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Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

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Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#131

Post by leppr »

SilasX wrote: post #76
sdhfjgjh wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

It flips back and forth with USDC, which one is higher, at least on compound.finance. Right now USDC is higher, but it's been different. Here are the historical charts (click the "borrow" tab, doesn't seem to be a way to link it with that one selected): https://compound.finance/markets/USDC https://compound.finance/markets/USDT For example, on October 7, it shows USDT at over (sorry, "north of") 13%, while USDC was (…

The rates are mostly affected by sudden changes in demand.

The demand for Tether comes mostly from Binance and the other centralized Asian exchanges. The demand for Circle dollars comes from the DeFi ecosystem and FTX.

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#133

Post by leppr »

ur-whale wrote: post #54
paulgb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The BTC price increase is because of rumors of a US BTC ETF being approved. The Tether fine is a non-event in crypto social networks.

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#134

Post by clusterfish »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #119
rzwitserloot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I don't think crypto gets to claim the benefits of the oft touted protection against centralized bullies or scams. The big problem here is that the core benefit of cryptocurrency is in removing the bank as a middle man. But the bank is the chokepoint where governments impose constraints. When you're up against an authoritarian government imposing unreasonable constraints, that's what you need. But it works the same…

You can't uninvent Bitcoin but you can certainly make it illegal, making it all but useless for drug trade or money laundering. Nobody needs a currency that you can't exchange for, you know, real currency that you can buy real things with. So although the government doesn't have the power to eliminate Bitcoin, they do have the power to make it useless. I don't think they will though, because guess who is using it for bribes and money laundering?

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#135

Post by anm89 »

floatingatoll wrote: post #106
anm89 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is having the right to hold other currencies and assets. Tell that to an Argentinian who has had their life ruined because of the lack of foresight from the the people who run their society.

Incorrect, no such right is necessarily guaranteed by societies. For example, during much of the 1900s you were required to sell gold to the US government for USD rather than keep it under your mattress, and if you refused they had the right to seize it with force. For another example, negative savings interest rates in certain European countries.

And yet, I still hold those other things.

Many people told that society where to shove it when they came to repossess their assets by force.

If you are trying to explain why I owe some debt to society to support their currency you aren't making a very convincing argument.

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#137

Post by tdeck »

_3u10 wrote: post #78
tdeck wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the "misleading statement" (i.e. deliberate lie) is the entire basis of Tether's business. The service they claim to provide is fiat backing for their cryptocurrency and they didn't do that. That's not "a few inaccuracies", it's fraud.

Isn’t the basis of the business that tethers are exchangeable for USD? Have they failed to provide USD when asked?

Essentially yes. They throw up all kinds of roadblocks to make it difficult to exchange tether for cash in order to preserve the facade.

Just one article I found: https://www.google.com/amp/s/micky.com.au/irredeemable-why-i...

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#138

Post by [deleted] »

anm89 wrote: post #135
floatingatoll wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect, no such right is necessarily guaranteed by societies. For example, during much of the 1900s you were required to sell gold to the US government for USD rather than keep it under your mattress, and if you refused they had the right to seize it with force. For another example, negative savings interest rates in certain European countries.

And yet, I still hold those other things. Many people told that society where to shove it when they came to repossess their assets by force. If you are trying to explain why I owe some debt to society to support their currency you aren't making a very convincing argument.

[deleted]

Re: Tether Fined $41M for Lying About Reserves

#140

Post by AnthonyMouse »

clusterfish wrote: post #134
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think crypto gets to claim the benefits of the oft touted protection against centralized bullies or scams. The big problem here is that the core benefit of cryptocurrency is in removing the bank as a middle man. But the bank is the chokepoint where governments impose constraints. When you're up against an authoritarian government imposing unreasonable constraints, that's what you need. But it works the same…

You can't uninvent Bitcoin but you can certainly make it illegal, making it all but useless for drug trade or money laundering. Nobody needs a currency that you can't exchange for, you know, real currency that you can buy real things with. So although the government doesn't have the power to eliminate Bitcoin, they do have the power to make it useless. I don't think they will though, because guess who is using it for…

Making it illegal doesn't affect its utility for illegal activity. Criminals already break the law. It would cause a one-time decline in value but that only matters to speculators. The value would still be non-zero because it's global and there exist places where it isn't illegal.

Even if it was somehow illegal everywhere, the value still wouldn't be zero because of black markets. The drug user uses it to buy drugs, the drug dealer uses it to buy guns, the gun runner uses it to buy stolen art, the fence uses it to buy stolen goods from petty thieves who use it to buy drugs.

Black markets would also exist to exchange it for cash or ordinary commodities so that someone else could get it to buy drugs/guns/art/whatever.

And it has utility over using physical cash or gemstones or bullion in that you can transfer it over the internet.

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