Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tether starting to lose its peg too, after Terra did

community.intercoin.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 976 posts

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

#561

Post by tsimionescu »

vishnugupta wrote: post #165
fastball wrote: post #35

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.

Per another comment in this thread, that is only accessible to "verified Tether customers", which means you payed them directly for the USDT. If you bought it off Coinbase for some ETH, you don't have any right to recoup it from them (though presumably Coinbase or whoever sold it to them does).

Also, they reserve the right to delay fulfilling your order indefinitely, so they don't actually guarantee anything even if you did buy directly from them.

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

#562

Post by tomjakubowski »

vkou wrote: post #469
sgt101 wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that someone will know, if someone does know what the level of backing is then they can figure out what the point of collapse would be and that will allow the construction of a scheme to make it collapse. If they can do that then there is a bunch of money to be made.

> If they can do that then there is a bunch of money to be made. Hoping to make money by betting on Tether collapsing is like taking out insurance against the event of a combined global thermonuclear war & genocidal alien invasion of the Earth. If you win the bet, you won't have anyone to collect from.

You could make money off Tether's collapse if you shorted it the simple way (and managed to time it very well) - borrow units of Tether from someone, sell them at $1 (ka-ching) later purchase the same quantity Tether at $0.00001 and return them to your lender for a tidy profit.

I suppose if Tether collapsed to the extent that it was impossible to trade it at all, you'd have a hard time buying the worthless Tether back. What happens if you're short a stock traded only on the NYSE and the stock exchange itself disbands? Or maybe the better analogue is, how do you fulfill your end of the deal as a short seller and return the shares owed to your counterparty if the company disbands in the meantime?

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

#563

Post by mensetmanusman »

ekianjo wrote: post #479
FeepingCreature wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A deflationary currency was never going to be viable as money.

there are still bitcoins being mined. where is it deflationary?

The rate of coin generation matters.

Imagine a world of 100 people and 100 dollars.

If the population doubles, and the 100 dollars remains fixed, the value of the dollar has increased.

If more dollars are not printed to maintain some inflation, people will slow spending hoping for 300 people the next year.

Now, in the case of BTC, it’s not global population that matters, but the population of interested users, which could go from 10,000 to 100,000,000 in months. If BTC can’t be mined fast enough to maintain a balance of coins/users as interest skyrockets, it is, by definition, deflationary.

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

#564

Post by ulzeraj »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #492
nailk wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the upside can be had by holding dollars Unless your bank kicks you out by some reason (incompetent compliance). Unless foreign bank refuses your transaction because the bank doesn’t like the color of your passport. Unless somehow banking system wants to cut extra from your transaction (2.5-4% for transaction) because of double currency conversion you didn’t ask for, because you didn’t specify correct correspondent…

> Unless your bank kicks you out by some reason (incompetent compliance). Unless foreign bank refuses your transaction because the bank doesn’t like the color of your passport. Unless somehow banking system wants to cut extra from your transaction (2.5-4% for transaction) because of double currency conversion you didn’t ask for, because you didn’t specify correct correspondent bank and your bank didn’t tell you about…

Nothing you wrote makes any sense. We are talking about stable coins. Where does speculations fits here? Also could you make an argument without making accusations?

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

#565

Post by hanniabu »

ceejayoz wrote: post #548
norswap wrote: post #539

The speculation in this thread is silly. While Tether is certainly opaque (you could say shady), it's incredibly doubtful that it's unbacked to a significant extent. Even if it's only backed at 50% (which would be really shocking to me), it would take 39B$ to flow through the system to actually cause a depeg. That's very unlikely, and just the logistics of it means it would leave a lot of time to Tether to clear the…

> Consider that being "nakedly" unbacked (no underlying assets) in any meaningful capacity would qualify Tether's leadership for a quick trip to prison — as they've repeatedly said they were fully backed. They said on their website they were regularly audited, too, and never completed one. There’s years worth of clear lies from Tether.

They did internal audits but not external ones, which of course it's what everyone assumes

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

#566

Post by caf »

overtonwhy wrote: post #311
csomar wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One upside: 0.5-1% interest per day at Bitfinex. > Remember, with a stablecoin, there is no upside to holding. The people running Tether has a stake in the upside. It's this moment where they need to convert their supposed holdings to sustain the price. It's not going to be expensive (maybe even profitable) given the high yield of USDT right now.

oh yeah 180% interest per year definitely isn't a scam

It's much worse than that. 0.5% daily is 517% annually.

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

#567

Post by danaris »

md_ wrote: post #256
moritonal wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue is that these people are smart, but not "I work at Blackrock as a day-trader smart". In Finance, there are laws against a lot of the easy wins, and now the professionals are entering the Crypto space they're going to run circles around the amateurs. As in, it's easy to be the best in your local club, but it's a real wake-up call when you try out at a regional.

I'm not sure about that--or at least, the reality seems more complicated. Terra certainly has an element of complicated financial dynamics behind it such that people who know a little--but not a not--may think it's the greatest idea since sliced bread, and get eaten by the professionals. I agree with you there. But a lot of the crypto ecosystem seems to be much more mundane than that. As far as I can tell, there isn'…

I think the problem is, there isn't any magic behind NFTs—but a lot of people believe there is.

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

#568

Post by pjc50 »

lupire wrote: post #533
ptero wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that some gold coins would work even better in this situation (for longer term savings, not something you move in and out every month). Did you consider this? An honest question.

Where can I download gold coins?

You can buy small quantities of coins off dealers for a very modest spread plus the cost of insured postage. I have a few sovereigns at the back of a drawer from the 2008 crisis which have basically held their value. There's no magic to it, it's just a nice shiny object.

Converting back to cash at a reasonable rate is probably a lot harder.

(UK note: new gold is subject to VAT. Buy used.)

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

#569

Post by ineedasername »

USDC volume is up 50% right now and even hit a 6-month high in value. Either Coinbase is doing extremely large $$$ of preemptive defense or people are flocking to a stablecoin with a more trustworthy backer whose collateralization claims are less questionable.

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

#570

Post by LightG »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #529
raiyu wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American dream is to make it through hard work, what you are referring to is simple greed and laziness and it’s been around since humanity attained consciousness.

is that really the dream? I always thought it was just having a normal job, work 9-5 and come home to house/car/family

Back in the 50's maybe!

Now everyone are just 'temporarily impoverished billionaires', which is why the whole scam continues to hold itself up.

Post reply on HN