Strike Global.

TransferWise?

Re: Tether price manipulation

#425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a freelancer based in EU working on some US projects, I'm forced to pay 5.5% fee to PayPal or some fix fee to the banks (SWIFT payment). Plus conversion fee from USD to EUR (or my local currency). That's too high for just a simple thing as receiving money from different country. Really looking forward for that Strike Global.

> I'm forced to pay 5.5% fee [..] > Plus conversion fee from USD to EUR [...] > a simple thing as receiving money from different country Moving money between currencies has never been easier, or cheaper. I would humbly suggest you're doing it wrong.

Oh really? Fees are low for accepting foreign currency for a business, please do tell your secrets. Lol, classic US centric view

Re: Tether price manipulation

#426
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been wondering if Tether is really a scam for a long time. In all these analyses, one key point is missing: arbitrage traders have to make up for the sell pressure on USDT when Tethers are being printed and sold for BTC. Can anyone show me how there is a plausible mechanism/scheme/conspiracy that keeps the USD/USDT exchange rate stable while a crazy amount of illegitimate Tethers are being printed? Edit: typo an…

It's just that conspiracy theories and doom stories are nice to write about. USDT market cap is lower than that of GBTC. So it's not possible that USDT is inflating 90% of the price of Bitcoin. Most people writing about USDT don't understand how arbitrage markets work, and don't understand that liquid markets are quick to resolve themselves (unlike ponzi schemes where you can hide the missing assets for a long time).…

>USDT market cap is lower than that of GBTC. So it's not possible that USDT is inflating 90% of the price of Bitcoin.

Technically it is possible. You don't need an equal or larger market cap to inflate something else 90%. You just need enough to dominate the trading volume.

As an extreme example, if bid/ask volume is exactly 1 (ie the ONLY trade volume consists of you and 1 other person trading a quantity of 1), then at the minimum, all you need is a bank roll of 1.9x the current unit price, with both you agreeing to the trade it for 1.9x, for the going price per unit to inflate 90%. And since market cap = price per unit × units outstanding, then the market cap also inflated 90%. If the units outstanding was 5000, and the unit price was $1, then the market cap increased $4,500 using only $1.90.

Re: Tether price manipulation

#427
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoins have been confiscated by many governments. A quick Google search reveals many instances of that.

Lets clarify semantics. Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. Can the government seize your bank account directly? Yes. Can they threaten you with jail if you don't hand over your Bitcoin? Yes

> Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No.

A government could seize miners, and given that ~50% of the world's Bitcoin mining capacity appears to be located in one country, that might give them considerable leeway to rewrite the blockchain to their liking.

Re: Tether price manipulation

#428
post #414
post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't see that artificially inflating coinbase bitcoin. plus only bitfinance would be able to print/create tether. also, there's no evidence that companies what you claim they could do.

>I still don't see that artificially inflating coinbase bitcoin. I don't know how to explain it any more clearly to you. >plus only bitfinance would be able to print/create tether Yes, but whoever controls the printing could then use the Tethers on any exchange that supports them. >also, there's no evidence that companies what you claim they could do You asked for an explanation of how it could be done, not evidence.

The explanation is clear, but I just don't see it as being particularly convincing.

Sure, I didn't ask for evidence. Now, I am. Where's your evidence?

Re: Tether price manipulation

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, AFAIK Tether is used by several exchanges that have problems getting direct banking relationships, as a on-ramp for funds. Tether originally promised that they were 1-2-1 backed with actual currency reserves, but had to abandon that statement when it became apparent they'd lost a load of money to Crypto Capital. Tether still claim to be 1-2-1 backed with "investments" but there has never been a completed 3rd par…

Minor point, but seeing "1-2-1" in your comment is strange to me. I've only ever seen it as "1:1" or "1-to-1".

Thanks for pointing that out. I thought "1-2-1" was some jargon I was missing.

Re: Tether price manipulation

#430
post #43
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 BTC will still be 1 BTC after the Tether scam and scammers are all history.

Perhaps we can go back to buying a pizza for 1 BTC when this is all over.

It was 10,000 BTC for 2 pizzas: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.msg1195#msg1195. One bitcoin used to buy you 0.0002 pizzas. Now it buys 1600.0000 pizzas.

It's called hyperdeflation.

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