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Bitcoin’s reliance on stablecoins harks back to the Wild West of finance

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141–150 of 241 posts

Re: Bitcoin’s reliance on stablecoins harks back to the Wild West of finance

#142
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its based on a fundamental idea of buying something that you know is worthless in order to sell it for more than you bought it by convincing the buyer that it isn't worthless. Eventually it will burn through all potential buyers and there will be no one left to sell to. Then it collapses because everyone finally agrees that it actually has no value.

Wow it is really amazing how gold, the biggest scam of all times, is still finding people to scam nowadays. Or is there some value to limited goods?

Wait, you really think gold is only traded for speculation? Gold is an extremely useful metal. Its not just an artificially limited good.

If you’re buying gold you’re not purely depending on finding another sucker to buy your gold. You can sell it to any one of the countless manufacturers or jewelry makers using it every day. If the price crashed too much, these would probably just increase their inventory of gold in anticipation of a future price increase, which would itself drive up price. If the price stayed low they can lower prices on the goods they’re making, increasing demand for gold, stabilizing the price.

That’s why cryptocurrency is not digital gold. There are no such mechanism setting a fundamental floor for how low the price can go.

Re: Bitcoin’s reliance on stablecoins harks back to the Wild West of finance

#144
post #3

Honestly stablecoins - specifically tether - is about the only thing about crypto that genuinely frightens me. Crypto rollercoaster - up down sideways and in circles - sure I'm game. Tether that is stable until it implodes...hell no. Even without direct exposure the blast radius worries me.

I find it weird that any person 'hodls' any crypto. I pick the rallies (like the one last night) and ride them, then sell. I cannot, besides stress, understand why anyone would hold crypto currencies at this point. It is too young and Wild West. That's why riding waves is easy and if you trade half decent you can make fortunes. But it can be gone tomorrow; for instance if Tether gets called on it's bluff.

You HODL until you can get a good enough number to stop HODLing.

Re: Bitcoin’s reliance on stablecoins harks back to the Wild West of finance

#145
post #37
post #3

Honestly stablecoins - specifically tether - is about the only thing about crypto that genuinely frightens me. Crypto rollercoaster - up down sideways and in circles - sure I'm game. Tether that is stable until it implodes...hell no. Even without direct exposure the blast radius worries me.

Honest question. How's Tether imploding different from e.g. a public company suddenly shutting down and its stock price going to zero? I imagine the two scenarios being similar in the sense that anyone holding tether would eat a big loss, but aside from the event obviously affecting investor sentiment, wouldn't it just be more or less business as usual for other coins? As in, couldn't BTC/ETH/whatever people just use…

>I feel like the risk of full-on panic selling seems more and more unlikely as time goes by and more institutional investors get into crypto.

Agreed. Tether is special though because it's very big and (imo) very sketchy.

So it's more of a "too big to fail - banks" company goes down than some random company. Thankfully other stablecoins are gaining ground

Re: Bitcoin’s reliance on stablecoins harks back to the Wild West of finance

#146
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something is off in USDC land though: https://news.bitcoin.com/usdc-attestations-run-late-raising-...

The March attestation was published 5/24 (the day prior to that article) and is available on the Centre website[1]. It doesn’t appear there’s cause for alarm in this case. [1] https://www.centre.io/hubfs/pdfs/attestation/grant-thorton_c...

Except the attestations have stopped saying how much cash they have in their accounts and now just say that Cricle _claim_ they have enough assets to cover the liabilities.

This is a HUGE change and massively cause for alarm.

Re: Bitcoin’s reliance on stablecoins harks back to the Wild West of finance

#147
post #7
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>think of what happens to everything else when bitcoin crashes or even dips significantly. No idea about the rest, but I'm buying. Conceptually I think this has gained critical mass. i.e. There are enough people with enough belief to make crash to zero unlikely

Sure, but the exact same is true if there's a crash due to Tether's demise.

Fair point

Re: Bitcoin’s reliance on stablecoins harks back to the Wild West of finance

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is a terrible replacement for our current payment systems and credit cards on every metric.

How are credit cards not the most terrible thing ever? Some random number with an expiry date and an additional number is the key to your wealth (subject to a lot of terms and conditions)? I would rather go with a cryptography based solution, where all the terms and conditions are open source code, all day

There is near zero risk of a consumer loosing out with credit card fraud.

Re: Bitcoin’s reliance on stablecoins harks back to the Wild West of finance

#149
post #29
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the "technology". Any day now. Won't know what hit them. Around the corner really, alongside cold fusion and the chewing gum that replaces toothbrushes.

Yeah, like online shopping. Remember that fad? Luckily the .com crash showed us that the critics were right and nobody ever got rich from that dumb idea again.

Don't remember anyone saying online shopping was a fad, just that a lot of companies were massively over valued.

Re: Bitcoin’s reliance on stablecoins harks back to the Wild West of finance

#150
post #37
post #3

Honestly stablecoins - specifically tether - is about the only thing about crypto that genuinely frightens me. Crypto rollercoaster - up down sideways and in circles - sure I'm game. Tether that is stable until it implodes...hell no. Even without direct exposure the blast radius worries me.

Honest question. How's Tether imploding different from e.g. a public company suddenly shutting down and its stock price going to zero? I imagine the two scenarios being similar in the sense that anyone holding tether would eat a big loss, but aside from the event obviously affecting investor sentiment, wouldn't it just be more or less business as usual for other coins? As in, couldn't BTC/ETH/whatever people just use…

Because the majority of crypto trades are done in Tether.
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