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Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

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Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#41
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't end there. Slightly less obvious is the fact that Tether and other "Stable coins" are the only "stability" that exists in the crypto marketplace. More than half of all crypto trades involve stable coins. And exchanges play along (wittingly or not) with the ruse for their own benefit. So if Tether is a scam, so is bitcoin and the entire crypto marketplace.

USDC has been audited and it's solid. I know of people in large banks who are working with USDC and they've vouched for it being 100% ok.

Wasn’t there confusion recently on whether it was fully cashed backed (per their website), when USDC actually had a bunch of other stuff in it?

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#42
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't end there. Slightly less obvious is the fact that Tether and other "Stable coins" are the only "stability" that exists in the crypto marketplace. More than half of all crypto trades involve stable coins. And exchanges play along (wittingly or not) with the ruse for their own benefit. So if Tether is a scam, so is bitcoin and the entire crypto marketplace.

USDC has been audited and it's solid. I know of people in large banks who are working with USDC and they've vouched for it being 100% ok.

> I know of people in large banks who are working with USDC and they've vouched for it being 100% ok.

Sure, just like they did with AAA-rated mortgage CDOs before the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis.

"The bankers say it's fine" is not the comforting statement you're making it out to be.

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#43

If it wasn't obvious from the get go that Tether was a scam, what more do you need.

It doesn't end there. Slightly less obvious is the fact that Tether and other "Stable coins" are the only "stability" that exists in the crypto marketplace. More than half of all crypto trades involve stable coins. And exchanges play along (wittingly or not) with the ruse for their own benefit. So if Tether is a scam, so is bitcoin and the entire crypto marketplace.

Look, Tether might be a scam in the sense that they don't actually have the backing assets they claim but that doesn't invalidate the rest of the market or the trades done with them any more than your bank having They are absolutely running afoul of banking regulations but that's not exactly catastrophic for the whole market. Unless there's a bank run the only thing Tether actually needs to do is keep the trading value of their coin near $1.

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#44
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't end there. Slightly less obvious is the fact that Tether and other "Stable coins" are the only "stability" that exists in the crypto marketplace. More than half of all crypto trades involve stable coins. And exchanges play along (wittingly or not) with the ruse for their own benefit. So if Tether is a scam, so is bitcoin and the entire crypto marketplace.

USDC has been audited and it's solid. I know of people in large banks who are working with USDC and they've vouched for it being 100% ok.

USDC is better than Tether but far from “solid”. They still hold commercial paper, just 10% instead of 50%. The audit is a joke. Who knows what is really considered “cash equivalent”. Hell, it’s possible USDC holds Tether.

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty straightforward: You can currently get 8.88% APY return on lending stablecoins on Celsius[0]. It's also much easier to borrow and use in incredibly risky contracts, yield farming, etc Stablecoins let you engage in much more risk than USD without the volatility of crypto prices. [0] https://celsius.network/earn-rewards-on-your-crypto

If a bank offered me 8.88% APY for depositing USD, I'd be pretty suspicious of a catch.

Well, there's no FDIC, so there's no government making sure you get your money back if the organization holding your money shut down.

There's a number of companies offering something similar, like Celsius and Blockfi and a few others. Do your own research, and no need to go near it if not comfortable with it.

Things could go either way from here on out, perhaps crypto is the future and 8.88% interest for stablecoins will be the standard; or perhaps it'll all come crashing down and all cryptos go poof in a few years. Who knows? Point being, when a new paradigm comes along, it usually seems strange and uncomfortable enough to feel suspicious. Maybe it's legit, maybe not, there's a chance for either case.

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#48
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't end there. Slightly less obvious is the fact that Tether and other "Stable coins" are the only "stability" that exists in the crypto marketplace. More than half of all crypto trades involve stable coins. And exchanges play along (wittingly or not) with the ruse for their own benefit. So if Tether is a scam, so is bitcoin and the entire crypto marketplace.

Look, Tether might be a scam in the sense that they don't actually have the backing assets they claim but that doesn't invalidate the rest of the market or the trades done with them any more than your bank having They are absolutely running afoul of banking regulations but that's not exactly catastrophic for the whole market. Unless there's a bank run the only thing Tether actually needs to do is keep the trading val…

My bank isn’t wash trading its reserves to drive a speculative bubble…

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#49
post #26
post #3

There are a lot of areas of crypto where I feel like I have a pretty good understanding, but I genuinely don't understand why anyone would "invest" in a stablecoin. What advantage does holding something like USDT offer over simply putting dollars in a bank account?

You don't need to pay taxes. Example: You earn $1000/month. Cost of living is $500/month, labour tax is $500/month. By using cryptocurrency you can skip tax and save up $500/month, in legit employment (labour law, worker rights protection) you save up $0/month, you work for free, hand to mouth.

That presumes you get paid in crypto, not fiat.

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#50
post #29

I often find the headlines, and even stories about, crypto to be inscrutable to those looking in from the outside. The stories also seem to come from an ecosystem of sites I don't recognize so it's hard to even judge if it's reputable site (or at least guess at the biases it might have). None of this is inherently bad, but there seems to be a growing divide between "mainstream" tech and the crypto world that is harde…

> others have found ways to build and keep an understanding of the crypto ecosystem without fully going down the rabbit hole

You're right on the mark. Most of the content around crypto is heavily biased and just looks untrustworthy for a number of reasons. From what I can tell, it's because they're actually unreliable sources. Not because they're trying to scam you, but because there's more money in selling you crypto services than there is in crypto itself. So what you end up finding is pretty much all content marketing. Basically, you're looking for how to mine gold, and all you can find are websites from shovel companies telling you about how great gold mining is.

The sites that are not content marketing tend to come off as amateurish, often times because on deeper inspection they are actually run by amateurs. A strategy I tend to use for vetting information is to give the site a scan and look for technical inaccuracies (ie: confused/wrong/bizarre/shallow explanations about technical topics). From that, you can get a good picture of how knowledgeable the source actually is.

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