Approx. 24 hours ago, Tether printed 1B $USDT out of thin air • Hacker News Board

Re: Approx. 24 hours ago, Tether printed 1B $USDT out of thin air

#151

Post by gruez » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 10:44 PM UTC

zhoujianfu wrote: post #103

rzz3 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, providing money without any attached good or service or unit of value definitely won’t cause inflation/s WHAT?

The thing is, inflation caused by printing money AND distributing it directly and every to all people is fine… it’s just the most efficient / progressive wealth tax! Even if (printing and then) giving everybody $40K/yr caused, say, 40% inflation, anybody making under $100K/year would be better off. You actually wouldn’t need any taxes if the government just printed all money it needed, hopefully most of which is in t…

>it’s just the most efficient / progressive wealth tax!

no, it's not a wealth tax. it's a cash tax. if you printed money and caused 100% inflation, that'll just cause every scarce asset (eg. houses, stocks, gold) to double in price. Since the rich hold most of their wealth in assets, not cash, I doubt it will be fair or progressive.

Re: Approx. 24 hours ago, Tether printed 1B $USDT out of thin air

#152

Post by qeternity » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 10:44 PM UTC

FDSGSG wrote: post #130

wmf wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tether could allay these concerns by getting audited and cleaning up all the investigations against them.

> cleaning up all the investigations against them This makes it pretty obvious that you're not arguing in good faith. I guess you would have given Steven Hatfill or Wen Ho Lee the same advice?

Lol Tether's own attestations make mention of the numerous open investigations.

There's no good faith argument to be had. It's just a matter of fact.

Re: Approx. 24 hours ago, Tether printed 1B $USDT out of thin air

#153

Post by sabujp » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 10:46 PM UTC

So something like this?

    0. Mint dollars backed by nukes and military and in anticipation of GDP growth
    1. Create new cryptos out of thin air to suck in dollars
    2. Mint USDT in *anticipation* of swaps from non-stable cryptos. No dollars have actually been deposited yet!
    3. USDTs actually come in? maybe, maybe not, maybe fuck yourself.
    4. Loan out USDT to hedge funds for crypto futures trading.
    5. Give back portion of interest to people who stashed the USDT.

2-4 is where it gets sketchy.

Re: Approx. 24 hours ago, Tether printed 1B $USDT out of thin air

#154

Post by qeternity » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

tzone wrote: post #142

People who have no idea how crypto markets work always get riled up by these tweets. Contrary to popular belief, there is generally huge demand spike for USDT when crypto market has flash crashes, not other way around. More USDT got issued because there was opportunity to make 0.1-0.2% on each new USDT since demand for it was that high (i.e. people were paying real USD to buy USDT at a premium, imagine that). USDT (a…

> Contrary to popular belief, there is generally huge demand spike for USDT when crypto market has flash crashes, not other way around.

This is not contrary to popular belief at all. Tether almost always prints a few billion around large pullbacks, and the cynical view is that this is to stabilize markets by buying the dip.

> More USDT got issued because there was opportunity to make 0.1-0.2% on each new USDT since demand for it was that high (i.e. people were paying real USD to buy USDT at a premium, imagine that).

Uh yeah this is not at all how stablecoin premia get arbed. If you'd like a real answer, I'd be happy to explain. But I get the feeling that you're pretty invested in crypto and just want answers which align with your beliefs.

Re: Approx. 24 hours ago, Tether printed 1B $USDT out of thin air

#155

Post by notjesse » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 10:50 PM UTC

bb88 wrote: post #127

alpha_squared wrote: post #11

Every time there's a tether story here, the inevitable discussion of fraudulent activity comes up because Tether seems like an outright scam. I'm inclined to believe all that from what I've read and however little I can make sense of. However, I can't really tell how this ends. They seem confident that there will be no repercussions to minting money out of thin air and, so far, they've been right. Eventually, that's…

Right now I think a good analogy is it's like musical chairs. The game is fine as long as the music is playing. When the music stops, someone's gonna lose big. The problem is when the music stops and there's a run on crypto. People are trying to get out of $USDT and convert it into cash. Exchanges have to have buyers of $USDT so they can exchange $USDT back into cash for anyone that wants to. But they can't just crea…

This makes me think; what if you shorted USDT?

There seems to be almost no scenario where USDT becomes more valuable than the USD, and the worst case is it continues to be worth the same.

But there is a fair probability it becomes worthless, meaning that you gain from it.

While you need to pay premiums in the interim, for something with an indefinite timeframe, that risk seems fairly minor for the potential reward.

Re: Approx. 24 hours ago, Tether printed 1B $USDT out of thin air

#156

Post by Asparagirl » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 10:53 PM UTC

josefrichter wrote: post #30

jagger27 wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why this is on the "TRON" blockchain? I thought Tether was on Ethereum.

In fact Tether is on pretty much all chains.

The ice-nine of crypto.

Re: Approx. 24 hours ago, Tether printed 1B $USDT out of thin air

#157

Post by FDSGSG » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #152

FDSGSG wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cleaning up all the investigations against them This makes it pretty obvious that you're not arguing in good faith. I guess you would have given Steven Hatfill or Wen Ho Lee the same advice?

Lol Tether's own attestations make mention of the numerous open investigations. There's no good faith argument to be had. It's just a matter of fact.

The idea that one could just "clean up" government investigations is downright ridiculous. That's not how it works, no matter how innocent you may be.

Re: Approx. 24 hours ago, Tether printed 1B $USDT out of thin air

#158

Post by rglullis » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #149

rglullis wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. I stand corrected. Call them attestations. Nonetheless, they have been done by independent third-parties who are a lot more reputed than whatever has actually managed to look into Tether's data. Even if you take the "attestation" done by Tether at face value, it showed a mix of assets that is absolutely unhealthy.

Cool. So you clearly have no idea what an attestation is, or why the fact that it's not an audit is so important. > Nonetheless, they have been done by independent third-parties who are a lot more reputed than whatever has actually managed to look into Tether's data. Like the New York Attorney General? Go read the NYAG settlement. Tether got an attestation by wiring in $850m of Bitfinex's cash to their account the mo…

> Tether doesn't have any defense

I am not defending Tether, quite the opposite. My only argument is in favor of Circle, and even then admittedly in terms of "Circle at least provides a better sense of legitimacy".

> I get that you want someone to pump your bags.

Sure, I will make a fortune by shilling USDC. /s

Anyway, you are right. I was under the impression that Circle was doing proper audits, and if that is not true, we need more people and exchanges pressuring them to do or to stop using it.

Re: Approx. 24 hours ago, Tether printed 1B $USDT out of thin air

#159

Post by sabujp » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 10:59 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #67

aaronax wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone holding Tether will be stuck selling it for the equivalent of $0.05 or whatever. This alone would have no effect on crypto prices. However, it will become harder to get various government-type currencies in to exchanges so presumably purchasing demand will fall, which seems like it would make crypto prices fall too.

80% of crypto trades are against USDT

why? a friend said it's because he doesn't have to pay tax, i corrected him last year. are people doing this because they really think they don't have to pay tax unless they swap to actual USDs? Or they're just hiding their USDs away from the IRS and other taxation entities?

Re: Approx. 24 hours ago, Tether printed 1B $USDT out of thin air

#160

Post by Asparagirl » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 10:59 PM UTC

randyrand wrote: post #139

All of crypto is literally out of thin air. I feel like i’m taking crazy pills.

At least with tulips you could plant a nice garden. And if you could keep the deer and voles away, they would slowly multiply over time, with no quantitative easing needed at all, just sun, rain, and good soil.