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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

#381

Post by zby »

dudus wrote: post #272

I've been following Tether for quite a long time. I have no absolute proof it is a scam but the writing is on the wall. Here are some facts. - The current Market Cap of USDT is 34 Billion Dollars. It was 4B this time last year. Since the value is pegged this means there has been an influx of cash of 30 B into this shady company in the last year alone. Who invested this money? We have no idea since Tether doesn't disc…

"There's no way to transfer USDT into USD. The few exchanges that say they offer withdraws actually don't if you go and try."

How about Bitfinex? I had some problems with withdrawals there in the past - but now it seems to work.

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

#382

Post by hmcdona1 »

I'm so confused why everyone just blindly believes Tether is this whole big conspiracy. I am by no means defending the organization but let's just take a step back here:

> Where does the funding come from to print tether?

When they mint 1 Tether they sell it on an exchange for $1. They don't need anyone to upfront lock up $1 and then also sell it for $1...

Are stablecoins not just essentially an interest free loan to the minter? That's why hundreds of them are popping up all over the place. Minters can go invest that money however conservatively they want and just rack up free interest on billions. Why the hell would they NOT print more if there is demand. Consequently, why the hell would they need to participate in any illegal activity when the can print interest free loans whenever they want?

Yes, ideally you'd prefer someone with this position to be overcollatorized and not simply ensure $1 = 1 tether. But that is the risk you take holding that stablecoin. Pick up DAI if you want an overcollatorized asset.

I just don't see the incentive for some of the other arguments out there - many imply they are just printing it and selling it for $0 I guess? Or is the argument they just siphon the money to another organization? Because that would be a more valid concern. There just seems to be this assumption that somehow someone is fronting or magically creating value from nothing. No, the market is by buying newly minted Tether on exchanges. That's where the funding comes from. How is this not obvious?

There is probably a lot more depth to this topic than I am aware of, but some of the top upvoted comments here just seem to be spewing nonsense.

tldr; If a stablecoin minter sells a newly minted coin for $1...then by definition there is now $1 available to back that coin. Stop conspiring where the funds are coming from. The worry should be how they are investing said collateral backing the coins from there.

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

#383

Post by andresp »

nemo44x wrote: post #306
UncleMeat wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it mean to be wrong? Should I have mined 1000 coins in my CPU a decade ago? Duh. Does that mean that BTC is a useful financial hedge against inflation? Why would it? BTC went up by a factor of a gazillion during a decade when USD inflation was not out of the ordinary. Clearly something other than "inflation hedge" is driving the price.

What it means is pundits have spared no opportunity to ridicule anyone who has invested their money in BTC, pontificated that BTC has no value, that it is a fad, that it is a bubble, etc. For 10 years. At some point don't they have to capitulate from that provenly wrong position and at least admit there's something there? What is driving the price is price discovery. More people are becoming comfortable with it as an…

I think people don't really agree it has that much value. People want to get rich quickly. They always have done that and continue to do so. Casinos and lotteries are older than bitcoin.

The idea that BTC goes above 50k USD because millions of people believe its intrinsic value is worth that much is a story that BTC investors tell themselves before going to sleep. Reality is much greedier than that, and they know it, but the narrative won't change while the fairy tale continues to be profitable.

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

#384

Post by boring_twenties »

pas wrote: post #327
vidarh wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then what is your explanation for why it is not possible to directly exchange USDT for USD, there must be a reason that no exchange wants to do that. https://global.bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=USD-USDT

Do they process withdrawals in a reasonable time?

Dunno about Bittrex but Kraken also has a USD/USDT pair. Withdrawals via wire transfer take around 2 days.

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

#385

Post by vmception »

firekvz wrote: post #377
vmception wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all fiat deposits into Bitfinex create USDT. Thats an additional fact that the amount is in line with the amounts that would be deposited into any big exchange. If Coinbase minted USDC whenever someone deposited, you would see the same kind of growth. The basis of your entire post is assuming impropriety based on pretty normal behavior with the addition of the business quirk of when USDT is created. The abilit…

How come you just come here telling that deposits in bitfinex creates USDT But Paolo himself post that all the usdt minted is 'tron replenish' everytime whale alert tweets about 800,000,000 USDT frwshly minted So, basically, in your intentions to defend USDT you are even contradicting what its own CEO says... It's also funny how tesla 1.5b investment and microstrategy few millions buy are to be 'celebrated' as big an…

US equities are choosing to make a big deal out of something benign at fairly small amounts. The corporate debt market is massive with almost all blue chips routinely issuing short term debt that dwarfs anything Microstrategy did, for completely ambiguous purposes and the market does not care as long as its paid back. 100 billion $ worth of US commercial paper was issued just in the last month with no fanfare whatsoever and no disclosure on what the proceeds are for. Microstrategy’s dabbling in the corporate debt markets is only news because the CEO wants it to be.

The volumes from a large crowd that can also include institutional can very easily be large.

A recent example is the Saudi Aramco IPO, particiption in that IPO used Saudi retail investors and Saudi payment rails and resulted in $25bn in purchases. That one country’s internal financial system was able to handle it and there was just that much participation.

Tether doesn't have the transparency we will want. Choose a different product for that reason alone, and there are options now.

But assuming the worst, out of the universe of assumptions, is just as useless as assuming the best. The western world says “all this is improbable so lets assume it is impossible”, the eastern world doesn't seem to care and there are examples where much larger sums of money could show that Tether’s growth is not improbable or impossible.

The point is that $30bn of deposits (whether some of that is counted incorrectly on multiple blockchains) is not noteworthy enough on its own to reinforce your conclusion. Many random brokers have that. If they had a stablecoin that was minted upon deposit, you would see the same thing. And here, institutions also use Bitfinex and $30bn is actually then a reflection of how small the crypto markets are.

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

#386

Post by mamon »

sekai wrote: post #276
cool_dude85 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, trading it for a dollar isn't the same as redeeming it for a dollar.

You can easily withdraw USD/EUR you got from trading in USDT.

You're missing the point: trading means that you have to find someone willing to do the trade with you. If no one wants to buy your Tethers then you're doomed. Redeeming is completely different - the issuer of your asset has a legal obligation to buy them from you (or at least that's how it should work for assets that aren't scam).

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

#387

Post by boring_twenties »

quentinadam wrote: post #373
dudus wrote: post #272

I've been following Tether for quite a long time. I have no absolute proof it is a scam but the writing is on the wall. Here are some facts. - The current Market Cap of USDT is 34 Billion Dollars. It was 4B this time last year. Since the value is pegged this means there has been an influx of cash of 30 B into this shady company in the last year alone. Who invested this money? We have no idea since Tether doesn't disc…

> There's no way to transfer USDT into USD. The few exchanges that say they offer withdraws actually don't if you go and try. It's perfectly possible to exchange USDT for USD and withdraw USD to your bank account; it does not involve complicated steps nor outrageous fees. Kraken, for example, has a very liquid USDT/USD market, is a well respected exchange, and processes USD withdrawals that arrive within minutes to U…

How do you get withdrawals arriving within minutes? Mine take about 2 days, I'm on the highest verification level that they list publicly ("Pro").

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

#388

Post by idownvoted »

lazide wrote: post #312
dcolkitt wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no way to transfer USDT into USD. The few exchanges that say they offer withdraws actually don't if you go and try. There is an easy way. Swap USDT to USDC on Curve. Deposit USDC on Coinbase. Convert USDC to USD on Coinbase. Withdraw USD. I'm not saying I disagree with your overall thesis. But this specific point makes it sound like USDT is some sort of roach motel ("you can get in, but you can't get out").…

That's fairly easy?!?! That's a textbook yak shaving exercise if I heard of one, and seems like it would have to involve multiple parties during the exercise. Many exchanges have pretended for a long time that USDT is 'the same' as dollars, and there are going to be a lot of folks pissed that it isn't actually the same thing.

Also imagine how "well oiled" this financial transaction's machinery will work during a market contraction.

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

#389

Post by user-the-name »

sekai wrote: post #263
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one would care how many Bitcoin they had without an exchange rate. Tether printing is a convenient way to inflate the exchange rate. Remove Tether printing and the exchange rate falls. As long as people talk about Bitcoin in terms of the exchange rate, Tether and Bitcoin are deeply connected.

No it would not, plenty of stablecoins to take it's place, or just crypto/crypto ratios.

That assumes that Tether is being honest and not printing unbacked coins to drive the price up.

So, no, it would still tank the price, because the price is quite likely inflated through fraud.

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