According to the agreement with NYAG Tether admitted no wrongdoing. The statement:
https://tether.to/tether-and-bitfinex-reach-settlement-with-...
Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers
421–430 of 517 posts
Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers
#422Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very interesting. I wonder how stable it will be vs USD over the long run. I am interested in someone making a CPI coin, that tracks some value of a basket of goods instead of another currency. I think that would be sort of the ultimate inflation hedge because ideally the value would not change at all over the long run.
The real question would be "how". A [crypto]asset backed by another currency is easy in principle: simply hold the currency to back it (and make sure you have some sort of transaction fee to cover your storage costs, and don't lie about it...). Same with a [crypto]asset backed by oil or metals. But CPI goods include many goods which are either perishable or lose value over time, and the composition of actual CPI bask…
Well, DAI exists and is pegged to USD without USD backing. Why couldn't one create a similar system with a CPI value target instead of a 1 USD target?
Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the most cogent answer I've seen regarding BTC utility for those living under less stable regimes. Usually it's a hand-wavy "something something Venezuela something," which, as bad as Venezuela is, makes it seem like crypto is only really relevant in exceptional cases of instability. Thanks for the effort.
Venezuelan and bitcoin whitepaper lover here I've posted several times that the adoption of bitcoin in venezuela is pure bull** Is only used for corruption/drugs money laundering, more details on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25599693 So please, the fact that some venezuelan hners say they use bitcoin doesn't make bitcoin a real valid alternative and widely used Venezuelans right now only care to protect again…
I'm not Venezuelan or in Venezuela, but I definitely know Venezuelans here in Argentina who send Bitcoin back to Venezuela. But it's clearly not widely used—the best estimates are that there are only a few billion dollars per year in total Bitcoin remittances, of which under US$400 million (per year) are to Venezuela, and there are 5 million Venezuelan expats. And Venezuela has almost 30 million people. So clearly only about 2%–10% of Venezuela's population uses Bitcoin at most, and many of them only use it to provide "send money to your family" services to and from other Venezuelan expats—who may not know or care that Bitcoin is involved.
That certainly doesn't add up to "widely used" but it's not "absolutely 0" as you said in your other comment either.
When I said, "Bitcoin is very popular in Venezuela" I meant relative to its popularity in other countries, not relative to the Venezuelan population as a whole. I mean, if I said Emacs was very popular in Venezuela, that wouldn't mean that every other moto-taxi driver could give you Elisp tips. It would just mean that more people used Emacs than VS Code.
Where does this hypothetical 2% of Bitcoin adopters live? Maybe not in Caracas where it's easy to find someone to exchange dollars with. Maybe they live close to the Colombian border, where they trade with drug traffickers? (Though why would Colombian drug traffickers be Bitcoin buyers rather than sellers? Maybe I need to think this through better.) Maybe they live in rural areas? Probably one of the P2P market sites has a map.
If you had to flee Venezuela, maybe through unsafe areas where bandits were operating, would you rather be carrying your savings in Bitcoin or in dollars?
Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surprisingly, yes. That is fairly normal in financial institutions. It seems nonsensical at a first glance, but: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/analyst/090501.asp
What you are pointing to is expressly pointing out that 1) it is illegal, 2) it is illegal for a very good reason, 3) if anyone finds out the illegal things going on, it will likely result in catastrophic (or at least very, very expensive) consequences. The pretending part that Tether and Bitfinex were doing was fundamentally different than the walling happening within financial institutions, where it has to be disjo…
Goldman absolutely does play games like this on the market making side, but the difference is that the chairmanships of Goldman and the Federal Reserve tend to be a revolving door. They’re a special kind of royalty.
Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers
#425Earlier 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. 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").
It may help that we bank at all of the same banks as Kraken, so most transfers are internal transfers. But even to outside banks, normally US wires should be pretty fast (usually within the day). It may also be the case that we literally wire millions every day on a regular basis, so our wires probably don't get held up at any compliance checks.
Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers
#426Earlier quoted context omitted.
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").
It may help that we bank at all of the same banks as Kraken, so most transfers are internal transfers. But even to outside banks, normally US wires should be pretty fast (usually within the day). It may also be the case that we literally wire millions every day on a regular basis, so our wires probably don't get held up at any compliance checks.
> It may help that we bank at all of the same banks as Kraken
Sounds like a good idea. Do you happen to know if a list of such banks is public?
Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers
#427I'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…
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…
> Almost all fiat deposits into Bitfinex create USDT.
As a matter of fact that is NOT true. (speaking as a crypto hedge fund manager, active since 2013, and trading > $1B/month on all major exchanges). It used to be like that in the past (when USD and USDT where one just represented as "USD" on Bitfinex), but this changed a year or two ago. Now, USD wires are being credited as USD and USDT deposits are being credited as USDT. And there is a USDT/USD market on Bitfinex to exchange between the two.
Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers
#428Earlier 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…
> Almost all fiat deposits into Bitfinex create USDT. As a matter of fact that is NOT true. (speaking as a crypto hedge fund manager, active since 2013, and trading > $1B/month on all major exchanges). It used to be like that in the past (when USD and USDT where one just represented as "USD" on Bitfinex), but this changed a year or two ago. Now, USD wires are being credited as USD and USDT deposits are being credited…
Nice this is how Coinbase functions with USDC too
Likely they all piggyback off of each other’s implementations in the face of evolving regulatory guidance
Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may help that we bank at all of the same banks as Kraken, so most transfers are internal transfers. But even to outside banks, normally US wires should be pretty fast (usually within the day). It may also be the case that we literally wire millions every day on a regular basis, so our wires probably don't get held up at any compliance checks.
> It may help that we bank at all of the same banks as Kraken Sounds like a good idea. Do you happen to know if a list of such banks is public?
As a start, you can check out Signature Bank and Silvergate Bank. They are known for being crypto-friendly banks, and they bank literally every exchange that trades crypto versus USD.
Re: Bitfinex and Tether required to end all trading activity with New Yorkers
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah me too - I remember when AMZN was $2. I remember when AAPL was 28 cents (before splits, etc). I remember when the Internet had a host of pundits proclaiming it was a dying fad in 2001. And most anyone who bought a house at the peak of the bubble is doing quite well if they still have it today.
Are you familiar with the concept of survivorship bias? It's an important concept to remember when talking about the long term outcomes from adverse market events. "If they still have it today," for example, is a useful qualifier, because it subtly renders the statement almost tautological. "Sure, it was a bloodbath, but all the people who survived seem to be doing OK."
Yeah, don't go on margin is the lesson there. People that lost their hat on the housing crises borrowed too much (went too far on margin, which is what a home loan is). Anyone who just kept investing during any market crash in history is sitting well.
So yeah, it's up to you.