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Top stablecoins shed $7B in May as traders redeem tokens en masse

blockworks.co

191–200 of 376 posts

Re: Top stablecoins shed $7B in May as traders redeem tokens en masse

#191
post #84
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no issues with tax&bank issues Sure about that bit? This may be the perception – that holding your assets in 'the crypto system' avoids tax issues – but the taxman will disagree. Swapping $BTC for $USDC or whatever your tether of choice is is a 'taxable event'. You've sold one security in exchange for another. It doesn't matter that they're both crypto. Now, it might be harder for the taxman to detect this event, w…

That makes no sense. You pay taxes on realized gains (i.e. when you cash out), not unrealized ones... otherwise people like Elon Musk would have to pay tens of billions of dollars in taxes and sell off part of their stock to even be able to pay the tax (and probably ruin the company in the process). The same applies to crypto, and even though it's mostly not needed (you pay tax on realized gains in most countries and…

The “taxable event” is the sale of an asset.

I wonder how many other jokers are accidentally conducting life-ruining levels of tax fraud.

Re: Top stablecoins shed $7B in May as traders redeem tokens en masse

#192
post #8
post #2

Is $7B a lot? Isn't Tether's cap alone around 10 times that? Is this an observable trend or just a small spike of an otherwise generally volatile phenomenon?

> Isn't Tether's cap alone around 10 times that? Tether's cap is not the same as Tether's available liquidity to redeem the token. We don't know what's the limit of withdrawals they can handle in reality.

Yeah, about that.

Used to be that you couldn't redeem unless you were a whale. Unless you weren't a US national. Unless you'd given 90-120 days notice. Unless there was a fee paid.

People literally put up bounties hunting any successful redemption of Tether. Especially since, and this is as true now, as it was then:

"Tether makes no guarantees, promises or arrangement that the Tether stablecoin is or will be redeemable in any way, shape or form."

Re: Top stablecoins shed $7B in May as traders redeem tokens en masse

#193
post #172
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Provided you trust the stablecoin, it's a lot safer to keep e.g. USDC in a wallet you control rather than hold USD fiat balance on an exchange or some other shady crypto service.

Why is it safer? Isn't USDC issued by some entity, which promises to convert USDC back into USD?

It's safer cus there are hundreds of crypto exchanges that exist, in jurisdictions all over with varying levels of regulation or compliance. Many of which have run off with customer funds. You can always be sure that your funds are safer in your own wallet than on an exchange.

However, USDC is issued by a consortium spear headed by Coinbase which is a publicly traded US company that has a wealth of regulatory compliance hoops they jump through, and have routine independent auditors track the reserves of USDC.

But youre right in that there's elements of trust that you need to place.

Re: Top stablecoins shed $7B in May as traders redeem tokens en masse

#194
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true for transfers within the UK using Faster payments - upto £250K, near instantaneous.

that limit depends on your bank. for large transfers you will often need to visit your branch in person which can be a multi day process. and yes UK faster payments system is great but it is not yet the backbone of global payment processing. the world is larger than the UK and as we continue to connect globally online and become more digitally nomadic there will be more need to pay users outside of a UK-to-UK bank sy…

If you're the kind of person that regularly wires six digit sums in and out of your personal account, I suspect that one, if not both of the following are true: 1) that you've chosen your banking institution with a view to being expedient in such transfers, and 2) are on a known basis with sufficiently senior branch/bank personnel as to help establish parameters with them on legitimacy of such transfers.

Re: Top stablecoins shed $7B in May as traders redeem tokens en masse

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, isn’t selling one asset and buying another precisely the definition of a taxable event? I don’t see how tether helps you avoid taxes unless you’re going to lie about your transactions and hope nobody notices.

It is indeed a taxable event. People who exchange crypto for “stable”coins are generally doing so to stay out of the KYC banking realm so they can lie about their transactions to their country’s tax authorities.

You're on the internet sir, this is not only an American website.

Re: Top stablecoins shed $7B in May as traders redeem tokens en masse

#196
post #125
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you have friends that you transfer crypto to if they need to purchase something at a shop and don’t have the funds? God that whole process sounds painful. In the Uk we would just transfer the money across with a bank transfer as all banks support instant transfers which have no fees (including between banks).

not everybody lives in the UK. the point is not to be a system that beats a single service for sending GBP from A to B in the UK. the point is a system that has a variety of uses and applications accessible by anybody, regardless of which country the user resides in. even in countries with good banking like UK, many e-commerce companies will still choose Stripe VISA and PayPal to reach customers outside the UK and in…

You complain about the lack of timeliness with wire and interbank transfers in the regular system, and talk about the 'underdeveloped' economies that don't afford people many luxuries...

... so suggest that they use crypto, which for many, comes with an onerous fee too, to be timely. Your "buy from the shop" example better not be urgent, otherwise you're paying gas for someone to verify it, or it sits in the queue.

Re: Top stablecoins shed $7B in May as traders redeem tokens en masse

#197
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh it’s even worse. For a while now some[0] have suggested part of the backing is in bonds issues by Chinese real estate companies [0] https://twitter.com/thelastbearsta1/status/14690072004965908...

It could be worse than that. It could be commercial paper from Bitfinex or one of their other related party holdings.

Bitfinex seems like a very good business. I mean at least since 2016 - but 8 years is enough. It is possible that they still mismanaged it catastrophically - but fees are really good in crypto exchanges and margin loses are socialized - so they are not a risk factor for the exchange.

Re: Top stablecoins shed $7B in May as traders redeem tokens en masse

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so decentralised that Mr. Kwon can just turn off the blockchain when he wants to!

If we're going to shit on crypto, can we at least be accurate in our statements. The validators of the Terra chain halted it. There's no switch that Kwon as an individual can flip.

Could the company not just issue a hundred trillion dollars of it in a day and sink the currency if they wanted to (or were forced into it).

There's no built-in way to verify that minted Tether can be verified to be backed. If there were, firstly there'd be no questions about the backing at all, it's all public on the blockchain, and second, it would revolutionary and actually useful to have a smart contract that can track real assets and not let them vanish from under it.

Re: Top stablecoins shed $7B in May as traders redeem tokens en masse

#199
post #119
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The interesting idea behind crypto once was to have a totally different system. the problem with this idea is that this idea of a "different" system is just merely going to evolve back into what we have today. The fundamental needs of a financial system doesn't change much, and what we have today is fit for purpose (mostly - there's efficiency to be had and red tape to cut).

> mostly - there's efficiency to be had and red tape to cut and Open Banking has been working on this steadily in many countries.

Can you show me any tangible results of open banking? I used to work in the space and it was a shitshow of bureaucracy that never went anywhere.

Ethereum IS ALREADY an ecosystem of programmable money APIs, and it works TODAY.

Re: Top stablecoins shed $7B in May as traders redeem tokens en masse

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Centralised mechanisms solve the problem for less cost

Okay, tell me how I can send money to my friend in Macedonia from Australia without transaction fees.

"Hi, I should be able to use your systems and infrastructure, for my benefit. And to be clear, I'd like it to be free, and near instant. Thanks."
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