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Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

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Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#51

But crypto coins are so much more trustworthy and secure than traditional financial institutions... /s

I’m pretty sure no one thinks digital IOUs are worth more than the word that’s behind them.

It’s not reasonable to conflate decentralized cryptocurrency with digital coupon IOUs.

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lending rates for USDT on the major decentralized lending platforms are more favorable than other stablecoins.

The lending rates are higher because lenders are paid a premium for owning a potentially worthless (USDT denominated) credit. The idiom that comes to mind is "picking up pennies in front of a steamroller".

Basic question: why doesn't this affect the currency pair exchange rate? If lending rates reflect the (realistic!) idea that holding 1 USDT is less valuable than holding 1 USD, how does 1 USDT trade at par?

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#53

What is the average daily net inflow of US dollars into Tether? How many days of net inflow is $41M?

At times they've claimed that it is in the billion dollar a week range.

But their cash backings say that that was most likely always bullshit, even as they move to "other instruments" (cough Chinese junk paper cough).

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#54
post #20
post #4

I don't understand why this is something they can settle rather than something that gets them completely shut down.

I'm more surprised that anyone still holds Tether, unless they're stuck with it. The company has been caught in lies several times before, it's not as if a $41M fine will turn them honest.

>I'm more surprised that anyone still holds Tether,

The price BTC shooting up right now (it is around $61k as I write this) is probably because lots of USDT holders are starting to realize what a bad idea that is.

If you were in their shoes ... what would you be doing right now?

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really an amazing case study in what happens when* you take libertarian ideology to its conclusion. Edit: typo*

Libertarian ideology has resulted in Tether being replaced by USDC in Ethereum DeFi. Your claim is based on the bizarre premise that people are only intelligent when formulating mandates for otherd, while they can only exercis if formulating a course of action for themselves

> Your claim is based on the bizarre premise that people are only intelligent when formulating mandates for otherd, while they can only exercis if formulating a course of action for themselves

I’m not sure where my statement implied what you are assuming here. I think you may have your dogmatic blinders on.

Both tether, and crypto unrelated to tether are implicated in what I stated. That doesn’t make tether any less a result of libertarian ideology drawn to its conclusion.

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fiat debasing the currency. What I find ironic is that the crypto ecosystem still ended up with something like central banks, only in this case their mandate is make money for its owners, and they have no accountability or obligation to serve the general public.

> crypto ecosystem still ended up It's decades from its final form.

Perhaps. But we're, what? 10 years in and so far crypto has enabled 'I encrypted your data!' scams, caused political instability, been a vehicle for highly volatile investment (but the world wasn't hurting for such opportunities...), and served as a fine buzzword for dev teams around the world to get a sack of cash to update some systems.

That's a pretty poor result for 10 years of this much investment and focus. The internet was waaaaaaaaaaaaay more useful 10 years in.

I don't think crypto gets to claim the benefits of the oft touted protection against centralized bullies or scams. Quite the opposite: You need to go pretty deep into political dictatorships before crypto on net balance seems favourable. So far crypto coins are far more likely to be fleeced, and the vast majority of crypto holding folks are working with mostly centralized entities (such as Tether), which rate, as far as trustability and good shepherdship goes, not in a good place. Better than Pol Pot and Mugabe. Maybe.

Oof.

So if it's decades from its final form, when is it going to deliver on its first actually useful to humanity milestone? I'm still waiting.

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#58
post #11

> there was never more than $61.5 million backing Tether, even as more 442 million coins were circulating at one point. Ah, pulling the classic "fractional reserve" I see.

fiat debasing the currency. What I find ironic is that the crypto ecosystem still ended up with something like central banks, only in this case their mandate is make money for its owners, and they have no accountability or obligation to serve the general public.

> their mandate is make money for its owners,

Isn't this pretty much the description of every company? I understand feduciary responsibilities blah blah, but if the company didn't think they could do both then they wouldn't be running the legitimate buisness. If it was started to intentionally dupe people that's an entirely different thing.

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> crypto ecosystem still ended up It's decades from its final form.

Perhaps. But we're, what? 10 years in and so far crypto has enabled 'I encrypted your data!' scams, caused political instability, been a vehicle for highly volatile investment (but the world wasn't hurting for such opportunities...), and served as a fine buzzword for dev teams around the world to get a sack of cash to update some systems. That's a pretty poor result for 10 years of this much investment and focus. The…

> so far crypto has enabled 'I encrypted your data!' scams

These scams existed long before crypto. But, crypto currencies are a better solution to international money transfers so of course they became the preferred currencies for these scams.

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#60
post #22
post #11

> there was never more than $61.5 million backing Tether, even as more 442 million coins were circulating at one point. Ah, pulling the classic "fractional reserve" I see.

On the initial headline I thought that $41 million would be negligible compared to the central role they have in the crypto ecosystem. But apparently that fine is 2/3 of their backing reserves.

Correction: it is 2/3rds of what their reserves were back in 2017. The amount of Tether in circulation has increased over 150-fold since then, so presumably their reserves have increased as well.
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