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Tether executives said to face criminal probe into bank fraud

bloomberg.com

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Re: Tether executives said to face criminal probe into bank fraud

#121

Post by [deleted] »

graeme wrote: post #117
graeme wrote: post #2

> But the Justice Department investigation is focused on conduct that occurred years ago, when Tether was in its more nascent stages. Specifically, federal prosecutors are scrutinizing whether Tether concealed from banks that transactions were linked to crypto, said three people with direct knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named because the probe is confidential. Notably this is for events some time ago. I…

Update. Tether has replied here. This site is down, but this tweet has it: https://mobile.twitter.com/bitcoinsguide/status/141969423526... URL for if their site comes back online: https://tether.to/tether-responds-to-bloomberg-article/

[deleted]

Re: Tether executives said to face criminal probe into bank fraud

#122

Post by jpmattia »

pwned1 wrote: post #10

An interesting primer on Tether, and whether it is a scam: https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/what-effect-would-tether-be... (Yes, I know it's zerohedge, but this is a decent article) Tether usually has 2-3x the volume of bitcoin in any given day. And no one seems to know anything about how it works. So in my estimation, it probably is a scam...

> (Yes, I know it's zerohedge, but this is a decent article)

It's not even zerohedge: It's copied from bombthrower.com

Re: Tether executives said to face criminal probe into bank fraud

#123

Post by jazzyjackson »

jonahbenton wrote: post #115
jazzyjackson wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what I’m hearing is, governments world prefer criminal enterprises stay in business so long as they get a cut of profits via settlements

Non-snarky response to snarky comment: There is corruption everywhere, of course. The sort of transaction you talk about is common but also inefficient. Many jurisdiction governments just take direct equity stakes in successful or well positioned "commercial" endeavors, often after they become successful, in addition to collecting supra-level "taxes" of various kinds. That's not what's happening here, referring to Ti…

I appreciate your informed perspective, indeed I’m just bitter that banks got away with laundering drug money among other crimes. Sometimes it can seem like governments and financial institutions are on the same team ;)

Re: Tether executives said to face criminal probe into bank fraud

#124

Post by eingaeKaiy8ujie »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #100
rchaud wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, though. It's backed by the economic output of the United States, which is transacted in USD. But why are you conflating USD with crypto anyway? USD is a currency that is actually used for purchasing goods and services. Crypto isn't used for anything except speculation. If capital gains is the goal, then yes, the USD won't be of much value to you as it's not particularly volatile.

https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages... > Federal Reserve notes are not redeemable in gold, silver or any other commodity, and receive no backing by anything Bigger scam than Tether. Has been running for almost a century now. > Crypto isn't used for anything except speculation. Looks like Amazon's going to accept cryptocurrency as payment: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-cryptocurrency-…

> Federal Reserve notes are not redeemable in gold, silver or any other commodity, and receive no backing by anything

This is how a fiat currency is supposed to work. Earn it, then buy some gold, silver, real estate, crypto, or whatever. And inflation is not necessary a bad thing.

Re: Tether executives said to face criminal probe into bank fraud

#125

Post by jazzyjackson »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #81
jazzyjackson wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what I’m hearing is, governments world prefer criminal enterprises stay in business so long as they get a cut of profits via settlements

I think it's more just that the government doesn't want to blow 100 mil trying to litigate a case they have almost no chance of winning in some reasonable amount of time. Government lawyers are almost always out-gunned in cases like this.

I agree that it’s pragmatic, it just doesn’t seem especially Just.

Re: Tether executives said to face criminal probe into bank fraud

#126

Post by nostrademons »

ketzo wrote: post #102
matheusmoreira wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages... > Federal Reserve notes are not redeemable in gold, silver or any other commodity, and receive no backing by anything Bigger scam than Tether. Has been running for almost a century now. > Crypto isn't used for anything except speculation. Looks like Amazon's going to accept cryptocurrency as payment: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-cryptocurrency-…

And yet if I walk into a grocery store, I can buy milk with USD. Weird — it’s almost like there is something backing it, and it’s not just strictly gold/silver!

So does that mean that if Amazon [1], Paypal [2], Square [2], and Visa [3] start accepting Bitcoin, it's now backed by the U.S. economy?

[1] https://gizmodo.com/amazon-to-accept-bitcoin-by-end-of-2021-...

[2] https://www.barrons.com/articles/bitcoin-goes-mainstream-as-...

[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/07/visa-says-crypto-linked-card...

Re: Tether executives said to face criminal probe into bank fraud

#127

Post by ceejayoz »

yellow_lead wrote: post #97

> In the course of its years-long investigation, the Justice Department has examined whether traders used Tether tokens to illegally drive up Bitcoin during an epic rally for cryptocurrencies in 2017. But Bitcoin isn't a security. Is it illegal to manipulate it's price? Why haven't they looked at influencers pumping s*tcoins?

> Why haven't they looked at influencers pumping s*tcoins?

They have, and are. https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-268

"The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against professional boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and music producer Khaled Khaled, known as DJ Khaled, for failing to disclose payments they received for promoting investments in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). These are the SEC's first cases to charge touting violations involving ICOs."

As the saying goes: " The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine."

Re: Tether executives said to face criminal probe into bank fraud

#128

Post by lottin »

deepvibrations wrote: post #43
spookthesunset wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet people are so bought into crypto hype they look the other way. These dudes have been running this scam in plain sight for years now. It always amazes me that the whole house of cards continues to stand and hasn’t completely blown up.

We don't truly know the severity of it yet, but we do know that money has been moving over to other stablecoins such as USDC over the past year or so and so risk is slowly decreasing. There is a huge amount of innovation in the space and i think to gloss over it as a 'house of cards' is a bit naive - there is no denying it is a volatile market, but it is here to stay, so best to embrace it and see if there are actual…

There is literally no innovation in the crypto "space".

Re: Tether executives said to face criminal probe into bank fraud

#129

Post by eingaeKaiy8ujie »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #78

As someone who doesn't really care about the virtues of crypto, but has a small investment in btc that has grown into several thousand dollars, I'm feeling that if I want some casual investment in crypto I should move it into eth to avoid regulatory risk from bitcoin's environmental cost and tether collapsing and destroying bitcoin's value. I'm sure eth would tumble down with btc for a while but feel it might diverge…

DeFi is the future so I would say ETH is a better/safer investment than BTC in the long term. The only thing Bitcoin is useful for is doing transactions which any other cryptocurrency is also capable of. Also, consider Cardano. It's proof-of-stake already (so no environmental impact), and it's about to get smart contracts implemented in a few months.

Re: Tether executives said to face criminal probe into bank fraud

#130

Post by CrazyStat »

nateberkopec wrote: post #61
gruez wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were running it as a 100% legal/safe operation I'd invest the balance in short term treasuries. If you multiply tether's liabilities ($61.9B) by the current 1 year treasury rate (0.09%), you get $55.7M, which seems like plenty of money to run such an operation.

How much of a chunk of the 1-year treasury market is $61.9B? Can't figure out how to look that up. Seems like it could be a decent business if it was legit.

As of the latest published data (June 2021) there are $4.275 trillion in outstanding marketable Treasury bills ([1] https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/mspd/2021/opd...
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