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Federal investigators probe Tether

wsj.com

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Re: Federal investigators probe Tether

#91

Post by alchemist1e9 »

dogmayor wrote: post #33
alchemist1e9 wrote: post #13

https://x.com/paoloardoino/status/1849876338573799912 CEO of Tether - “As we told to WSJ there is no indication that Tether is under investigation. WSJ is regurgitating old noise. Full stop.”

Yeah that's not how investigations work. USAOs don't publicize ongoing investigations for obvious reasons. Once they wrap up an investigation but before convening a grand jury to indict, they may send a target letter, but they typically don't. Most often, people don't find out until they're indicted.

https://x.com/paoloardoino/status/1849930663278833822

Tether CEO additional statement on X - “At Tether, we deal regularly and directly with law enforcement officials to help prevent rogue nations, terrorists and criminals from misusing USDt. We would know if we are being investigated as the article falsely claimed. Based on that, we can confirm that the allegations in the article are unequivocally false.”

Re: Federal investigators probe Tether

#92

Post by moat »

satvikpendem wrote: post #5

Ah, finally, will Tether get its day in the litigious sun? It's well known in cryptocurrency circles that their coin is not backed 1:1 to USD, similar to FTX, only that FTX crashed and this was found out the easy way. Cracking Tether will be much harder as they resist audits.

It was formerly understood that Tether was not backed 1:1.

My people in the space now believe that they have made up the hole thanks to juicy interest rates (where Tether keeps all the yield).

Re: Federal investigators probe Tether

#93

Post by mikeyouse »

paulpauper wrote: post #68
pessimizer wrote: post #34

Both presidential candidates have signaled that they are pro-crypto scams (and one thinks that has something to do with the welfare of black men.) It's too late. Bitcoin has entered the house price zone, where people are elected to office on promises to make housing as expensive as possible. We'll have to wait until crypto brings down the entire economy. And after it does, the people who hold it will be bailed out: "…

It's just pandering. Neither candidate will do anything. Existing regulation will stay in place or tighten.

Trump launched an actual Shitcoin.. will be interesting to see what happens to that.

Re: Federal investigators probe Tether

#94

Post by dogmayor »

alchemist1e9 wrote: post #91
dogmayor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's not how investigations work. USAOs don't publicize ongoing investigations for obvious reasons. Once they wrap up an investigation but before convening a grand jury to indict, they may send a target letter, but they typically don't. Most often, people don't find out until they're indicted.

https://x.com/paoloardoino/status/1849930663278833822 Tether CEO additional statement on X - “At Tether, we deal regularly and directly with law enforcement officials to help prevent rogue nations, terrorists and criminals from misusing USDt. We would know if we are being investigated as the article falsely claimed. Based on that, we can confirm that the allegations in the article are unequivocally false.”

Again, that's not how it works. They wouldn't know if they're being investigated unless the USAO told them. And if the USAO had told them they're a target of an investigation then they'd say that instead of this garbage quote. Hell they may even be working with the sdny on some investigations, but in no way does that mean they would know if they themselves are the subject of another investigation. In other words, unless Tether is somehow working with the investigators on an investigation into Tether, Tether wouldn't know they're being investigated.

Re: Federal investigators probe Tether

#95

Post by fallinditch »

fallinditch wrote: post #75
satvikpendem wrote: post #5

Ah, finally, will Tether get its day in the litigious sun? It's well known in cryptocurrency circles that their coin is not backed 1:1 to USD, similar to FTX, only that FTX crashed and this was found out the easy way. Cracking Tether will be much harder as they resist audits.

Here's a fascinating piece of history that sheds light on the Bitfinex/FTX/Tether shenanigans. Originally a Medium post that was removed at some point, here's an archived copy. It details how Bitfinex/Tether manipulated BTC to make serious $$. I think the article also points to the origins of the FTX fraud: was Sam Bankman Fried involved in these BTC manipulations? Or inspired by it to create his own exchange? https:…

TL:DR "USDT was used to pump other traded pairs in order to avoid raising the price of BTC directly.

Once BTC was obtained from the pumps of these currencies, it was then sold immediately for USD, which ‘flooded’ the market and depressed the price of BTC."

Re: Federal investigators probe Tether

#96

Post by paulpauper »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #79
paulpauper wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just another reason why crypto is inferior. So much risk , no upside. like investing in mortgage/ bank stocks in 2007.

No upside? Historically, or purely in the context of this article, assuming it's true?

what has the price done over the past 8 months, past 3 years?

Re: Federal investigators probe Tether

#97

Post by jiggawatts »

moat wrote: post #92
satvikpendem wrote: post #5

Ah, finally, will Tether get its day in the litigious sun? It's well known in cryptocurrency circles that their coin is not backed 1:1 to USD, similar to FTX, only that FTX crashed and this was found out the easy way. Cracking Tether will be much harder as they resist audits.

It was formerly understood that Tether was not backed 1:1. My people in the space now believe that they have made up the hole thanks to juicy interest rates (where Tether keeps all the yield).

How is that possible? They were thought to have less than half of the dollars they’re supposed to be holding!

Re: Federal investigators probe Tether

#98

Post by FireBeyond »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #82
yobid20 wrote: post #81

Jesus only 6 or 7 years late! It was OPENLY KNOWN and ADMITTED IN COURT they never had the cash backing and were just printing tokens to inflate prices. Why start an investigation now?

AIUI it's not an investigation about whether tether has the USDT or not but an investigation as to whether or not allowed customers to launder dirty money. Tether is in a country that has a long history of doing monkey business, including monkey business with drug trafficking money and arms trafficking money. Even the CIA was tied to that monkey business. To me there's zero doubt there's actual money laundering ongoi…

> Tether is in a country that has a long history of doing monkey business, including monkey business with drug trafficking money and arms trafficking money.

I never forget the farcical interview with Deltec Bank's "Deputy CEO":

At the start of 2021, according to their website, it was a 55 year old bank. By the end of 2021, it was a 70 year old bank!

The bank's website is a WordPress site. And their customers must be unhappy - online banking hasn't worked for nearly two years at this point - take a look at the HTML source, there's no way it could actually work.

Anyway, their Deputy CEO gave this hilarious interview from his gaming rig. A 33 year old Deputy CEO, who by his LinkedIn claimed to have graduated HEC Lausanne in Switzerland with a Master of Science at the age of 15... celebrating his graduation by immediately being named Professor of Finance at a university in Lebanon. While dividing his spare time between running hedge funds in Switzerland and uhh... Jacksonville, FL.

The name of his fund? Indepedance [sic] Weath [sic] Management. Yeah, okay.

In this hilariously inept interview, he claimed that people's claims about Deltec's money movements being several times larger than all the banking in their country was due to them misunderstanding the country's two banking licenses, the names of which he "couldn't remember right now" (the Deputy CEO of a bank who can't remember the name of the banking licenses where they operate), and he "wasn't sure which one they had, but we might have both".

Once the ridicule and all this started piling on, within 24 hours, he was removed from the bank's website leadership page. When people pointed out how suspicious that looked, he was -re-added-.

The bank then deleted the company's entire website and replaced it with a minimally edited WordPress site, where most of the links and buttons were non-functional and remained so for months thereafter.

I mean fuck it, if the cryptobros want to look at all that and say "seems legit to me", alright, let em.

Re: Federal investigators probe Tether

#99

Post by m101 »

"backed" is a somewhat unclear term. Given tether don't only hold cash their securities will have mark-to-market valuations. At purchase prices, in a legitimate operation, they should be "backed", but if they were forced to finance redemptions at losses from purchase price then I suppose might not be "backed".

However, they must have been sitting on so much interest up to now given where rates went recently that, provided they ran a fairly conservative operation, they should have plenty of reserves.

Re: Federal investigators probe Tether

#100

Post by earnesti »

fallinditch wrote: post #95
fallinditch wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a fascinating piece of history that sheds light on the Bitfinex/FTX/Tether shenanigans. Originally a Medium post that was removed at some point, here's an archived copy. It details how Bitfinex/Tether manipulated BTC to make serious $$. I think the article also points to the origins of the FTX fraud: was Sam Bankman Fried involved in these BTC manipulations? Or inspired by it to create his own exchange? https:…

TL:DR "USDT was used to pump other traded pairs in order to avoid raising the price of BTC directly. Once BTC was obtained from the pumps of these currencies, it was then sold immediately for USD, which ‘flooded’ the market and depressed the price of BTC."

As the article states, nothing has been proven. Didn't read further than that.

Tether is an operation that is a money printing machine on its own. They absolutely don't need to play pump'n'dump tricks to make money. It doesn't make any sense. Pump'n'dump schemes are risky. Tether has many options to make money with way less risk.

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