Live data from Hacker News

Reserve – A flexible pool of stablecoins designed to reduce risk

reserve.org

21–30 of 119 posts

Re: Reserve – A flexible pool of stablecoins designed to reduce risk

#21
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people calling ‘USDT’ a scam probably haven’t used it. For the past 5 years, Tether has been the most amazing way for me to transfer dollars across exchanges, or just to hold during market drawdowns. The fact that it is unregulated, and weakly subject to AML/KYC is a feature for me, not a problem. My money, my business, not the governments.

No, the people calling USDT a scam know that it's backed by nothing, and Tether has no obligation whatsoever to redeem them, ever (it's in their T&Cs). Their banking partner, Deltec, in the Bahamas is chaired by the man who created the Inspector Gadget TV series. [edit] Tethers are chuck-e-cheese tokens that became so integral to the entire cryptocurrency market (90% of ETH inflow and 80% of BTC inflow are Tether, no…

It's not backed by nothing, Tether probably has at least $10B USD in cash or so in deposits safely stored somewhere.

The problem is that there are 25 billion USDT.

Re: Reserve – A flexible pool of stablecoins designed to reduce risk

#22
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the people calling USDT a scam know that it's backed by nothing, and Tether has no obligation whatsoever to redeem them, ever (it's in their T&Cs). Their banking partner, Deltec, in the Bahamas is chaired by the man who created the Inspector Gadget TV series. [edit] Tethers are chuck-e-cheese tokens that became so integral to the entire cryptocurrency market (90% of ETH inflow and 80% of BTC inflow are Tether, no…

It's not backed by nothing, Tether probably has at least $10B USD in cash or so in deposits safely stored somewhere. The problem is that there are 25 billion USDT.

Why do you say $10B out of curiosity? The last hard numbers we had were when they issued ~2.5B, and had $800M siezed because they banked with a money launderer (CryptoCapital). If you look at the Bahamian government's report on domestic banks with USD on deposit, the total for all banks grew $1B last year while over $20B Tethers were issued.

Further, let's say they have $10B. If all of those are the proceeds of money laundering (and let's face it, they probably are, after all, why would anyone give Tether money when they could give Circle money or Coinbase money) - then they'd all be forfeit anyways.

And even if that's not true, they're under no obligation to redeem Tether tokens. Ever. It's in the T&Cs.

  Tether reserves the right to delay the redemption or withdrawal of Tether Tokens if such delay is necessitated by the illiquidity or unavailability or loss of any Reserves held by Tether to back the Tether Tokens, and Tether reserves the right to redeem Tether Tokens by in-kind redemptions of securities and other assets held in the Reserves. Tether makes no representations or warranties about whether Tether Tokens that may be traded on the Site may be traded on the Site at any point in the future, if at all. [1]
[1] tether.to/legal

Re: Reserve – A flexible pool of stablecoins designed to reduce risk

#24
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only purpose of this currency is to enrich those who invented it. As is tradition in crypto. It's kind of implicit. [edit] I mean, think about this rationally. You're creating a new token, that doesn't have revenue, a business model, or any way of generating income. And yet it is "100% asset backed, and funded by top Silicon Valley investors." Those investors aren't in it for their health. They don't care about…

> How can you make an honest ROI if you don't have income? This seems like a very curious view of the world to me. Do you believe that people who buy houses and sell them at a profit 20 years later are dishonest?

If you're an institutional investor in real estate, you can use real estate to generate a nice steady income, via rental. People who aren't parking capital or laundering money tend not to invest in houses to keep them empty.

Re: Reserve – A flexible pool of stablecoins designed to reduce risk

#25
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only purpose of this currency is to enrich those who invented it. As is tradition in crypto. It's kind of implicit. [edit] I mean, think about this rationally. You're creating a new token, that doesn't have revenue, a business model, or any way of generating income. And yet it is "100% asset backed, and funded by top Silicon Valley investors." Those investors aren't in it for their health. They don't care about…

> How can you make an honest ROI if you don't have income? This seems like a very curious view of the world to me. Do you believe that people who buy houses and sell them at a profit 20 years later are dishonest?

House price appreciation is a side effect. You can still collect rent. Or have a roof over your head.

Re: Reserve – A flexible pool of stablecoins designed to reduce risk

#26

Oh, is this what Leverage Research turned into? Interesting.

Interesting. I see some of the same members from that organization, but it doesn't seem strictly related to it?

For context, Leverage Research was this pseudo-science psychology woo/cultish org made by people related to the rationalist movement. See: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8j4zirwfhWhT8nwsc/a-critique... for some background.

Re: Reserve – A flexible pool of stablecoins designed to reduce risk

#27
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only purpose of this currency is to enrich those who invented it. As is tradition in crypto. It's kind of implicit. [edit] I mean, think about this rationally. You're creating a new token, that doesn't have revenue, a business model, or any way of generating income. And yet it is "100% asset backed, and funded by top Silicon Valley investors." Those investors aren't in it for their health. They don't care about…

> How can you make an honest ROI if you don't have income? This seems like a very curious view of the world to me. Do you believe that people who buy houses and sell them at a profit 20 years later are dishonest?

I think the OP meant speculative. Most jobs create value, some don't. Some people just have a hard time digesting and wrapping their heads around making money without creating actual value.

Re: Reserve – A flexible pool of stablecoins designed to reduce risk

#28

What is it running on top of (Ethereum, its own blockchain)? Is it similar to MakerDAO?

If it's running on Ethereum then users will see $5-20 transaction fees and >20 second transaction times. That's not a great experience for first time users

Re: Reserve – A flexible pool of stablecoins designed to reduce risk

#29
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people calling ‘USDT’ a scam probably haven’t used it. For the past 5 years, Tether has been the most amazing way for me to transfer dollars across exchanges, or just to hold during market drawdowns. The fact that it is unregulated, and weakly subject to AML/KYC is a feature for me, not a problem. My money, my business, not the governments.

No, the people calling USDT a scam know that it's backed by nothing, and Tether has no obligation whatsoever to redeem them, ever (it's in their T&Cs). Their banking partner, Deltec, in the Bahamas is chaired by the man who created the Inspector Gadget TV series. [edit] Tethers are chuck-e-cheese tokens that became so integral to the entire cryptocurrency market (90% of ETH inflow and 80% of BTC inflow are Tether, no…

> Their banking partner, Deltec, in the Bahamas is chaired by the man who created the Inspector Gadget TV series.

That actually increases their credibility in my eyes. Someone with genuine, real-world-useful talent is involved in this?

Re: Reserve – A flexible pool of stablecoins designed to reduce risk

#30
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only purpose of this currency is to enrich those who invented it. As is tradition in crypto. It's kind of implicit. [edit] I mean, think about this rationally. You're creating a new token, that doesn't have revenue, a business model, or any way of generating income. And yet it is "100% asset backed, and funded by top Silicon Valley investors." Those investors aren't in it for their health. They don't care about…

> How can you make an honest ROI if you don't have income? This seems like a very curious view of the world to me. Do you believe that people who buy houses and sell them at a profit 20 years later are dishonest?

You are right, it's just like real estate investment, but using speculative tokens that have no intrinsic value.

It's like you take the housing part out of the housing bubble, and are left with the speculative aspect, the bubble.

Post reply on HN