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Tether: The Story So Far

kalzumeus.com

31–40 of 241 posts

Re: Tether: The Story So Far

#31
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested if you think there's anywhere I make a strong claim without appropriately strong evidence. There are a lot of strong claims, but I'm justifiably confident of them. Many of them are cited inline.

It is more about the general "conspiracy" tone of the article. It is like "OMG banks can create money, what a conspiracy" by some people who are surprised by the facts on how financial system works when they finally learn some basics. There is strong demand for any kind of vehicle which allows transferring value digitally outside of the traditional banking system. I don't think tether users trust tether because they…

There is strong demand for any kind of vehicle which allows transferring value digitally outside of the traditional banking system.

Crypto supporters have been saying this for a decade, but outside of money laundering, drug sales, and hodle profiteering, no such demand has been shown to exist.

Of course the huge demand has been spotted by many others and now there are loads of these "stablecoins". Some are more regulated and might take quickly over if feds decide to stop tether.

If the "feds" go after tether, they will also go after the alternative stablecoins.

Re: Tether: The Story So Far

#32
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tether has gigantic red flags including not being able to actually exchange it for dollars even though it is pegged to dollars. It's so brazen it's hard to even believe it.

I'm not advocating for tether. But it is not a ponzi scheme. And I think that most of the users understand what tether is - they are not excepting returns, they also understand that it is unregulated vehicle where the backing can disappear any time if the issuers get into trouble. I would guess biggest use-case is moving fiat between exchanges without having compliance issues, which you would have with banks.

Correct, Tether is not a ponzi scheme, because a ponzi scheme is a specific type of scam vehicle in which earlier investors are paid their "profits" out of the investments made by later investors.

In Tether, only the original investors get profits, which they get form everyone else investing in Tether, so this is an entirely different type of scam.

Re: Tether: The Story So Far

#33
post #28

Cryptocurrencies are a religion. I find the idea that anyone would want to hold a large amount of any currency idle for a long period of time baffling. Yet this is the premise that so many people who are speculating in cryptocurrency "investments" have bought into. Then you add on top of that terrible user experience, slow transaction times, and lack of any theft protection and I don't understand why any sane person…

I don't see how this is related to the submitted article.

Re: Tether: The Story So Far

#34
post #28

Cryptocurrencies are a religion. I find the idea that anyone would want to hold a large amount of any currency idle for a long period of time baffling. Yet this is the premise that so many people who are speculating in cryptocurrency "investments" have bought into. Then you add on top of that terrible user experience, slow transaction times, and lack of any theft protection and I don't understand why any sane person…

It is quite natural to hold currency if you have no better investment ideas and dont have personal use for the funds, and I prefer to hold crypto more than fiat.

Re: Tether: The Story So Far

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is more about the general "conspiracy" tone of the article. It is like "OMG banks can create money, what a conspiracy" by some people who are surprised by the facts on how financial system works when they finally learn some basics. There is strong demand for any kind of vehicle which allows transferring value digitally outside of the traditional banking system. I don't think tether users trust tether because they…

There is strong demand for any kind of vehicle which allows transferring value digitally outside of the traditional banking system. Crypto supporters have been saying this for a decade, but outside of money laundering, drug sales, and hodle profiteering, no such demand has been shown to exist. Of course the huge demand has been spotted by many others and now there are loads of these "stablecoins". Some are more regul…

Debatable whether the feds would go after the competing stablecoins, but depending on the logic for the prosecutions/seizures, there are outcomes where they're economically inviable.

e.g. If Tether gets shut down because of fraudulent misuse of reserves, then the government might be OK with some aboveboard execution. If on the other hand they get shut down for money laundering via tether, well, stablecoins exist to enable that, and if they can't enable that they likely don't have a use case large enough to support the engineering/operational teams required to run them.

Re: Tether: The Story So Far

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kraken trades USD/USDT directly and will let you short.

Kraken's owners have ties with/overlap with Tether's owners. There is no wholly or even just meaningfully independent platform on which you can actually short Tether.

Can you provide source for the claim? AFAIK kraken is run by Jesse Powell in the US and it is totallt separate company from finex/tether.

Re: Tether: The Story So Far

#37
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not advocating for tether. But it is not a ponzi scheme. And I think that most of the users understand what tether is - they are not excepting returns, they also understand that it is unregulated vehicle where the backing can disappear any time if the issuers get into trouble. I would guess biggest use-case is moving fiat between exchanges without having compliance issues, which you would have with banks.

It does fill a need, and no one expects returns from it, but it most likely is fractionally reserved by btc. This means that if the price of btc drops too low and too many people cash out then it's over, because each tether cashed out will mean more and more btc are required.

That's optimistic. I think it's mostly reserved with nothing.

Re: Tether: The Story So Far

#38
post #14

"Players in the crypto ecosystem will be shocked, shocked to know it got this bad, this quickly, but this has been an open secret for over a year." ---- I'm not entirely in agreement the crypto world will be shocked tether is insolvent. As long the the fiat gateways exist to exit the system with gains intact, most could care less about tether. It's musical chairs.

Yeah, people have been saying that the Tether stuff is super shady and just waiting for the bubble to pop for the better part of 3 years. It's very much been an open secret.

Yeah, this kind of sensationalist articles start to be more like advertisements for tether since it has kept its peg for so long.

Re: Tether: The Story So Far

#39
post #14

"Players in the crypto ecosystem will be shocked, shocked to know it got this bad, this quickly, but this has been an open secret for over a year." ---- I'm not entirely in agreement the crypto world will be shocked tether is insolvent. As long the the fiat gateways exist to exit the system with gains intact, most could care less about tether. It's musical chairs.

Yeah, people have been saying that the Tether stuff is super shady and just waiting for the bubble to pop for the better part of 3 years. It's very much been an open secret.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-origin-of-the-phrase-I-am-...

Re: Tether: The Story So Far

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is more about the general "conspiracy" tone of the article. It is like "OMG banks can create money, what a conspiracy" by some people who are surprised by the facts on how financial system works when they finally learn some basics. There is strong demand for any kind of vehicle which allows transferring value digitally outside of the traditional banking system. I don't think tether users trust tether because they…

“I trust it because I need it and there are no alternatives” is not a compelling argument. It’s literal wishful thinking.

Trust is not binary.
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