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Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

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Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#181

Post by KarlKemp »

HillRat wrote: post #142
nordsieck wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America decided dollars should float in the 70s, and most of the world followed. Except that a bunch of countries in Europe went back to pegged currency with the Euro[1]. Part of the reason the 2008 crisis hit countries like Italy, Greece, and Ireland so hard. --- 1. Yes - the Euro is not technically pegged; but effectively, it's the same thing. Each individual country in the Eurozone can't engage in independent mo…

Turns out having a monetary union but not a fiscal one is really destabilizing when things go wrong!

The Euro was introduced 23 years ago. It has successfully weathered one domestic crisis in addition to the dot-com bust and the 2008 US banking meltdown. Its exchange value has been stable and the Eurozone economies have fared better than, for example, the UK.

I'll take the Euro over any cryptocurrency any day, thanks.

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#182

Post by coliveira »

jacobsimon wrote: post #167
rglullis wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Circle and Tether are just banks with dollar liabilities. But no regulatory oversight, and no chance for the common folk to prosecute or get their money back if they default. I am one of the resident crypto apologists here on HN, but there is no way that we should even try to accept what the big exchanges are doing. The whole point of crypto is to have systems that do not depend on "too big to fail" institutions, w…

Not trying to make excuses for any of these companies. I'm just saying, in the abstract, there are lots of reasons why an end user would want a stablecoin besides "avoiding regulations". Even if it weren't pegged to a national currency, there is value in having a digital currency that limits its volatility. Pegging to another currency is a shortcut for doing that w/o needing decentralized monetary policy.

Basically these people are trying to get the benefit of digital currencies without the downside of volatility. Somebody else will have to take the volatility risk. This is easy to do when the crypto currencies are going up in value, and almost impossible to do on the downside.

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#183

Post by MacsHeadroom »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #166
jasonlingx wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So here’s where there might be some confusion, Binance consolidates a pool of different stable coins into 1 “BUSD” balance for its users[0]. Depositing any of these stablecoins into Binance will add to your BUSD balance, and you can withdraw from it as any stablecoin of your choice. What CZ is saying is that they ran out of USDC but have plenty of the other stablecoins instead. It sounds like they need to redeem the…

So, they need to find gullible 3rd parties that accept to give them hard cash (USD) in exchange for their in house created clown money (BUSD), and then use this hard cash to go to the market and buy USDC. How is this different from FTX padding their balance sheet with billions of their own made up clown money? Crypto is ponzies all the way down.

BUSD is not clown money or created by Binance. It is the most highly regulated financial instrument in crypto, issued by Paxos New York, tightly regulated by NYDFS, backed 1:1 and regularly audited.

https://paxos.com/busd/

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#185

Post by kikokikokiko »

MacsHeadroom wrote: post #183
kikokikokiko wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, they need to find gullible 3rd parties that accept to give them hard cash (USD) in exchange for their in house created clown money (BUSD), and then use this hard cash to go to the market and buy USDC. How is this different from FTX padding their balance sheet with billions of their own made up clown money? Crypto is ponzies all the way down.

BUSD is not clown money or created by Binance. It is the most highly regulated financial instrument in crypto, issued by Paxos New York, tightly regulated by NYDFS, backed 1:1 and regularly audited. https://paxos.com/busd/

So, it's just like the deposits on FTX, or the reserves of Tether right?

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#186

Post by aftbit »

spicymaki wrote: post #156
kayamon wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin has continued clearing transactions throughout, just as it always has since its creation. Crypto != Bitcoin.

> Crypto != Bitcoin Please explain your reasoning.

I'm not the parent poster, but I believe the explanation is:

1. "Crypto" as a space includes a lot of things like Centralized Exchanges, which are really just like unregulated banks. 2. "Bitcoin" the network is a subset of the crypto space and was not in any way impacted by whatever the latest scammy CEX decides to do.

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#187

Post by [deleted] »

spookthesunset wrote: post #87
neilv wrote: post #14

Whenever there are runs on businesses in the "crypto" scam space, I wonder whether the withdrawals/cashouts that did/do get through are connected to whomever runs that business, before slamming the door on unconnected people.

Of course that is what happened. It’s crypto. It’s scams and exit scams all the way down. Always was always will be.

[deleted]

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#188

Post by jimbob45 »

nordsieck wrote: post #119
govg wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of the Euro, I find it more useful to view the Eurozone as somewhat similar to the US. There's one central monetary policy for really large economies that in a different environment, would have liked to do things independently. It's especially relevant now as US states have GDPs comparable to the Eurozone constituent nations.

> In terms of the Euro, I find it more useful to view the Eurozone as somewhat similar to the US. There's one central monetary policy for really large economies that in a different environment, would have liked to do things independently. It's especially relevant now as US states have GDPs comparable to the Eurozone constituent nations. There is an enormous difference, though: internal mobility/identity. Germans tend…

People in Oregon and New Hampshire tend not to have very strong affection for their state.

This sounds like the opinion of a European who has never actually lived in the US. People are much more married to their states than it seems that you'd believe.

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#189

Post by atarashi »

MacsHeadroom wrote: post #183
kikokikokiko wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, they need to find gullible 3rd parties that accept to give them hard cash (USD) in exchange for their in house created clown money (BUSD), and then use this hard cash to go to the market and buy USDC. How is this different from FTX padding their balance sheet with billions of their own made up clown money? Crypto is ponzies all the way down.

BUSD is not clown money or created by Binance. It is the most highly regulated financial instrument in crypto, issued by Paxos New York, tightly regulated by NYDFS, backed 1:1 and regularly audited. https://paxos.com/busd/

Let me add:

Only BUSD on Ethereum (ERC-20) is issued by Paxos. The BUSD on the BNB Chain (BEP-20) is not affiliated with Paxos and not regulated by NYDFS. Quoting Paxos:

"BUSD is issued by Paxos on the Ethereum blockchain and regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services. Separately, Binance wraps BUSD and issues separate tokens (known as Binance-Peg BUSD) on several blockchains, including BNB Smart Chain, Polygon, and Avalanche. These tokens are unaffiliated with Paxos and not regulated by the NYDFS."

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#190

Post by danuker »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #185
MacsHeadroom wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BUSD is not clown money or created by Binance. It is the most highly regulated financial instrument in crypto, issued by Paxos New York, tightly regulated by NYDFS, backed 1:1 and regularly audited. https://paxos.com/busd/

So, it's just like the deposits on FTX, or the reserves of Tether right?

Yes, on a centralized entity you're required to trust ("we're totally backed by cash and bonds, for realsies"), as opposed to owning and holding your crypto outright.

From their web page:

> Transparent

> A top auditing firm will attest to the matching supply of BUSD tokens and underlying U.S. dollars on a monthly basis.

Note the future tense, as in, "sometime indefinitely away in the future".

Their attestations (as opposed to audits) just say that at a certain instant in time they had the required amount in a bank account. That means Paxos could have borrowed it for a short while. Quote [1]: "Any activity prior to or after the Report Dates and Times at 5:00 pm ET was not considered when testing the assertions described above."

This is the same trick pointed out by Coffeezilla about a year ago, about Tether. [2]

And the one from November is missing.

[1] - https://paxos.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Executed-BUSD-E...

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-whuXHSL1Pg

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