Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by graeme » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 3:19 PM UTC

safog wrote: post #187

CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story is that Tether has been printing tethers and buying Bitcoins. However, they haven't released any concrete holdings or submitted to an audit AFAIK, so there's a lot of speculation on how big of a problem this actually is.

I don't think there are any claims that Tether the organization itself is doing anything like that. They just print USDT and send it to people who are interested in buying USDT like exchanges. The two problems as I see them are: - Is USDT actually backed 1:1 by USD / cash equivalents as Tether claims? w/o independent audits we have no idea. So technically, if you hold USDT on an exchange and use it to trade alts and…

The settlement agreement shows that at multiple points Tether was not backed: https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.02.17_-_settlemen...

I think the best case is tether printed usdt, used it to buy btc, inflated the btc price and is now fully backed by their btc holdings. This works as long as people want btc

They were able to do it because people accepted usdt as dollars.

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

#192

Post by deanmoriarty » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #185

deanmoriarty wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your recommendation for least-worse inflation hedge?

Buy all the non perishables, non obsoletables you're going to need for the next decade. Buy them in discounted bulk for and extra return. Bonus: capital gains tax free!

Not very practical if the amount to be preserved is multiple 7 figures, I should have clarified my question better.

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

#193

Post by FireBeyond » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

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…

As recently as a couple of weeks ago, I've heard people claim that Tether is still "1:1 backed with USD". Oh, and:

> Keep in mind that in relationship to tether, $1.5 billion is tiny. It's only 3 days of tether printing.

apparently depositing $3.5B a WEEK into some bank (unnamed of course, because Tether won't disclose).

While there is a large deal of potential, and some real value in crypto, there's definitely a non-negligible portion of True Believers, the crypto equivalent of Qanon.

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

#194

Post by elwell » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #185

deanmoriarty wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your recommendation for least-worse inflation hedge?

Buy all the non perishables, non obsoletables you're going to need for the next decade. Buy them in discounted bulk for and extra return. Bonus: capital gains tax free!

Potentially high opportunity cost here

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

#195

Post by rglullis » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

kenneth wrote: post #161

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 have the same doubts you do about Tether's legitimacy, but there's a few conclusions I believe you're jumping to which I think don't quite hold: - Tether's volumes being greater than other crypto-currencies don't have much impact on the legitimacy of other crypto-currencies. The volume is so high because USDT is the other side of most crypto-currency trading pair. Given the liquidity of the market, you can trade al…

> If the crypto-currency market is illegitimate due to money printing by Tether, then so is the conventional financial system due to quantitive easing by the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world.

IOW, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"?

No, there should be no moral relativism to get Tether out of the hook. It doesn't matter if they manipulated the market by one or one hundred billion dollars, they are a bad actor in the space that we must get rid of.

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

#196

Post by graeme » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

tootahe45 wrote: post #131

BelenusMordred wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A 145m sell just sent BTC down 13k. It's not so easy to just sell your ~30b worth of buttcoin. If anything it's shocking that "we checked and it's all fraud" is seen as a win for crypto.

Where can you find data on sell volumes? This seems very material.

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

#197

Post by deanmoriarty » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

eigenvalue wrote: post #136

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…

It’s absolutely not true that investing in any assets besides cash will shield you from inflation. Inflation impacts companies very differently, and you want a preservation of real earnings power taking into account the need to replace plant and equipment over time. The best inflation protection would come from a company with a pure revenue royalty with fixed expenses. The worst would be a company with bad pricing po…

What’s your recommendation for least-worse inflation hedge?

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

#198

Post by jcranmer » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #193

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…

As recently as a couple of weeks ago, I've heard people claim that Tether is still "1:1 backed with USD". Oh, and: > Keep in mind that in relationship to tether, $1.5 billion is tiny. It's only 3 days of tether printing. apparently depositing $3.5B a WEEK into some bank (unnamed of course, because Tether won't disclose). While there is a large deal of potential, and some real value in crypto, there's definitely a non…

> As recently as a couple of weeks ago

For more recent claims, just read the comments on this post in this site.

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

#199

Post by nayuki » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #185

deanmoriarty wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your recommendation for least-worse inflation hedge?

Buy all the non perishables, non obsoletables you're going to need for the next decade. Buy them in discounted bulk for and extra return. Bonus: capital gains tax free!

Solar panels, water filtration, and indoor farming!

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

#200

Post by CarelessExpert » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

kenneth wrote: post #161

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 have the same doubts you do about Tether's legitimacy, but there's a few conclusions I believe you're jumping to which I think don't quite hold: - Tether's volumes being greater than other crypto-currencies don't have much impact on the legitimacy of other crypto-currencies. The volume is so high because USDT is the other side of most crypto-currency trading pair. Given the liquidity of the market, you can trade al…

> Even if everything alleged were true, it really wouldn't be a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of shenanigans central banks have been pulling for centuries. If the crypto-currency market is illegitimate due to money printing by Tether, then so is the conventional financial system due to quantitive easing by the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world.

Man, I find it endlessly amusing that cryptocurrency utopians touted the benefits of BTC based on how it will democratize finance and finally remove the yoke of corrupt governments manipulating currencies and markets to their benefit.

And then when a private company like Tether comes along and starts engaging in shenanigans in this cryptoanarchist libertarian fantasy land, all of a sudden the whataboutisms pop out and the excuse is "well... whatever dude, like, the government does this, too!"