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Tether executives said to face criminal probe into bank fraud

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

#221

Post by matheusmoreira »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #120
matheusmoreira wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USD is the real scam. It's not backed by anything either. Tether only exists because nobody else wants to touch the USD and its annoying regulations. I find it hard to care about Tether printing billions when the US government prints trillions. Wish we could have a 100% XMR world without even a single dollar in sight. Won't happen until the end of the petrodollar which won't happen until the end of the US military.

So what you’re saying is it’s backed by the US military.

The use of USD, yes. The US military will probably intervene if any country attempts to sell oil for any other currency.

The value if USD, no. It doesn't depend on US military strength. The US government and banks inflate it as much as they want.

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

#223

Post by matheusmoreira »

rchaud wrote: post #150
nostrademons wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

No, because it still isn't legal tender, and lacks credibility as a medium of exchange. The simplest example of this is loyalty programs that offer 'points' that can be redeemed for goods and services. Since the points are useless on their own, the vendor creates agreements with other businesses so that they accept the points. That's what gives the rewards program credibility. Real currency still changes hands in the…

> No, because it still isn't legal tender, and lacks credibility as a medium of exchange.

Some countries have accepted BTC as legal tender. It's only a matter of time really.

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

#224

Post by WalterSear »

cosmojg wrote: post #222

Why do people still use Tether? Alternatives like USDC and Dai are plenty liquid. I don't understand why anyone would put up with this level of unnecessary risk.

USDC isn't audited either.

And the risk is systemic. Either you put up with it, or you get out of crypto.

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

#226

Post by matheusmoreira »

jfrunyon wrote: post #178
matheusmoreira wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can buy cryptocurrencies with USDT as well. They can even cash out dollars later. Weird, right? It's almost like there's something backing USDT as well even though it's all nonsense. Another truth is governments force their citizens to use their own currencies. They require citizens to pay taxes in those currencies. They probably even require stores to accept those currencies.

> It's almost like there's something backing USDT as well even though it's all nonsense. Yes. Speculation and their ~~criminal conspirators~~ exchanges. > Another truth is governments force their citizens to use their own currencies. Absolutely. Not a single person in this thread has argued otherwise. What's your point? How does that somehow make something else more stable? If the government is the big bad wolf, what…

> Yes. Speculation and their ~~criminal conspirators~~ exchanges.

Not that different from traditional banks and other elements of the financial sector.

> What's your point?

My point is there is no fundamental difference between cryptocurrencies and legal tender.

> What army and treasury is going to rescue USDT when it crashes?

When the traditional finance people screw up, the US government bails them out with taxpayer money. It should totally do the same for Tether.

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

#227

Post by boc »

gruez wrote: post #42
jasonlaramburu wrote: post #14

Edit: Isn't it a huge red flag that Tether doesn't make any money off transaction fees? Their daily volume is almost 2x that of BTC. They could fully support the company with a tiny transaction fee and avoid all the regulatory uncertainty/FUD. How does tether make money (aside from potential fraud)? Is there a transaction fee that supports the people and cost of running tether (the company)?

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.

They can't do that because they have likely been "printing" tether out of thin air to boost the price of Bitcoin. They don't have assets to buy treasuries, otherwise they would have 100% done it.

In reality, there was never $60B+ of interest from the market, but once they invented it via printing unbacked tethers, they could grab real USD from people FOMO'ing in and then park that cash somewhere offshore where it can't be touched when the whole thing melts down.

Occam's razor states that they don't have the money given that they'd have zero issues if they actually had $60B+ in deposits.

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

#228

Post by yellow_lead »

ceejayoz wrote: post #127
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 th…

Fair enough, I guess we'll have to wait to see more action here.

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

#229

Post by staplers »

spookthesunset wrote: post #31
gammarator wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread speculates that Tether’s commercial paper may be in Chinese real estate, which is currently suffering huge losses… https://twitter.com/TheLastBearSta1/status/14183024655571107...

Or more likely tether isn’t backed by anything at all. The auditor they hired quit before completing their audit. Seems legit to me. These dudes are a complete scam but as long as BTC goes to the moon nobody seems to care.

Most bank notes aren't "backed by anything". Reserve requirements are now zero for banks.

Source: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm

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

#230

Post by killingtime74 »

staplers wrote: post #229
spookthesunset wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or more likely tether isn’t backed by anything at all. The auditor they hired quit before completing their audit. Seems legit to me. These dudes are a complete scam but as long as BTC goes to the moon nobody seems to care.

Most bank notes aren't "backed by anything". Reserve requirements are now zero for banks. Source: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm

Government is something. They can tax and print money.
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