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Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

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Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#271
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't entirely understand this; could you provide a concrete example, or actual trades, that could be involved in such a position? (I'm just curious how it would actually look like in practice.)

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…

I'm not quite sure I follow - in the event that Tether implodes, if you expect the long $1m BTC/USDT exposure to be worthless (assuming you lose the money you had on Binance, and Binance goes under), and your short BTC/USD exposure to make money (since it's a short position, you can only make 100% gain at maximum), doesn't that net out to zero PnL (-$1m loss in long BTC/USDT, and +1m gain in short BTC/USD)?

Unless I'm missing something in your math...

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#272
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anybody "fined for selling counterfeit Microsoft software" almost certainly ran a whitebox computer shop, and was successful enough to get noticed and charged in a period where almost everybody's home computers ran pirated Windows and you could buy it on any street corner. In Italy to boot.

Bold! Bold pushback! To use a Fawlty Towers Basil line: "Sooo .... that's all sorted out" knowing full-well it isn't. Don't know Fawlty Towers? Let's go the Monthy Python direction: JC: "It's not much of a bank." MP: "Well, it's very clean, sir" JC: "It's certainly uncontaminated by crypto-backed dollars." Now I enjoy American TV too but I can't think of an All-in-the-Family, Nightcourt, or Scubbs scene here. But if…

I was thinking more of the tethered https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/us-the-tethered-explained/

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#273
post #47
post #46

"Solana, up 9,801% in 2021 for seemingly no reason at all" No reason at all, huh? Anybody with even a remote interest in crypto knows why Solana has exploded. It's L1 season and Solana is a direct competitor to ETH, which suffers from high usage fees. Every other L1 has exploded in value. As said, L1 season. These kind of statements make me suspect the author never used crypto in their life. The cultural gap between…

I'll bite. What can I use Solana for?

For example, if I want to send US dollars to someone, I fill out a form and my bank charges me $20 and then emails me asking to call them and then I call them and wait on hold for half an hour and then I have successfully sent the US dollars to the person, so they'll have it within a day or so (unless there's a weekend or a holiday). If I want to send SPL USDC to someone, I do not pay $20 and I do not wait on the phone and the person has the SPL USDC within a few seconds.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#274
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by a group including former child star and accused sex offender This makes your argument seem conspiracy-theory-esque, despite your links having some quality information. That quote is more akin to clickbait than it is a valid point in your argument.

Every other crypto investment seems to be run by someone with past criminal convictions, accusations of sexual misconduct, or shady past. I have somehow been able to avoid all of this in my own career without much effort. It speaks volumes that this is the kind of characters interested in this space.

So you’ve never used anything connected to Facebook?

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#275
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, use the web. Within a couple of years of its creation it had transformed businesses in all kinds of industries, government, education, recreational activities, etc. By the time it was as old as Bitcoin, the world was completely different and people were walking around with web clients in their pockets; in contrast, the most impact Bitcoin has had outside of its own community seems to be that it can be slightly…

I'm going to disagree with your timescale, mainly in the use of 'web' rather than 'internet'. The 'internet', which set the foundation for the 'web' started its existence in the 70's, and the 'web' wasn't really invented until the late 80's / early 90's. Memory of time passing seemingly gets very compressed the further back you go. Additionally, Bitcoin is an attempt at disrupting elements of the financial world (and…

Smartphones, internet, web – these things had perceived value without complicated language.

Bitcoin, crypto, NFTs, it's always the same: "You don't get it, because you don't understand the fundamentals. ".

It's just wrong. There is no real value for most people. That's why crypto bros hide behind complicated terminology. That's why the value proposition of Bitcoin changed a couple times. That's why the terminology shifts all the time as well. "DeFI" wasn't mainstream until like a year ago or two. The next bullshit terminology is "web3".

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#276
post #268
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I enjoy pissing on boomers, older home owners did nothing for their houses to appreciate. It's just something that happens due to monetary policy, low interest rates, local scarcity of supply and a growing population. A lesser known reason is that since the 2008 crisis, hardly any new homes got built. Whilst the underlying demand was still in place, and growing. "You can’t sell anyone a home for $485k if t…

Boomers absolutely constrained supply to raise prices.

Your problem is not with “boomers.” It’s with a population pyramid that has actually just fallen apart — but those effects won’t show up for another 20+ years.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#277
post #53

The biggest news, buried near the bottom: "After I returned to the U.S., I obtained a document showing a detailed account of Tether Holdings’ reserves. It said they include billions of dollars of short-term loans to large Chinese companies—something money-market funds avoid. And that was before one of the country’s largest property developers, China Evergrande Group, started to collapse. I also learned that Tether ha…

Of note, Tether values their reserves at redemption value. So if they have a loan to an insolvent company that trades at 25 cents to the dollar, Tether’s attestation values it at 100%. See emphasis of matter, page 2 of their attestation https://tether.to/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/tether_assuranc...

It's a little more complicated than that:

> Management’s accounting policy is to value assets and liabilities at historic cost plus any accrued interest and less any expected credit losses, or otherwise the redemption value where applicable. The realisable value of these assets and liabilities could be materially different if any key custodian or counterparty incurs credit losses or substantial illiquidity.

At least in principle they are supposed to mark down "expected credit losses". It would be nice if they spelled out what that means a little more, though.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#278
post #132

You can short Tether on FTX. You have to pay ~4% funding per year to short USDT-PERP. But if you think Tether collapses within 25 years its a good bet (probably going to come a lot sooner).

Tether is manipulated semi regulated to spike in value to liquidate shorts. It's hit $1000 briefly.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#279
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…

It's very easy to short stablecoins on any defi lending platform. Here are some examples: https://app.fulcrum.trade/trade https://app.cream.finance/ https://app.aave.com/markets 5% is a low cost for a short position that you believe will eventually pay out 100%.

That 100% payout will be in crypto, whose value in USD terms is going to tank if Tether implodes. And that's assuming the lending platform in question survives the carnage.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If USDT goes, so does AAVE and everything else. And as has been mentioned, the iFinex crew have squeezed USDT to $1,000 before.

AAVE on polygon has 1B in ETH, 851M in Dai, 1B in USDC and only 215M in USDT. Why would AAVE blow up if USDT blows up?

Because the fiat valuations of ETH, DAI, USDC and all coins will tank if Tether implodes.
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