Live data from Hacker News

Tether starting to lose its peg too, after Terra did

community.intercoin.org

161–170 of 976 posts

Re: Tether starting to lose its peg too, after Terra did

#161
post #71
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you've been honestly working on the assumption that it is, then you deserve to lose your (real) money to some crypto VCs on an island somewhere. The sad reality is that many poorer and financially illeterate people have been tricked by VCs and other grifters into this with billions of dollars spent in advertising. So, no, they don't deserve to lose their money to these assholes. These assholes need to be prosecu…

> many poorer and financially illeterate people have been tricked I’m sorry, but it’s worse than that. Whenever I’ve said “Tether is a scam waiting to blow up, and the evidence is obvious”, none of my smart peers had anything to say, either. The BTC price is hells high by this fake USD money printer. At least people are collectively waking up. Brrrr.

I have been saying this for over five years and never had even an attempt at a rebuttal. Most people in crypto with a clue simply accept it as a fact. USDT needs to die for the market to have any sensibility at all.

Six years ago daily usdt volumes would not break 3 percent of bitcoin trade volume. Now they routinely break three hundred percent. It is an indisputable scam and needs the flush it so richly deserves. And I say this as somebody pro crypto who honestly wants to see legitimate crypto do what it can for the world. Transparently manipulating this market the way it has for so long now is not doing that. We need real prices.

Re: Tether starting to lose its peg too, after Terra did

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UST is Terra-coin, which collapsed 3 days ago. USDT, Tether, is a completely different coin. the one we're discussing today. --------- UST + Luna had substantial reserves. They proved it with their actions this past week. They weren't *enough* reserves mind you, but they were posting their BTC-wallets on Twitter and showing the movements.

Yes, sorry that wasn't clear, and I said Tether when I meant stablecoin in general. I meant that they didn't have the reserves they needed ("substantial" isn't good enough) and now Tether has an even bigger incentive to run uncollateralized because of who they are.

"stablecoins in general" doesn't really apply here since the two in question work radically different. Collateralized vs Algorithmic. Theoretically the Terra UST stable coin didn't need reserves to keep the peg at $1, unlike Tether USDT, which does.

Re: Tether starting to lose its peg too, after Terra did

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it won't hit 2k unless you only believe that and wouldn't actually act on it. Not calling you dishonest, it's just intentions and actions aren't always as connected as we want to think

I'd probably buy more before it reaches 2K anyway. I was talking more like in a hypothetical scenario where I wake up in the morning and BTC is 2K.

If it was I'd honestly pull back.

Cryptocurrency has a future and Bitcoin is as necessarily part of it as much as Netscape and Yahoo were necessary for the web. (Or US robotics and compuserve, pick your loser)

The thing itself can survive the collapse of the current winners.

Re: Tether starting to lose its peg too, after Terra did

#165

Watch the sell orders rack up in real time: https://ftx.com/trade/USDT/USD

Note that while it's a good proxy this isn't same as going to the issuer (https://tether.to) and getting 1USD in exchange for 1USDT. Tether is still honouring 1-1 conversion for a minimum of $100K.

Re: Tether starting to lose its peg too, after Terra did

#166

It's hard to overemphasize how big a deal the Tether peg breaking would be (is?). At $78B, it dwarfs UST/Terra, and it's supposed to be an asset-backed stablecoin, not a risky algorithmic boondoggle like UST. If Tether plunges, it will take the broader crypto markets with it. Emphasis on the "supposed to be", since many, many, many unanswered questions have been raised about Tether's reserves and they've previously b…

genuine question - why does the asset need to be backed? more specifically - who would you need to give the physical currency to?

Re: Tether starting to lose its peg too, after Terra did

#167
post #55

The fact that they've been minting billions of tether without collateral should make it abundantly obvious that this isn't a stablecoin and never had been. Anyone can pretend to have a peg in the good times, that doesn't mean there's really a peg or that the peg will remain in bad times. And if you can't count on the peg in bad times, it's not a stablecoin. If you've been honestly working on the assumption that it is…

> If you've been honestly working on the assumption that it is, then you deserve to lose your (real) money to some crypto VCs on an island somewhere. The sad reality is that many poorer and financially illeterate people have been tricked by VCs and other grifters into this with billions of dollars spent in advertising. So, no, they don't deserve to lose their money to these assholes. These assholes need to be prosecu…

Every good con relies on greed. The fact that the con artist is a criminal doesn’t make the victim of a con any less greedy. I am thinking of the many crypto fanboys here who have been repeatedly told this is a large ponzi scheme. They had plenty of warnings. I don’t have a huge amount of sympathy for them loosing money. Doesn’t mean the con artists shouldn’t face criminal prosecution (if they broke the law, it’s not a crime to sell tulips to people who think the tulip is worth all of their savings).

Re: Tether starting to lose its peg too, after Terra did

#169
post #125

It's hard to overemphasize how big a deal the Tether peg breaking would be (is?). At $78B, it dwarfs UST/Terra, and it's supposed to be an asset-backed stablecoin, not a risky algorithmic boondoggle like UST. If Tether plunges, it will take the broader crypto markets with it. Emphasis on the "supposed to be", since many, many, many unanswered questions have been raised about Tether's reserves and they've previously b…

Can someone explain stablecoins to me? Most online explanations talk about how the currencies are "pegged" to various assets/real world currencies/physical objects/algorithms/cryptocurrencies, however they never explain how the pegging is done. What is happening right now that is causing the price to fall, what prevented it from falling over the last few years, and why isn't that thing preventing it from falling now?

You give me a dollar, I give you a digital currency equivalent. When you need your real USD back, you tell me and I give it to you. That means in an ideal world, you have your stable coins backed 1:1 with real USD.

Of course, this isn’t always the case, and with Tether, there has been much scrutiny over the years that they do not have the USD collateral to back their stablecoin.

Ok, but let’s assume Tether has the USD. Why is it depegging? This is most likely due to sell pressure and Tether’s ability to liquidate their USD holdings. I think Tether has more than enough real USD to deal with the sell pressure we’re seeing now, but the system is having a hard time keeping up.

Re: Tether starting to lose its peg too, after Terra did

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you've been honestly working on the assumption that it is, then you deserve to lose your (real) money to some crypto VCs on an island somewhere This is victim blaming. Nobody deserves to be exploited, robbed or otherwise for any reason.

it's much easier to con a greedy person. And you had to be very greedy indeed to convince yourself that 20% interest is a safe investment

> convince yourself that 20% interest is a safe investment

So what you're saying is people shouldn't expect to be able to massively multiply their wealth, but that directly contradicts the narrative that "anyone can make it" instead of the wealth and opportunities you're born into determining the likely upper limit of what you can hope for.

I'm not disagreeing, but it's absurd to condemn people for falling for "get rich quick" schemes (and as far as those go 20% is unusually low) when the entire society is built around maintaining the lie that getting rich quick is possible as long as you "work smart" (i.e. don't rely on your own physical labor to make money).

Post reply on HN