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Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

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Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#81

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

tcgv wrote: post #68

Something I was thinking about is that this year alone Tether received almost 50 billions of new US dollars for printing the same amount of their coin, reaching the staggering Market cap of 68B. Even if they started as a scam and were a few billions out of parity, 2021 gave them a lot of additional runway, allowing them to recompose their reative parity to the USD. For instance, they could be 80% backed at the start…

This is awfully optimistic thinking.

They could also be No one really knows.

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#82

Post by DonHopkins »

speedybird wrote: post #2

I downloaded the mp3 to listen to this, but the audio is filled with weird squeaks, squawks, and short skips. I don't know if their microphone is broke, if this is some effects they added to be cute, or if their mp3 download is simply corrupted. Either way, it's intolerable. I couldn't listen to it for more than a minute.

That's the sound of Non Fungible Tinnitus.

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#83

Post by DonHopkins »

qeternity wrote: post #12
sschueller wrote: post #10

You could just remove the T. In all seriousness the way the US gov has been playing with the debt ceiling and the enormous amount of money being printed the USD also has some serious issues.

This stuff is so disingenuous from maxis. I get that you want someone to pump your bags. But the US Govt gets to print dollars. That’s how that works, for better or worse. Tether does not get to print dollars (which is what they are doing by claiming they are “fully backed”).

Isn't the official denomination of Maxis the Simoleon?

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#84

Post by rmah »

javert wrote: post #59
nradov wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government hasn't used their military to force anyone to transact in dollars, or even threatened to do so. The dollar has value primarily because taxes inside the US are denominated in dollars. If you don't pay your taxes with dollars then eventually civilian law enforcement will show up and seize your assets.

Besides the Iraq thing someone mentioned, Gaddafi in Libya got taken out right after he spoke about wanting to sell oil in euros. But most importantly, there's Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has no military except the US military, and Saudi Arabia prices oil in dollars. It isn't conceivable that they could price oil in another currency and still receive protection from the US (i.e., continue to exist). The US kind of "ha…

Saudi Arabia has the fifth largest military budget in the world. They spend more than Germany, France or the UK. Their training and readiness probably isn't nearly as good, but to say they have no military is ... odd.

More to the point, many nations sell oil for non-USD. It's quite common. Further, the oil trade is a small fraction of international USD movement. The idea that the "petrodollar" is a major factor in international politics is... unlikely to be true.

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#85

Post by wjohnsto »

tcgv wrote: post #68

Something I was thinking about is that this year alone Tether received almost 50 billions of new US dollars for printing the same amount of their coin, reaching the staggering Market cap of 68B. Even if they started as a scam and were a few billions out of parity, 2021 gave them a lot of additional runway, allowing them to recompose their reative parity to the USD. For instance, they could be 80% backed at the start…

They could although it's more likely, given their own pie charts, they didn't receive any US dollars for printing their coin over the past 1-2 years and instead loaned (i.e. commercial paper) USDT out. These loans are also significant in that they put Tether in the top 10 commercial paper holders in the world, but not significant enough for others in the top 10 to know about them or do any business with them.

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#86

Post by elvatoloco55 »

jcranmer wrote: post #75
janandonly wrote: post #29

There are a few issues at play here: 1. A lot of newly 'minted' Tether's are being used to buy Bitcoin (so prop it up, the Bitcoin price rises). 2. Possibly as a next step, these now more valuable bitcoins are than sold for real money, and the owners of bitfinex/tether pocket this real earned money as profit. 3. It should be noted that although the total amount of tether is still rising, the total amount of all "stab…

> Look at El Salvador: in 6 weeks since officially adopting Bitcoin as a currency (next to the US dollar, not replacing it mind you) the number of people that now have "wallet" software running on their phone is already lager then the number of people who over the past 20 years were able to open a bank account. A few things. First off, a "wallet" is really a bank account, albeit one at a shadow bank (i.e., unregulate…

Exactly. When Visa and Mastercard started millions started using it and almost 93% of businesses started accepting cards in the first months.

Nobody uses Bitcoin, only 1 small country

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#87

Post by elvatoloco55 »

nradov wrote: post #64
benreesman wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah absolutely, the much more tangible short-term example of “guys with guns” is (admittedly ever more militarized) domestic law enforcement. But the implied threat towards anyone who say, started dumping US sovereign debt, or transacting petroleum in EUR, or whatever is very real. Countries have been liberated for less.

China dumped a bunch of US sovereign debt. They haven't been "liberated" yet. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/02/china-drops-us-treasurys-imp... Russia has started transacting petroleum in EUR. They haven't been "liberated" yet. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-rosneft-contracts-euro-id... Petroleum transaction only make up a small fraction of worldwide dollar use. It doesn't really matter. https://foreignpolicy.com/2…

Exactly. And this is not due to the fact that they are the global powers of enough strength to be a big opponent. /S

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#88

Post by paulgb »

foepys wrote: post #69
repomies69 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has no fantastic democratizing magic which will make all people rich. It is. It building new things. If you prefer to hold bitcoin instead of fiat and are willing to spend a little bit effort on that and digest some transaction costs, I think it is very likely you will become wealthier. However the promise to get rich is something entirely different. Not many people in the world can be rich. You have to take out…

How does everybody become wealthier? The money to put more Bitcoin (or any other popular crypto currency) into the system is not distributed among investors, it is literally burned. Mining Bitcoin requires energy and hardware and new Bitcoins are the way to pay for those. Next to all money from mined Bitcoins goes to energy providers and hardware manufacturers. That is how these systems are designed in their respecti…

To put some numbers on it, at a price of $60k and in the current mining epoch, Bitcoin miners rake in ~$20 billion per year in the aggregate (not even counting transaction costs). All that money comes from diluting hodlers.

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#89

Post by 323 »

ansible wrote: post #54
nradov wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government hasn't used their military to force anyone to transact in dollars, or even threatened to do so. The dollar has value primarily because taxes inside the US are denominated in dollars. If you don't pay your taxes with dollars then eventually civilian law enforcement will show up and seize your assets.

> The US government hasn't used their military to force anyone to transact in dollars, or even threatened to do so. There were rumors that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was looking to start pricing their oil exports in something other than dollars...

Oil is trading against Yuan for a number of years now:

> Traders appear to embrace yuan oil futures contracts, pricing them similarly to the Brent and WTI benchmarks, says analyst

> According to Bloomberg Intelligence, the volume of crude oil contracts traded on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) accounted for 10.5 per cent of the global volume at the start of June compared to 6.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2018.

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3088802...

EU also wants to start trading oil in Euros:

https://pemedianetwork.com/petroleum-economist/articles/corp...

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#90

Post by tw04 »

RealityVoid wrote: post #57
swarnie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its more that Tether, the coin which provides the most liquidity in the market is an obvious scam. I know too many people are too deeply involved now to accept it...

I think a part of the liquidity is provided by Tether, but the "most of the liquidity" rhetoric rings false. Honestly, crypto might crash now, sure, but long term I am confident we will see a crypto currency emerge as the global reserve currency. It just fits too well for it not to.

> It just fits too well for it not to.

It prevents governments from controlling their own fiscal policy. It doesn’t fit AT ALL with the way any solvent government currently runs their country. The only place it fits are countries with unstable or nonexistent financial markets.

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