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Tether starting to lose its peg too, after Terra did

community.intercoin.org

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

#841
The actual article has the completely different title "What backs a currency? Terra Luna drops nearly 100%"

It's from a forum shilling yet another token experiment ("Intercoin"). Zero source material presented. Zero analysis. Zero value to those who don't care about Intercoin.

This article is of abysmal quality. I do appreciate the emotions the headline induces. But if it's information ye be after, this ain't the place.

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

#842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people are not (and we do not expect them to be) experts in investment. So then they should stay out of the game. I totally disagree that we need a bunch of bullshit laws protecting people from poor decision making.

It's amazing the gymnastics people will do to shift responsibility off the supply side and onto the demand side. No, lying should not be rewarded. Ponzi schemes should not be rewarded. Currently, they are. Yes, we need more responsibility -- on the supply side . Demand side already has responsibility and correct incentives: the fools have been parted from their money. Done. This goes for small things, like NFT ponzis…

I don't think saying people need to take responsibility for their actions removes blame from the supply side. I think the underlying point trying to be made here is that both are at fault. I mean, with crypto, you are the supply side the moment you buy in, and are just as complicit in the Ponzi scheme as the guy you bought from. Being more ignorant than the other players buys very little sympathy from me when you're both playing the same game with the same information available to you.

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

#843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people are not (and we do not expect them to be) experts in investment. So then they should stay out of the game. I totally disagree that we need a bunch of bullshit laws protecting people from poor decision making.

That's not what the post you replied to said at all and you are being intentionally obtuse. There is a reason the SEC exists. It's not to keep people from making bad decisions.

Well, it sort of is. The rules about not lying to investors, having accurate financial statements, and so on, are to help them avoid making bad investment decisions. The "accredited investor" limitations are supposed to make it harder for unsophisticated investors to lose their money.

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

#844
post #383
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people in crypto sincerely believe Tether is backed? I'm not being sarcastic here, I'm genuinely asking. I'm a bit of a skeptic of how the crypto market has developed overall, and the intentions of the major players, so I keep reminding myself that I'm biased, but I haven't believed Tether is even remotely close to being fully backed for a long while, and I've just sort of assumed everyone who's 'bought in' to the…

The pinned top post on reddit.com/r/tether is titled "Tether has always been fully backed and the assurance opinion made available today confirms it once again, and puts Tether ahead of the industry on transparency."

That subreddit is strangely low-volume for such a popular coin. The newest posts are 8-9 months old.

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

#845

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…

It wouldn't be a big deal, because people would just switch to USDC.

Someone will be left holding the bag on a "stablecoin" though which is the problem.

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

#846
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently you have to bring a minimum of $100K of USDT to get it redeemed into real money. I would say this is an incredibly stupid trade to try because you're relying on Tether actually paying out as promised.

Statements like this blow my mind . The entire point of Tether is that you can absolutely trust them with $100K, $1M, $10M, or whatever . It's backed, it's robust, it's tethered , and they guarantee payout. The promise is essentially the AAA security of the crypto world, the equivalent to US Treasury bonds or whatever. Meanwhile, the sentiment I keep hearing is yours: "You'd have to be absolutely nuts to trust these…

> and they guarantee payout.

"Counterparty risk"

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

#847
post #836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did that ever come out of the pool of money that went into minting the tether? Or was it just more consumers getting in while others got out?

Tether itself is shady and I have my doubts about them, but the concept is simple. You mint some coins and sell them for $1 each. Then watch the exchanges and any time the price is above $1 you mint some coins and sell them. Any time the price is below $1 you buy some coins and burn them. Doing this and only this you should always have more dollars in hand than the amount of coins in circulation.

>any time the price is above $1 you mint some coins and sell them

What if you run out of dollars and the price is still above $1?

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

#848
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is a religion to believe that cryptocurrencies are inherently better than other assets (outside NFTs) Why would NFTs be worth anything more than the digital tulip bulbs of cryptocurrencies? NFTs are just as worthless IMHO.

Well now you're getting into what 'worth' means. As a kid I had a bunch of baseball cards that Becketts said were 'worth' $X. I took them to the local shop and they would only pay some value NFTs are a bit like celebrity signatures. They are worth what someone will pay. If a celebrity verifiably digitally signs something and they only do it once, that is worth something to some people as a collectible. It is not wort…

IMO most NFTS have a significant amount of flaws that weaken any potential value as a collectible, at least in the current popular implementations.

For one thing, they're by definition tied to a shitty blockchain and you have to deal with any potential bullshit affecting said chain including fees, slow transactions, potential scams, etc. For another, they're not really an object, just a bit of json pointing likely pointing towards a flat image hosted somewhere else (that anyone can freely access via the link). Sure, they enjoyed a brief popularity and lots of media attention, but already the NFT marketplace seems to be waking up to the reality that most of these "investments" will never turn a profit. And that's the real issue I see: most of these purchases were not someone who wanted to collect something, they were made by someone who wanted to invest in an asset that would later be worth something. And so the actual value as a "collectible" has been inflated and is due for a huge crash, which is already happening.

I know some are meant to carry benefits towards the holder, like exclusive access to X service or community... that is a small minority currently though, and many of those benefits are shaping up to be just empty promises, and even then an NFT seems like a poor vehicle for systems that could have been done better without any "decentralization" or crypto integration.

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

#849
post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking umbrage on behalf of others, in a matter that should be personal choice, is equally questionable. Half of this thread believes we should protect people from themselves. The other half believes people should have the freedom to screw themselves over. Not sure there's much ground for compromise, given the contradictory nature of those positions.

> Half of this thread believes we should protect people from themselves. > The other half believes people should have the freedom to screw themselves over. Nailed it. It comes down to principles. Do you believe in personal freedom? Or do you prefer authoritarian governments?

I want protection from myself because society is impossibly complex for a single mind to understand.

If I buy edible stuff I trust that it won't poison me or kill me. If I drive a car I expect it respond to my commands and I expect other drivers to have a minimum amount of knowledge that they can actually assume and understand the risks of driving.

The protections that the SEC and other bodies expect in this area are quite reasonable if you understand that there is no such thing as "personal" freedom; your well-being and successes and failures tie into the rest of society at large. Maybe if you lose part of your savings that might be tolerable for all, but if in the process of making a bad investment you leave yourself and your family homeless, get into drug addiction, and create a large burden to those around you, it's hard to consider that to be a simple personal issue.

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

#850
post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm honestly surprised at how many people have this overly simplistic binary view of the world. If I openly leave a gold bar in the back seat of my car and don't lock the car and then park it in a major city it will get stolen. Is the thief to blame here? Absolutely. Could I have done more to protect my valuables? Absolutely. So with any scam, you can say the scammers are bad (which is true) but the scammed could als…

I didn’t mean to deny that the victims don’t bear any responsibility, just that, because time is zero sum, time spent on an issue tends to be better spent in a “binary” fashion (fluctuating through time though, so that integrated it is non-binary).

E.g. instead of having a never-ending discussion on how exactly a perpetrator/victim share blame, we can shelve the discussion on what share of the blame goes towards the victim, and instead focus on how to best deal with the scammers.

If we get trapped in a never-ending discussion on blame sharing, we never get to deal with the scammers through action (this is what I meant by muddying the waters, it’s an involuntary and voluntary phenomenon that can delay action indefinitely).

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