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Tether's Troubles in November 2022

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Re: Tether's Troubles in November 2022

#41

Post by mrbombastic »

danrocks wrote: post #35
api wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the utterly insane amounts of both financial and human capital that have been invested in this space with virtually nothing to show for it. The whole thing is an infinite sinkhole. Cryptocurrency kind of reminds me of that Star Trek episode where they were going to destroy the Borg by giving them this impossible n-dimensional object to ponder. It had no solution but was infinitely interesting so they wou…

This comment hits the nail on the head. Just this morning when I saw FTX and BlockFi's news I thought to myself "yeah all the electricity spent on this is bad, but the real problem is how many hours of human thought have been spent on coming up with these schemes just for them to blow up on our faces". Crypto is like the mental virus in the movie "Pontypool" [0] - people are infected by it and cannot think about anyt…

Is there a term for this type of highly interesting problem that is ultimately a waste of time? I have been calling it a “brain sink”in my head, it is deeply sad to me how many smart people have jumped on the bandwagon and what they could have done otherwise with their potential.

Re: Tether's Troubles in November 2022

#42

Post by jakelazaroff »

psychlops wrote: post #37

It's depressing to me that there is such a vocal group of people cheerleading the demise of an industry that seeks to improve the financial system on a global scale. Truly disheartening are the financially disenfranchised (and what I believe) young voices for whom any system would be better than the current. It's to the extent that many think that attacking capitalism itself is the answer. There is an incredible amou…

The issue is that we don't believe the crypto industry seeks to improve the financial system, on any scale. It's not just that so many of them have turned out to be scammers — it's that the industry as a whole has not put in any work to prevent that, and often has actively worked to prevent any sort of guardrails.

Re: Tether's Troubles in November 2022

#43

Post by wmf »

grey-area wrote: post #24
gzer0 wrote: post #19

> The risk-on assets are 12.86% of the reserves, via simple division. Their equity is 0.36% of assets. If their risk-on assets were impaired by more than about 2.86%, Tether must have (by their own numbers) needed recapitalization. It is not credible that they suffered no serious impairment. Bitcoin, the blue chip cryptocurrency, is down by more than 10%. > I challenge anyone to find a portfolio construction for digi…

Yes tether is an obvious lie, and it’s now just a question of when, not if, they collapse.

If Tether is 87% backed they'll be fine; they can find some way to hide that shortfall. (To be clear this is illegal and I want Tether to die but we need to acknowledge the realpolitik of the crypto market.)

Re: Tether's Troubles in November 2022

#44

Post by andirk »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21
kranke155 wrote: post #2

This will be the true extinction level event for this era of crypto. I now fully expect it to happen on this bear cycle. It will be interesting to watch - potentially the FTX investigation coming off the bankruptcy will set loose enough threads we will learn the truth.

> will be the true extinction level event for this era of crypto People keep saying this, but it runs counter to the history of gambling. As long as enthusiasts have money, the game will keep going.

No one has ever said this is the end of crypto every 6 months. Never happened :)

Tether is a joke but your bank also doesnt have every1s money. Oh it's FDIC insured! Yeah by the ppl who print the money. It's a solid grift, but it's also a grift.

Re: Tether's Troubles in November 2022

#45

Post by jjulius »

psychlops wrote: post #37

It's depressing to me that there is such a vocal group of people cheerleading the demise of an industry that seeks to improve the financial system on a global scale. Truly disheartening are the financially disenfranchised (and what I believe) young voices for whom any system would be better than the current. It's to the extent that many think that attacking capitalism itself is the answer. There is an incredible amou…

>It's depressing to me that there is such a vocal group of people cheerleading the demise of an industry that seeks to improve the financial system on a global scale.

This kind of feels like a disingenuous description of what's happening, as though it's willfully ignorant of what's clearly being discussed here. People are cheerleading the demise of the snake oil and grifting that is insanely prevalent in a new, unregulated industry.

>There is an incredible amount of fraud in crypto and it should be identified, stamped out and vigorously prosecuted.

So you're on board with us then! :p

>But there is also genuine genius at work solving difficult problems for everyone's benefit.

Yep. Good for them. Fuck everyone else taking part in the grift. I'm certain you'll find plenty of people "cheerleading the demise of the industry" who share this viewpoint.

> It is terrible that people are losing money so easily and is a reminder that crypto isn't solving the problem of fools being parted from their money. Presumably that's what laws and regulations do.

At the risk of starting a much larger discussion that I am wholly unqualified to take part in, that's a pretty damning comment to make in regards to DeFi. Doesn't bode well for it's future if a lack of regulation is just going to push people away from adopting it out of fear of losing money.

Edit: If you want "crypto" or DeFi to succeed, you should be cheering with us when these assholes fall.

Re: Tether's Troubles in November 2022

#46

Post by bibabaloo »

Can someone explain why the bank run on Tether hasn't already happened?

We've seen with FTX that it only takes a little FUD for people to get scared and start withdrawing.

It's not like there isn't more credible stablecoin alternatives, USDC looks a lot more credible.

Re: Tether's Troubles in November 2022

#47

Post by andirk »

tartoran wrote: post #38
raven105x wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're describing post-1971 USD. It's getting difficult to tell which currency is the bigger scam at this point.

Except the latter is backed by an army and you can actually buy stuff with it. The former is so volatile that you don’t know if it’ll exist next year or not

8% of every dollar in your pocket a year ago no longer exists.

Re: Tether's Troubles in November 2022

#48

Post by jjulius »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #42
psychlops wrote: post #37

It's depressing to me that there is such a vocal group of people cheerleading the demise of an industry that seeks to improve the financial system on a global scale. Truly disheartening are the financially disenfranchised (and what I believe) young voices for whom any system would be better than the current. It's to the extent that many think that attacking capitalism itself is the answer. There is an incredible amou…

The issue is that we don't believe the crypto industry seeks to improve the financial system, on any scale. It's not just that so many of them have turned out to be scammers — it's that the industry as a whole has not put in any work to prevent that, and often has actively worked to prevent any sort of guardrails .

Right. In many of the "OMG What Happened to SBF?" articles this week, it's mentioned over and over that SBF ran afoul of many of his industry counterparts because he cozied up to Washington and pushed for regulation. I don't know how someone can feel comfortable handing their money over to anyone who essentially says, "I don't want there to be any rules around what I can do with this, and people who can punish me for abusing this need to stay away". That's INSANE to me.

I don't doubt that there are a few companies in the space that are trying to do some genuine good. But I'd wager that I can count them on one hand.

Edit: And if someone's going to say, "This industry has potential, don't cheer it's demise," then show me the potential. Show me the companies doing that good stuff, because we're not seeing it.

Re: Tether's Troubles in November 2022

#49

Post by wmf »

psychlops wrote: post #37

It's depressing to me that there is such a vocal group of people cheerleading the demise of an industry that seeks to improve the financial system on a global scale. Truly disheartening are the financially disenfranchised (and what I believe) young voices for whom any system would be better than the current. It's to the extent that many think that attacking capitalism itself is the answer. There is an incredible amou…

seeks to improve the financial system on a global scale

They've been at this for a decade and they're not actually improving it. The purpose of crypto is what it does: take money from the middle class and give it to billionaires.

young voices for whom any system would be better than the current

No, there are many possible systems that are far worse. If people believed this they'd move to Somalia to seek their fortune.

Re: Tether's Troubles in November 2022

#50

Post by jfengel »

psychlops wrote: post #37

It's depressing to me that there is such a vocal group of people cheerleading the demise of an industry that seeks to improve the financial system on a global scale. Truly disheartening are the financially disenfranchised (and what I believe) young voices for whom any system would be better than the current. It's to the extent that many think that attacking capitalism itself is the answer. There is an incredible amou…

You should be cheering for the demise of any project that undercuts the goal of establishing a safe, well-considered, functional alternative.

They're not cheering for it to fail. They're cheering that the long-standing failure is being remedied, removing yet another scammer from the cryptocurrency space.

They don't get to win for solving difficult problems. They win if they present a complete solution. "We did some remarkable math but didn't fix the sheer quantity of fraud" is not a solution.

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