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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

#121

Post by TomSwirly »

kgin wrote: post #21
Bombthecat wrote: post #18

Personally, i dont see any difference between any coin and and "real world" currency. I dont mean the power behind it and stuff. But crypto basically left the gold standard itself a long time ago!

USD gets its value from the legal requirement that taxes are paid in USD. Anyone who lives or wants to do business in the United States has to have dollars. That sets a floor of demand that more demand can be built on. Cryptos often have limited supply but have no floor on demand. For USD to go to zero, the United States as we know it would have to collapse. Most cryptos could go to zero with no real world change asi…

> Cryptos often have limited supply

There are 6500 cryptocurrencies today. Anyone would wanted to create a new one, could in an instant.

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#122

Post by knownjorbist »

cobookman wrote: post #26

Sometimes I wonder if this is how Michael Burry and others felt before the housing crash. Right before the housing crash, most the in-industry folks were fully aware it was unsustainable, but they felt it would continue long term. Same goes for tether, majority of those involved in crypto know what they are doing, and the pump-up effect it's had to crypto.

Michael Burry recently took out a massive short position on BTC and is likely very deeply in the red at this point. Just like he is with Tesla. People who call once-in-a-lifetime events don't do it more than once, it's in the name.

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#123

Post by TomSwirly »

saurik wrote: post #27
kgin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USD gets its value from the legal requirement that taxes are paid in USD. Anyone who lives or wants to do business in the United States has to have dollars. That sets a floor of demand that more demand can be built on. Cryptos often have limited supply but have no floor on demand. For USD to go to zero, the United States as we know it would have to collapse. Most cryptos could go to zero with no real world change asi…

Crypto-currencies are selling you a service: linearizing database transactions. This is like arguing that Apple could arbitrarily go to zero because the world would find a different phone to use, and while that's true it seems to miss the point that Apple is unlikely to go to zero until after someone makes a better phone or makes phones obsolete. The world of decentralized database transactions--particularly the turi…

> Crypto-currencies are selling you a service: linearizing database transactions.

That service is worth zero dollars to me and 99.9% of the world.

Also, the cryptocurrency doesn't sell this service, and doesn't make any money.

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#124

Post by chaostheory »

FDSGSG wrote: post #67
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...

>the coin which provides the most liquidity in the market is an obvious scam. But what does that actually imply? What's the scam? This isn't a black and white thing. Tether might not have sufficient assets to be able to redeem any USDT for USD, or Tether might actually have sufficient assets and willingness to redeem all USDT and then some... or anything in between. Tether being dishonest is one thing, Tether not bei…

The scam is Tether owns a brokerage that they used buy other crypto with their barely backed, worth much less than advertised stable coin which they falsely claim is worth exactly the same as USD. (Tether also pretended that they weren’t affiliated with Bitfinex, the aforementioned brokerage) Consequently, they’re artificially pumping the cryptos that they are buying. Once they artificially pump crypto, they then dump it. They’ve probably pumped and dumped several times now

People are guessing that they’re doing this to regain reserves that were stolen by an untrustworthy bank that they previously used. Ie they were probably telling the truth in the past before their money was stolen. It’s similar to what happened with Mt Gox. What’s impressive to me is how the people at Tether are somehow 8 steps ahead of regulators, whereas Mt Gox just failed overnight.

Imo regardless of Tether fuckery, I believe that the Ethereum platform has utility beyond speculation

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#125

Post by WalterSear »

chaostheory wrote: post #118
WalterSear wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Same goes for tether, majority of those involved in crypto know what they are doing, and the pump-up effect it's had to crypto. Not at all. While those at the executive level have some awareness, the rank and file that I interact with at crypto companies barely understand the tech, and have no knowledge at all of the environment. It's flabbergasting.

Can you give examples of their lack of knowledge?

It feels a little sneer-clubby to complain about people in this way online, but FFS, they really are obliged to understand their profession.

* Anything about Tether, other than "it's the largest stablecoin."

* That the primary users of their product in China are engaged in capital flight, rather than entrepreneurial speculation.

* That the people yelling 'To the moon' on Twitter and Discord are excited about making easy money, not about developing projects on their platform. And that the swag and meme competitions they were running were doing little to nothing to advance them with the audience their product actually needed to court.

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#126

Post by NikolaNovak »

repomies69 wrote: post #66
NikolaNovak wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"have fun staying poor" I don't understand the notion that bitcoin is making all people rich. It is a transactional system at best. If you cash out you are taking somebody else's money who decided to buy it at higher price. It has no fantastic democratizing magic which will make all people rich. It is. It building new things. I can understand people who are invested in it wanting to perpetuate the positive story so t…

> 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…

>>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.

Sure, that's a distinct possibility. But where does that "wealth" come from? You only "cash out" if somebody else buys it at that larger price. I don't see a mathematical/financial model where bitcoin makes everybody wealthier. It's not about risk aversion or smarts or anything; Bitcoin doesn't create a new thing.

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#127

Post by unmole »

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 no military except the US military

This laughably wrong.

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#128

Post by javert »

unmole wrote: post #127
javert wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 no military except the US military This laughably wrong.

The conversation has moved on (meaning, you're right, and it's already been pointed out and discussed by others).

You should read the other comments before you add your own.

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#129

Post by 0xdeadb00f »

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #70
0xdeadb00f wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seena crapload more commenters on here putting crypto in a positive light. It's only recently I've started to see some genuine opposition.

It's very easy to search and see HN has been heavily anti-crypto since the beginning, over a decade ago.

Alright.. So then there must've been a time in between now and before where HN was accepting of it. Because I know for a fact I've seen posts and comments more so hyping up crypto currencies

Re: Tether Discussion featuring Bennett Tomlin and George Noble

#130

Post by chaostheory »

WalterSear wrote: post #125
chaostheory wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give examples of their lack of knowledge?

It feels a little sneer-clubby to complain about people in this way online, but FFS, they really are obliged to understand their profession. * Anything about Tether, other than "it's the largest stablecoin." * That the primary users of their product in China are engaged in capital flight, rather than entrepreneurial speculation. * That the people yelling 'To the moon' on Twitter and Discord are excited about making e…

These are developers? I’m a bit shocked, but this confirms my gut feeling that crypto is a huge bubble driven by Tether. It only takes government regulation to burst it, which imo is inevitable.
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