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Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

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Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#251

Post by smabie »

fabianhjr wrote: post #225
fny wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how exactly do you short stablecoins? You can't and even if you did the game is heavily rigged against you. If you remember in the movie, Cohodes got his ass handed to him as banks margin called him out of his position and that's in a regulated market. These guys own their market and the exchange on which it originates. There's no way to even verify if they received dollars for every tether issued and by some mir…

All shorting consists on 5 steps: 1. Borrow 2. Sell 3. Wait 4. Buy back 5. Close There is USDT lending available. Even more, there is decentralized collateralized lending available. If someone wanted to short USDT there are plenty of opportunities to do so. (And there might be a lot of people doing so, specially now that the shadyness is being reported on some of the more reputable traditional newspapers)

Also you can trade the USDT/USD swaps as well

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#252

Post by doublepg23 »

arcticbull wrote: post #33
NelsonMinar wrote: post #28

I don't understand how Tether has survived this long. Bitfinex and Tether sure look transparently like a fraud, all the way back to the "no really we have $1 in the bank for every Tether but you can't audit us" days. And yet it continues to occupy its role as the underpinning of most cryptocurrency markets. Why hasn't it blown up yet? My best guess is that it's useful to everyone taking in money from new retail inves…

It took Liberty Reserve 7 years and 17 countries cooperating to get nuked from orbit. Tether was founded as Realcoin in 2014 by a group including former child star and accused sex offender Brock Pierce, so while it’s technically just rounding the 7 year mark, it didn’t begin in earnest until it was taken over by Bitfinex towards 2015 and didn’t become majorly problematic until 2016/2017 according to the NYAG findings…

> Brock Pierce

Excellent documentary involving him called "Open Secret".

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#253

Post by smabie »

impostervt wrote: post #31

People have been yelling about Tether for years, myself included. But nothing seems to stop it. Not lawsuits, not major news articles. The conclusion I draw is that, yes, the game is rigged - AND EVERYONE IS OK WITH IT. As long as it's making everyone money, no one will really complain. What I also find interesting, is that if tether ever DOES crash, the result might be a big boost for Bitcoin. If you hold Tether, an…

There is no world in which a major tether depeg leads to a boost in BTC price. It will not happen.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#254

Post by kristjansson »

vageli wrote: post #224
qeternity wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Binance: buy $1m BTC/USDT CME: short $1m BTC futures (which are dollar settled and thus BTC/USD) On Binance you are long BTC, and short USDT. On CME you are short BTC and long USD (implicitly on the fiat legs). So if we add that up, the BTC positions net off and you’re just left with short USDT and long USD which is the desired outcome. In practice, if Tether implodes I would expect everyone to sell Tether (by buying…

> So the price of BTC on Binance goes to the moon, and the price on CME collapses. How long could this arbitrage oppportunity exist? It doesn't sound all that reasonable, in my opinion.

BTC/USDT (on Binance) goes moonward as the denominator collapses, BTC/USD goes doomward as the numerator falls.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#255

Post by headmelted »

fleddr wrote: post #169
headmelted wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it though? A whole lot of talk about middle class lifestyles being out of reach in the same sentences as “WHEN LAMBO?”. I’m sympathetic to the widespread lack of upward mobility these days. This is confusing it with something else.

When lambo is a joke. The entire space is riddled with memes and jokes. You shouldn't take it so serious.

I get that, but it’s disingenuous to say that there aren’t a lot of people buying this stuff because they legitimately expect it to make them rich.

Is it most new buyers? There’s really no way to know.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#256

Post by nrb »

dboreham wrote: post #215
fleddr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironic remark, as Bitcoin is invented in response to the instability of the traditional financial system.

Curious. Is that true? I ask because I read papers on digital cash years before Bitcoin and never saw any reference to financial system instability. It was just "being able to send money digitally like cash would be useful and cool", perhaps with a bit of "banks and western union are bandits with their fees". I always thought the alternative financial system stuff was added later to make the scene more interesting to…

Included in the coinbase parameter of the genesis block of Bitcoin is the following message:

“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#257

Post by CryptoPunk »

dustintrex wrote: post #245
CryptoPunk wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, USDC has been reducing its risk profile from what I'm seen. Recently they announced they will be replacing all of their remaining corporate-bond-backing with USD cash and US treasuries. Source for your claims to the contrary?

August 2021: https://beincrypto.com/coinbase-drops-guarantee-of-usdc-stab... SEC subpoena literally yesterday: https://coingeek.com/usdc-issuer-circle-financial-subpoenaed...

The August 2021 change seems to be in response to a disclosure, that revealed more about USDC, than had been known in the past. This is a move toward more transarency and accuracy, not in USDC becoming less backed.

And CoinGeek is a notoriously anti-decentralization media outlet. It's a mouthpiece for BSV, whose founder, Craig Wright, has called for anonymity to be abolished in cryptocurrencies, and for miners who process decentralized exchange transactions to be jailed.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#258

Post by trompetenaccoun »

johnnyApplePRNG wrote: post #239
trompetenaccoun wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most actual cryptocurrency enthusiasts dislike Tether.

Most of the cryptocurrency enthusiasts I have ever met only care about price increases and speculation. Which is why they don't like nasty Tether news getting any views.

Yes, that's why I put "actual" in there. In the crypto communities I know Tether was heavily criticized pretty much from it's very inception, not just more recently since it's getting bad press in the mainstream. But traders who who're in it for the money do seem to use it. Those people don't care about the tech, they often don't even understand what they're buying. They're speculators.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#259

Post by qeternity »

vageli wrote: post #224
qeternity wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Binance: buy $1m BTC/USDT CME: short $1m BTC futures (which are dollar settled and thus BTC/USD) On Binance you are long BTC, and short USDT. On CME you are short BTC and long USD (implicitly on the fiat legs). So if we add that up, the BTC positions net off and you’re just left with short USDT and long USD which is the desired outcome. In practice, if Tether implodes I would expect everyone to sell Tether (by buying…

> So the price of BTC on Binance goes to the moon, and the price on CME collapses. How long could this arbitrage oppportunity exist? It doesn't sound all that reasonable, in my opinion.

It’s not an arbitrage. Our price on Binance is denominated in USDT whereas our price on CME is USD (which is the entire point of the trade).

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#260

Post by qeternity »

NhanH wrote: post #242
qeternity wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Binance: buy $1m BTC/USDT CME: short $1m BTC futures (which are dollar settled and thus BTC/USD) On Binance you are long BTC, and short USDT. On CME you are short BTC and long USD (implicitly on the fiat legs). So if we add that up, the BTC positions net off and you’re just left with short USDT and long USD which is the desired outcome. In practice, if Tether implodes I would expect everyone to sell Tether (by buying…

The difficult part seems to be getting someone lending you $1m in USDT, isn't it? From their POV, you're getting exposed to BTC volatility, and the collateral is likely to be too high to make this practical.

You’ve missed something, but I’m not sure what.

Nobody is lending us anything in the above example (well, Binance perps and CME futs have embedded leverage but that’s another story).

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