Tether starting to lose its peg too, after Terra did • Hacker News Board

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

#791

Post by eric_cc » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:34 PM UTC

bratwurst3000 wrote: post #572

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons this is nonsense are twofold: First, I have never actually seen any comments here disavowing themselves of responsibility. It is always aimed at protecting others and this is rooted in the obvious fact that a very large number of people are not (and we do not expect them to be) experts in investment. That assets can go up or down is one thing, and nobody can be protected from that, but there is an extensi…

If people cant handle the basic of investing they shouldnt do it. If its too good to be true it mostly isnt. Is it the casino foult that their customers loose money because the ambient is so inviting and screams wining?

> If people cant handle the basic of investing they shouldnt do it.

Amen to this. Too many people in this thread are shouting from the mountain tops that they hate freedom.

If you can't handle climbing a mountain, you shouldn't do it. It's really this simple. If somebody takes on risk and gets hurt it is their own fault.

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

#792

Post by whimsicalism » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:35 PM UTC

ttul wrote: post #780

whimsicalism wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dai? Not a ponzi scheme. USDC is the same thing as Tether. It's too bad Terra ever existed. I took one look over their plan to keep their coin stable and noped out of there.

Tether is unaudited. USDC has at least been audited by a global tier-1 accounting firm. That’s a huge difference.

Both Tether and USDC are unaudited. Both USDC and Tether are attested by outside accounting firms, although the USDC firm is more reputable.

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

#793

Post by a4isms » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #589

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons this is nonsense are twofold: First, I have never actually seen any comments here disavowing themselves of responsibility. It is always aimed at protecting others and this is rooted in the obvious fact that a very large number of people are not (and we do not expect them to be) experts in investment. That assets can go up or down is one thing, and nobody can be protected from that, but there is an extensi…

> First, I have never actually seen any comments here disavowing themselves of responsibility. Pulling from the comment I was replying to: > ... many poorer and financially illeterate people have been tricked ... That's quite literally disavowing responsibility. > ... but there is an extensive body of law intended to protect people from outright falsehoods This is true and the law hasn't quite caught up to crypto sca…

> disavowing responsibility.

Look, if someone comes to my house claiming to be raising money for charity and I givethem money, the following statements can all be simultaneously true:

1. I should take responsibility for checking that they represent a genuine charity;

2. If they are a genuine charity, I should take responsibility for checking that most of my gift will go towards the recipients of the charity and not to operating the charity itself;

3. They should take responsibility for being truthful about who they represent and where the money is going.

Responsibility isn't a zero-sum game. We can encourage everyone to have more financial literacy and awareness of scams and frauds while simultaneously holding grifters responsible for their crimes.

I'm not taking either position here, I'm taking both positions. See also "the difference between advice for individuals and codes of conduct for communities."

Our personal advice is to protect yourself from fraud. Our society's code of conduct is, "don't commit fraud."

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

#794

Post by eric_cc » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #460

jmyeet wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually hate people disavowing themselves of responsibility here. While there is definitely some shady stuff in Crypto (particularly NFTs, which seem to be 99% scams), there's a certain level of personal responsibility required here. People saw the meteoric rise of Bitcoin and got a serious case of FOMO. Everyone wanted to be on the next Bitcoin. This, ultimately, is the American Dream: to get rich by doing nothin…

This mentality of blaming the victim can muddy the waters and make it easier for criminals to get off the hook though.

> blaming the victim

You're missing the point. When somebody makes a poor decision on an investment, they are not a "victim".

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

#795

Post by ttul » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

pyinstallwoes wrote: post #347

dgellow wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not guaranteed at all. Tether made it abundantly clear they give no guarantees they will redeem your USDT. It also isn’t instant. This is public knowledge and has been well documented for years. Tether is likely to be the least trustworthy actor in the entire industry.

Sorry by instant I meant expectation of receivables. I also am arguing that is a bad assumption.

Sadly, from personal experience I can tell you that the expectation of receivables cannot be used to buy groceries or pay rent.

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

#796

Post by Danidada » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #742

Danidada wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. As someone from Argentina which has a high percentage of crypto owners I can say poor people in poor countries aren't literate enough or don't have the resources (ie: liquidity, bank account) to get cryptos. It's more of a middle class thing here. Real estate isn't cheap in the big cities if you take into consideration the average salary and barely any financial aid to buy property. Besides, being a landl…

IIUC, it's quite easy in Argentina to convert pesos to dollars and store them in an Argentine bank with a US correspondent bank - ditto for Euros and Yen. There are many downsides to Tether. Why is it worth the risk in comparison? Additionally, there's simply not enough money in Tether compared to the $80B to talk about. It's a distraction.

Again, it's a matter of resources. Not everyone can travel to US and have the money to open a bank account there. Anyway to "easily" convert from pesos to US dollars (which you have to use some financial instruments which aren't trivial for the average citizen) you need to justify all your earnings which not everyone can do because people try to avoid taxes as much as possible.

For instance, most devs I know that work remote jobs for companies abroad, they ask for them to pay in crypto because if you try to get paid in the legal way you get 50% less off the bat in the forceful conversion from usd to pesos and then you get an additional 20-30% less due to taxes

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

#797

Post by eric_cc » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:44 PM UTC

sshine wrote: post #71

shafyy wrote: 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.

> USD money printer.

So we know USD is a scam and manipulated heavily. Learn about The Fed..

> BTC

And here we have an alternative. This is one of the primary reasons why BTC is so important.

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

#798

Post by ttul » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:45 PM UTC

influxmoment wrote: post #658

Animats wrote: post #180

Tether is back up to around $0.98, but volume is high. Somebody is pouring cash into Tether to support the price. Similar over at UST. Price is back up to $0.60, but volume is far above normal. Remember, with a stablecoin, there is no upside to holding . Any indication of risk means it's time to get out. Even if Tether has enough reserves to get the price back to $1, there will be substantial cashing out. That's why…

Tether and UST are not comparable. Tether is a token you can redeem for USD with a questionable past. UST is a project started by a scammer. An algorithmic stablecoin. A Ponzi uses a Ponzi to prop up the price. And then head scammer used personal money to keep the charade going

If Tether isn’t a Ponzi scheme, why have they never subjected themselves to a real audit on their reserves? You know the one thing that you’ll find in common with every Ponzi scheme? There is no auditing.

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

#799

Post by eric_cc » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:46 PM UTC

iso1210 wrote: post #258

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> none of my smart peers had anything to say, either. It's because they know. I think everybody knows that crypto is a bubble. I think everybody believes everyone else that buys into it is dumb, financially illiterate, whatever. The crypto market has been propped up and boosted by an influx of people like that, each one knowing it's a bubble, believing everyone else is an idiot... but still wanting a slice of the pie…

It's the greater fool theory. I lauched at friends of my fatherinlaw back in 2018 when they were buying bitcoin at 15k. Obviously it popped. Today it's down 50% on ATH, but it's still more than double it's 2018 bubble level.

> It's the greater fool theory.

Is BTC any more greater fool than USD? If so, why do you believe so?

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

#800

Post by apcragg » Thu, May 12, 2022, 3:46 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #621

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, pegs are nonsense. If you want something USD-denominated, buy USD. The cardinal sin committed was pegging in the first place, which always was doomed to failure because the scale of the effort would attract either a bank run or raid, guarantied. Let's say you're a hedge fund looking for a one-way bet that will profit massively in a crypto crash (that stablecoins can't survive) and has no downside except carrying…

There are only two ways to hold USD: physical cash and database entries at the Fed. The former is really inconvenient, especially if you want to transfer money. The latter is only available to a select few companies. Everything is else at most assets denominated in (= pegged to) USD. Does your critique apply to all these other categories as well? Why or why not?

"sure, my house's foundation is made of cardboard, but have you considered that the empire state building could also be destroyed in a large enough earthquake?"