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Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

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131–140 of 211 posts

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does it say that?

The audits/attestations reveal this and Tether itself has confirmed it holds a large quantity of "commercial paper". They have steadily backed away from the claim that USDT is backed by dollars. "Commercial paper" is a loan, an IOU --- not hard currency/assets. You can't have your dollars and loan them to others too. If I give Donald Trump an unsecured loan for $1000, I can't "legally" claim to still hold the $1000 i…

Totally agree, however I haven't seen any sources saying that these mint operations were paid for by commerical paper given by Alameda or Cumberland.

That's what I suspect and I'll be shorting more USDT today on AAVE.

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#132
post #29

I often find the headlines, and even stories about, crypto to be inscrutable to those looking in from the outside. The stories also seem to come from an ecosystem of sites I don't recognize so it's hard to even judge if it's reputable site (or at least guess at the biases it might have). None of this is inherently bad, but there seems to be a growing divide between "mainstream" tech and the crypto world that is harde…

listen to uncommon core, every episode starting with the first, and you'll have a nice view from the inside. signal-to-noise ratio in crypto is atrocious, high signal sources are alpha

single best tip for navigating the space. the best thing you can do in crypto is cut out noisy sources, this eliminates reddit, youtube, hacker news and most news sites. crypto twitter has some high signal, but curate regularly.

follow smart individuals religiously, podcasts are probably the best. thanks for uncommon core, i hadn't heard of it. bankless is another high signal podcast (although eth-maxi).

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#133
For anyone that is willing to engage in DeFi:

AAVE on polygon currently has USDT borrowing at 3.75% with 4.74% being returned as MATIC to incentivize borrowing & lending.

You can borrow up to 50% of your locked collateral.

So if you deposit 1 ETH into AAVE you can borrow 1.5k USDT

Trade that USDT for ETH & deposit it back in AAVE.

You are now shorting USDT and long on ETH for only 3.5% APY.

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've recently started listening to a lot of podcast episodes on the subject (primarily Unchained and a16z) which has been great for raising my general awareness of what's going on. I'm very skeptical of 90% of what I hear and I've limited interest getting involved in the industry right now but crypto is hugely impactful no matter how you look at it so it's worth keeping a decent amount of curiosity in my opinion. ---…

i'd be very sceptical of what a16z published about crypto topics; they are heavily invested both financially and reputationally. their whole game was/is leveraging their clout to give credibility to the scene, therefore increasing the value of their investments.

100%. Definitely under no illusions there. But for me since they are a core part of the hype that makes listening to them and analysing what they say even more important IMO

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#135
post #29

I often find the headlines, and even stories about, crypto to be inscrutable to those looking in from the outside. The stories also seem to come from an ecosystem of sites I don't recognize so it's hard to even judge if it's reputable site (or at least guess at the biases it might have). None of this is inherently bad, but there seems to be a growing divide between "mainstream" tech and the crypto world that is harde…

If you understand DeFi loans, you are 99% there, since that comprises much of the enthusiasm. Lots of good writeups about the collapse of Iron have been mentioned here.

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#136

I'm no Tether apologist, but this doesn't seem like an issue to me? Alameda and Cumberland are the 2 biggest liquidity providers in crypto trading. Tether is the source of liquidity for many of the exchanges that they trade on. So of course they'd use Tether to on-ramp into the crypto ecosystem and trade. I suppose the real news here is that Alameda and Cumberland haven't redeemed much Tether (proportionally), so if…

If Alameda & Cumberland paid for the minting of USDT by offering Commercial Paper (e.g. IOU from Alameda) and Alameda isn't actually good for it then they've just printed USDT backed by essentially nothing.

They may be able to extract enough $ to cover it by the time they actually have to show reserves, that's what they did previously.

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#137

I'm no Tether apologist, but this doesn't seem like an issue to me? Alameda and Cumberland are the 2 biggest liquidity providers in crypto trading. Tether is the source of liquidity for many of the exchanges that they trade on. So of course they'd use Tether to on-ramp into the crypto ecosystem and trade. I suppose the real news here is that Alameda and Cumberland haven't redeemed much Tether (proportionally), so if…

hmm no OTC traders here? When you call the OTC desk and wire them dollars they mint stablecoins using their account with - presumably - Bitfinex. Bitfinex issues Tethers no different than Coinbase/Circle issues USDC in a just in time transaction. You either receive the Tether you asked for to make your own trades, or they keep the Tether and purchase the crypto you really wanted. In either scenario, someone besides t…

“These kind of juvenile inexperienced arguments”

I would suggest to you that maybe it’s said from a place of significant experience that the cryptocurrency community simply doesn’t possess at 11 years old.

That aside, the notion that your problems as an individual begin and end at your “onramp” (which is a terrible term for it’s own reasons) are incredibly naive.

If massive amounts of the value in the market is fake money, as has been alleged, then what’s the value of a [COIN]?

Is it $1M? Is it $30k? Is it a song?

You’ll only find out when more than 5% (20:1 issuance:redemption) of people try to take profits, at which point I don’t know how you turn all of those unbacked IOUs into real money? Sorcery? Sassy remarks about “boomers” not “getting it”?

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#138
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USDC has been audited and it's solid. I know of people in large banks who are working with USDC and they've vouched for it being 100% ok.

USDC is better than Tether but far from “solid”. They still hold commercial paper, just 10% instead of 50%. The audit is a joke. Who knows what is really considered “cash equivalent”. Hell, it’s possible USDC holds Tether.

remember the pirateat40 bitcoin ponzi scam? he was paying 7% interest A WEEK on deposits and all these copycat "funds" popped up paying 6% or 5% or whatever that were "safer". when the original ponzi collapsed all the "safer" funds were revealed to have just been taking their deposits and depositing them with pirateat40 and pocketing the difference. the whole ecosystem collapsed

Re: Tether minted most USDT to just 2 firms – Alameda and Cumberland

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmm no OTC traders here? When you call the OTC desk and wire them dollars they mint stablecoins using their account with - presumably - Bitfinex. Bitfinex issues Tethers no different than Coinbase/Circle issues USDC in a just in time transaction. You either receive the Tether you asked for to make your own trades, or they keep the Tether and purchase the crypto you really wanted. In either scenario, someone besides t…

“These kind of juvenile inexperienced arguments” I would suggest to you that maybe it’s said from a place of significant experience that the cryptocurrency community simply doesn’t possess at 11 years old. That aside, the notion that your problems as an individual begin and end at your “onramp” (which is a terrible term for it’s own reasons) are incredibly naive. If massive amounts of the value in the market is fake…

I dont care if crypto crashes 90+ Percent because Tether turned out to be highly leveraged. Let it.

What do people want to hear? If the issuing organization has no liquidity for its commercial paper or literally non existent assets then people cant redeem their tether.

OTC desks using bitfinex as advertised isnt news and has nothing to do with speculating on an opaque reserve issue with Tether. That was my entire point.

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