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Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers

ag.ny.gov

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Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers

#51

Post by jkhdigital »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #35
jkhdigital wrote: post #26

Honestly, this is kind of a nothingburger. The press release seems to merely reinforce what was an open secret in the cryptocurrency world, which is that Bitfinex and Tether have played fast and loose with whatever reserves they received for their Tether issuance. Which is, of course, utterly unremarkable to anyone who knows anything about how financial sausage is really made. Bitfinex and Tether are shady. Caveat em…

It’s more important than that. Cryptocurrency proponents have been trying to downplay the Tether situation for years. One of the common dismissals was the idea that if what Tether was doing was truly fraudulent, some government institution would step in to intervene. Proponents pointed to the lack of intervention as a signal that Tether was operating above board. This also reveals new facts and numbers about the scal…

I don't disagree that Tether is likely a big fraud, but my point is that even the regulated financial system is full of questionable accounting and long-running, undiscovered fraud. Remember Bernie Madoff? His fraud lasted 17 years before falling apart.

It would be nice if Tether eventually falls apart too, but the world will never run out of fraudsters and hucksters.

Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers

#52

Post by mumblemumble »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #31
bronzeage wrote: post #16

I'm waiting patiently for the whole Tether printing scheme to fall and crush to finally purchase Bitcoin / Ether. However I'm not viewing them as inflation hedges so long as Bitfinex / etc. are allowed to continue with their obvious money printing scheme. When most crypto trading volume is traded at trustworthy exchanges which actually hold dollars as much as they say they do, I'll trust $/BTC to be a fair market. It…

Cryptocurrency isn’t the only way to escape USD inflation. Investors have been investing to avoid inflation long before Bitcoin was invented. Investing in virtually any asset other than cash will, almost by definition, shield you from inflation. Inflation is an increase in asset prices, resulted in reduced buying power. You only need to invest in assets (stocks for example) and minimize holdings in cash if your goal…

Even if we assume only Bitcoin, it's not currently expected to stop printing money until (assuming Ray Kurzweil wasn't right all along) long after we're all dead.

The Bitcoin inflation story is more political than simply economic. Right now, it's not really possible for it to be narrowly about whether printing money is OK. But one could easily mount an argument about whether humans should be able to twiddle with the money printing policy.

Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers

#53

Post by bhouston »

lifty wrote: post #46

This news is so funny. Tether detractors see this as confirmation that they were right all along, while crypto currency fans say that this is confirmation that it was FUD all along. No bridges were built in this endeavour.

I like btc but in a declaring that tether is fraud isn’t about building bridges, it is about being correct. Getting rid of tether is the best way to legitimize btc. The sooner the better.

It is confusing why you care about bridges with regards to fraud. When was fraud related to consensus building activities? Huh?

Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers

#54

Post by exabrial »

divs1210 wrote: post #45

America lied to the world when it claimed each dollar was backed by gold. When the world figured it out and there was a bank run, the gold standard was "temporarily" put off by Nixon in 1970. Bitfinex just seems to be playing the same game America has always been playing.

Link?

Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers

#55

Post by owenmarshall »

ssakamoto wrote: post #38
bronzeage wrote: post #16

I'm waiting patiently for the whole Tether printing scheme to fall and crush to finally purchase Bitcoin / Ether. However I'm not viewing them as inflation hedges so long as Bitfinex / etc. are allowed to continue with their obvious money printing scheme. When most crypto trading volume is traded at trustworthy exchanges which actually hold dollars as much as they say they do, I'll trust $/BTC to be a fair market. It…

Both are still printing machines. Dollars are backed by faith in the USA. Is there any difference ? Powell - "We print money digitally. As a central bank, we have the ability to create money." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff6SDsaS7rI

One has a standing army and a history of successfully deploying it against countries that attempt to disrupt the geopolitical status quo by moving away from the dollar.

The other does not.

Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers

#57

Post by lettergram »

It appears from the link in the settlement agreement:

https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.02.17_-_settlemen...

Tether wasn’t backed at all times. The argument was that this happened due to asset seizures in Poland and Portugal in 2017-2018.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/95207/bitfinex-tether-ne...

Seems to me they couldn’t prove malicious intent, so they suggested they stop trading. Frankly this seems a bit of a click-bait title with the whole “illegal activities”.

Sure, tether wasn’t backed at all times (probably is now), due to governments seizing their funds. Also banks do this all the time, every time they issue a loan for instance. The bank only keeps 10-30% collateral on your home.

Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers

#58

Post by dgellow »

im3w1l wrote: post #37
dgellow wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's too long for HN (I instead replaced "Attorney General" by "NYAG", not ideal but an ok compromise IMHO)

"Bitfinex banned from New York." Edit: I'm getting downvoted but I went soft on him. You know what, I'll say it. The choice of which words to retain (virtual currency trading platform??) and which to drop (in New York) is really bad and veering into suspicious, seems like it's trying to stir up panic.

It's the title of the linked press release, with a minor change to fit the maximum length required for HN submissions.

Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers

#59

Post by BelenusMordred »

temp wrote: post #19

So even back in 2017, Tether was backed only by a fraction of USD. >Until September 15, 2017, the only U.S. dollars held by Tether ostensibly backing the approximately 442 million tethers in circulation was the approximately $61 million on deposit at the Bank of Montreal. Wonder how much of the tether they pumped out through last year has been backed?

Do people here not realise that people give them bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for that in exchange for tethers? If they were only a week late in converting it to USD they'd be up tens of billion in profit this year.

The lack of critical thinking and mindless mob mentality around tether is amusing and has been going on for years now. Proven wrong everytime.[1][2][3]

Even this announcement is dumb politiking that people seem to lap up. Bitfinex has banned US customers since 2017.[4]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14934874

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16252365

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16182423

[4] https://www.coindesk.com/bitfinex-suspends-sale-select-ico-t...

Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers

#60

Post by teknopurge »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #35
jkhdigital wrote: post #26

Honestly, this is kind of a nothingburger. The press release seems to merely reinforce what was an open secret in the cryptocurrency world, which is that Bitfinex and Tether have played fast and loose with whatever reserves they received for their Tether issuance. Which is, of course, utterly unremarkable to anyone who knows anything about how financial sausage is really made. Bitfinex and Tether are shady. Caveat em…

It’s more important than that. Cryptocurrency proponents have been trying to downplay the Tether situation for years. One of the common dismissals was the idea that if what Tether was doing was truly fraudulent, some government institution would step in to intervene. Proponents pointed to the lack of intervention as a signal that Tether was operating above board. This also reveals new facts and numbers about the scal…

I did not see any data in that post that is new. The latest news this-year is that Tether paid-off the remaining balances of borrows/loans from other asset classes to make the USD holdings whole. The only way to tell is an independent 3rd-party audit, which would bring some finality to this discussion.
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