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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

#81

Post by im3w1l »

dgellow wrote: post #58
im3w1l wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

You make it sound like they have been taken down globally. That's not a "minor change".

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

#82

Post by arberx »

Clewza313 wrote: post #72
arberx wrote: post #44

Have no idea why ycombinator is so salty towards anything crypto. Yes, tether was wrong when they said USDT was backed by “US Dollars”. But, the conclusion is USDT is backed by something, the likes of which is probably a fractional reserve. Case is resolved, with Tether admitting no fault.

"Backed by something"! It sounds so reassuring when you phrase it that way.

That was the conclusion of the AG.

Case is moot. Tether is definitely sketch, but it’s not this massive money laundering/conspiracy HN thinks it is.

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

#83

Post by gzer0 »

jkhdigital wrote: post #69
owenmarshall wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the meteoric rise of BTC is tied so deeply to Tether issuances, it sounds an awful lot like you’re trying to convince us the emperor really has clothes.

Correlation is not causation. And your mental model of how the cryptocurrency markets work is likely way too simplistic--did you know that cryptocurrency perpetual swap derivatives clear over $350B in daily volume? Pretend for a moment that Tether pulls a Nixon, and closes the "dollar window" ending redeemability. Then what would be the difference between Tether and e.g. the BitMEX XBTUSD perpetual swap contract? Jus…

Editing my response because OP has edited theirs- putting my original comment out of context.

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

#84

Post by lettergram »

bhouston wrote: post #70
lettergram wrote: post #57

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…

The issue is that if it isn’t backed they can print more at any time. But they claim it is backed to avoid inflation devaluation of the currency. Banks are not lower to print currency but tether can at any time. The potential for fraud sufrounding tether is huge and no one is checking over them. Do you trust them? They are already known for lying. This is why banking regulations exist.

> The issue is that if it isn’t backed they can print more at any time.

That’s how all banking works. China, for instance, never even publish how much money they click into existence.

Not saying it’s correct, just explaining how the system really works. They really do “create” money. Even synthetic shares are created on the stock market (largely when creating ETF blocks), see “naked shorts”. It happens all the time.

Here’s an explanation on how banking & interest work in a digestible way: http://anuparty.org/on-interest-slavery/

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

#85

Post by jkhdigital »

lettergram wrote: post #57

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…

> 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.

Exactly. Tether has made no claims about the quality of the collateral they use to back Tethers, so they can probably get away with some very questionable accounting. Anyone who actually has skin in the game understands this about Tether. If you want to take the risk, go right ahead. I've traded at least $50M in notional volume over the past 3 years and never, not once, have I touched Tether.

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

#86

Post by [deleted] »

bhouston wrote: post #53
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?

[deleted]

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

#87

Post by PragmaticPulp »

mumblemumble wrote: post #52
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is supremely ironic that we’re supposed to believe that the best way to escape money printing is to buy a cryptocurrency that was invented out of thin air, which is continuously mined (during most of our lifetimes) out of thin air by doing useless calculations.

Or even worse, a basket of multiple crypto currencies, where the number of available crypto currencies and crypto assets grows larger every day.

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

#88

Post by mumblemumble »

jkhdigital wrote: post #51
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Bernie Madoff's fraud was big and awful, but, if the allegations about Tether are true, then (edit: for the purposes of this particular discussion) comparing the two is a category error. Madoff's fraud never raised any questions about whether the exchange rate between USD and some other currency was legitimate.

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

#89

Post by rib3ye »

rthomas6 wrote: post #78
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…

I've always championed DAI for a stablecoin. I don't know why it's not more popular. https://makerdao.com/en/ Instead of it being (supposedly) backed by a dollar reserve, it's collateralized by ETH and several ERC20 tokens in a smart contract. The smart contract does things to make DAI tend toward $1. It's been out for years and I think it has worked pretty well: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/multi-collateral-…

Super interesting project and tech, but it’s competing with USDC (and similar USD-backed tokens). Adoption will just take longer for DAO-backed stablecoins.

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

#90

Post by thedudeabides5 »

pavlov wrote: post #79
lettergram wrote: post #57

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…

> (probably is now) This kind of argumentation makes cryptocurrency proponents so insufferable. There’s no evidence Tether is backed, but somehow we can just assume in a parenthesis that they probably are, and then go on a tangential rant about banks or fiat or digital gold or something.

Exactly.

We've traded confidence in centralized, old world financial institutions, for decentralized, techno-utopian...financial institutions.

Same s**, different marketing.

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