Live data from Hacker News

$1M bounty for details on Tether’s backing

hindenburgresearch.com

301–310 of 326 posts

Re: $1M bounty for details on Tether’s backing

#301
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hindenburg is not the real deal. If you think Hindenburg is the real deal you should pay closer attention to their activities. They (he) are one of a number of noisy short sellers who try to drive stock prices with their tweets/reports. SEC should be doing things to these people. https://hindenburgresearch.com/about-us/ Which of the items listed there do you have an issue with? Hindenburg were the folks who gave us…

Yes, he has a website where he pats himself on the back for all of the good calls he's made. I've seen it. Ask yourself, why does a short seller need public confidence at all? It's because they want to be able to move the stock price when they publish something.

> Yes, he has a website where he pats himself on the back for all of the good calls he's made. I've seen it. Ask yourself, why does a short seller need public confidence at all? It's because they want to be able to move the stock price when they publish something.

I'm sorry, but no shit? You frame it like there's some insight or conspiracy theory in there.

Again: What is your issue with this? The market has rules, some companies skirt them or outright lie. The size of the market is too large to regulate with our current mechanisms and short sellers fill some of these gaps for a profit. It becomes an issue if the short seller is wrong and causes harm to a company undeservingly, but you haven't proven that case here.

Re: $1M bounty for details on Tether’s backing

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t matter what fiat the sell into, all that matters is they are selling BTC. It will go down against all pairs.

They would be selling USDT. Especially on short notice, with Tethers sitting on an exchange that may not have access to fiat, they will likely sell to BTC or ETH at least at first.

Yes, but the best way to sell USDT is via crypto legs: buy BTC/USDT and sell BTC/USD - the net result of this is selling USDT/USD. The actual USDT/USD markets just aren't real/deep enough.

So the price in USDT terms skyrockets and the price in USD terms craters.

Re: $1M bounty for details on Tether’s backing

#303
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those people wanted to hold BTC, they'd have been holding it in the first place, instead of USDT.

They’d prefer holding USDT to BTC. In this event we describe though, they may prefer selling for BTC or other cryptocurrency. They may not have the option of selling for fiat currency, as well, at least not right away. The assumption that an exit from Tether would lead to an exit from BTC is not necessarily well founded.

You're talking about people who have already exited BTC - that's why they are holding USDT.

People flock to stables/fiat when uncertainty/risk increases, yes? So you have a bunch of people ($70b worth) who are currently in USDT. Then you have to account for all the people currently in crypto who would sell into stables/fiat in a black swan event.

What's the argument against this? You say that the argument is not well founded. Ok, fine. I've outlined my argument. What's the counter? What's the line of thinking where USDT holders en masse flock back into crypto when the safe haven that they already wanted to be in implodes?

Re: $1M bounty for details on Tether’s backing

#304
post #108

It may be counterintuitive, but the best thing that could happen to Bitcoin would be for Tether to collapse in a cloud of dust. Tether is continually cited as a large risk factor to Bitcoin by people who have gotten past the "it's not real money" objection. But I think it's worth considering what happens if the collapse never comes. If government investigation, findings of wrongdoing, admission of lies, and punishmen…

> It waxes and wanes with the Bitcoin halving cycle, but always comes back stronger than before.

Already forgot about 2008? Go check all theses banks values! Morgan Stanley is on an all time high right now!

Re: $1M bounty for details on Tether’s backing

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh? Why should the SEC do anything? If it's wrong to talk about a company in hopes of affecting the stock price, shouldn't Elon Musk be doing hard time?

1. Because that's market manipulation. 2. SEC did something to Musk, maybe you forgot, maybe you don't think it was enough, but they did something.

As speedybird points out, that's not market manipulation in the legal sense. And if it were, the Fortune 500 CEOs and CFOs should go to jail immediately, because they all have whole departments that release information to analysts and the public in ways intended to influence the stock price.

If that's what you're arguing for, I might be able to get behind it. But I'm definitely opposed to "pumping the market is fine but countering hype should be illegal".

Re: $1M bounty for details on Tether’s backing

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Hindenburg is the real deal. Hindenburg is not the real deal. If you think Hindenburg is the real deal you should pay closer attention to their activities. They (he) are one of a number of noisy short sellers who try to drive stock prices with their tweets/reports. SEC should be doing things to these people. That said, he is probably right about Tether. Tether should make every crypto speculator or holder very nervo…

Oh? Why should the SEC do anything? If it's wrong to talk about a company in hopes of affecting the stock price, shouldn't Elon Musk be doing hard time?

Hard time is for suckers that can't afford the $40m fine.

Re: $1M bounty for details on Tether’s backing

#307

Tether is obviously not backed 1:1 by USD as previously claimed. Now the dodgy piechart informs us that it is backed mainly by corporate bonds and loans - if true I would guess mostly to related companies. A recent Bloomberg article says they have been lending Billions to Chinese property companies! Eventually enough of the gullible fools will realise that the Emperor has no clothes, then there will be a run on Tethe…

It won't be that straightforward.

Tether is one head of the snake. As scrutiny increases on USDT, volume will simply shift to USDC and other similarly unaudited stablecoins. These can be issued and adopted faster than regulators can file cases against them.

Re: $1M bounty for details on Tether’s backing

#308
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Hindenburg is the real deal. Hindenburg is not the real deal. If you think Hindenburg is the real deal you should pay closer attention to their activities. They (he) are one of a number of noisy short sellers who try to drive stock prices with their tweets/reports. SEC should be doing things to these people. That said, he is probably right about Tether. Tether should make every crypto speculator or holder very nervo…

They had a pretty serious report against Nikola that forced the CEO to step down and started an SEC investigation. They also forced a CEO stepdown at Lordstown motors, got the SEC to investigate and forced the company to amend their accounting statements. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_Research And their reports have been pretty accurate this year based on long term market reaction: https://breakoutpoint.…

The thing is, anybody that actually followed that industry in any serious way and had any technical understanding knew that that company was full of shit.

A number of stories were already floating around from former employees.

The company was the most obvious scam I have seen in my life. With minimal intelligence and just 10 min of listening to the CEO made clear that it was a scam company.

Sure they went threw the effort and and gathered that stuff up and did some research, but it was hardly some master-journalism that was required.

Re: $1M bounty for details on Tether’s backing

#309
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Hindenburg is the real deal. Hindenburg is not the real deal. If you think Hindenburg is the real deal you should pay closer attention to their activities. They (he) are one of a number of noisy short sellers who try to drive stock prices with their tweets/reports. SEC should be doing things to these people. That said, he is probably right about Tether. Tether should make every crypto speculator or holder very nervo…

They were right about Nikola and Lordstown Motors. I’m a Hinden-believer I suppose

Anybody that has been following that space in any details already knew that Nikola and Lordstown were terrible companies.

They did some minimal journalism on them and put it out. And nothing the showed outside of maybe that the truck was going down hill was in the least surprising.

Re: $1M bounty for details on Tether’s backing

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would be selling USDT. Especially on short notice, with Tethers sitting on an exchange that may not have access to fiat, they will likely sell to BTC or ETH at least at first.

Yes, but the best way to sell USDT is via crypto legs: buy BTC/USDT and sell BTC/USD - the net result of this is selling USDT/USD. The actual USDT/USD markets just aren't real/deep enough. So the price in USDT terms skyrockets and the price in USD terms craters.

I'm just wondering, now that they have USD, after selling BTC, what do you think they are they going to do with the USD? It's not like they can extract easily USD from Binance or KuCoin (two of the most popular asian crypto exchanges, where USDT is also the most popular). As I alluded to in a comment above, the reason they are using USDT in the first place is because they can't deal with USD (or fiat) easily. So do they go into some other stablecoin, or keep it in BTC (or ETH), and try to move that to another exchange which is better suited as a fiat gateway? What if this other exchange is a heavily KYC'd exchange that they don't have access to in their jurisdiction, or that it would take a long time to get access to, even if it is available in their jurisdiction? There's also fiat withdrawal limits to consider, which are generally lower than crypto withdrawal limits. Also, to even be able to withdrawal fiat, instead of crypto, requires even higher levels of KYC, more processing time, no guarantee that they will be approved, etc. So, what do you think they will do then? This is also what TimeBearingDown was referring to in a sibling thread.
Post reply on HN