Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions? • Hacker News Board

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#331

Post by imtringued » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 10:42 AM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #171

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said right the way through. The other thing cryptocurrencies potentially offer is an alternative financial system to the status quo. There are lots of bugs to be worked out, but it's well on its way, and Solana and Ethereum (as only two examples of many) have the ability to act as the platform upon which these financial services can be built.

Crypto has the potential to break down any middle man and gate keeper. The very middle man this community bashes on a daily basis (Big Tech and all). It's an odd contradiction, but I'm used to it.

You overestimate the power of money and underestimate reality.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#332

Post by Danieru » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 10:43 AM UTC

jcpham2 wrote: post #244

arcticbull wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took Liberty Reserve 7 years and 17 countries cooperating to get nuked from orbit. Tether was founded as Realcoin in 2014 by a group including former child star and accused sex offender Brock Pierce, so while it’s technically just rounding the 7 year mark, it didn’t begin in earnest until it was taken over by Bitfinex towards 2015 and didn’t become majorly problematic until 2016/2017 according to the NYAG findings…

Bitcoin effectively is the reason I stopped leaving breadcrumbs for Twitter researchers in the future. I read his research and see forum posts from idiots we use to laugh at on irc, but I myself participated in the pirate@40 ponzi, as other people did - maybe 47 poor souls if memory serves. What a lot people can’t seem to grasp about 2012 is Bitcoin miners were flush with Bitcoin and no place to spend it, no place to…

Can you explain how the proportional payout is broken? It is not immediately obvious to me how the pool hopping worked. Of course I accept it was broken, I've just never seen an explanation of now. Any explanation of PPLN lasts the historic perspective.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#333

Post by asah » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 10:44 AM UTC

My 2c: large crypto investors have no choice but to use stablecoins and they've made such crazy gains they don't care if tether "breaks the buck" - to them, it's just another day in the market where their assets go up and down by 10+%.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#334

Post by imtringued » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 10:52 AM UTC

mariocesar wrote: post #11

moneywoes wrote: post #9

Are there any legitimate stable coins?

I think Binances BUSD is the closest to legitimate

Is free banking seeing a resurgence with all these stablecoins? Basically, people replaced bank notes with cryptocurrencies. It's still the same concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_banking

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#335

Post by naveen99 » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 10:54 AM UTC

The money stuff newsletter is less sensationalistic and more interesting and forward looking: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-07/matt-l...

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#336

Post by imtringued » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 10:59 AM UTC

sumeno wrote: post #18

moneywoes wrote: post #9

Are there any legitimate stable coins?

Are there any legitimate cryptocurrencies? Stable coins as just another layer of scam built upon a foundation of scams.

Freicoin exists and nobody adopted it. That kind of tells you everything you need to know. Freicoin was designed with a -5% interest rate to defeat speculation and encourage people to spend their money quickly. It also means that Freicoin loans are very affordable because even a 0% loan lets the lender avoid paying -5% interest.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#337

Post by raesene9 » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 11:03 AM UTC

ikeboy wrote: post #240

NelsonMinar wrote: post #28

I don't understand how Tether has survived this long. Bitfinex and Tether sure look transparently like a fraud, all the way back to the "no really we have $1 in the bank for every Tether but you can't audit us" days. And yet it continues to occupy its role as the underpinning of most cryptocurrency markets. Why hasn't it blown up yet? My best guess is that it's useful to everyone taking in money from new retail inves…

It's very easy to short tether, it costs around 4-5% a year. You can do it directly on FTX, or you can do it on ethereum by borrowing tether on aave against, say, USDC, and then selling it for USDC. You can do this in significant size, 8 figures+ if you'd like.

Shorting Tether would be an amazingly dangerous thing to do, especially on a closely associated exchange like FTX.

If Tether goes completely bust, it's likely that closely associated exchanges won't be able to cover the bets.

Until that happens, they control all the levers and can just move the market as necessary to make you lose your bet.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#338

Post by rand49an » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 11:05 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #320

nrb wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Included in the coinbase parameter of the genesis block of Bitcoin is the following message: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”

Bitcoin doesn't eliminate the need for bailouts. It doesn't even do lending, at least nobody is crazy enough to borrow something that is going up in value.

I think it's more a point that it's a currency that it is effectively impossible for anyone to change the supply more than it doesn't need to be bailed out.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#339

Post by darkerside » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 11:18 AM UTC

oars wrote: post #157

sbierwagen wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most plausible conspiracy theory I've seen for the complete lack of regulatory action against Bitcoin or Tether is that they're being used to launder money by the US intelligence community.

Do you have any resources or links where I can learn more about this? I'm very interested in exploring this concept.

Please be very careful. It's fun to think about this stuff, but it is very speculative. Don't end up in conspiracy theory land.

Re: Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?

#340

Post by arcticbull » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 11:21 AM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #267

impostervt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you're right. I think the major tipping point would be a major exchange deciding to no longer accept it.

you would need some news that makes USDT simultaneously radioactive to everyone holding it at the same time. runs fundamentally all work the same way, whether its Greek bonds, deposits in a bank, etc.

What I don't think most folks realize is that USDT is heavily centralized. They have an extensive 'blacklist' of tokens they've frozen, and they add to it regularly. Far more so, I believe, than any of the other stablecoins. They were the first (only?) to freeze tokens coming out of the Poly hack. [1]

I believe they even forced a change to Omni to support blacklisting after they were 'hacked' [2] a few years ago (scare quotes because it was never investigated or IMO resolved). [3]

It's highly antithetical to the Satoshi white paper.

If Tether gets shut down and their leadership banged up, I strongly suspect custody of the network will fall with the DoJ and they could, at their discretion, freeze all tokens pending full AML/KYC and source-of-funds of holders. Whether this is a credible fear or not, the ensuing fear and chaos would almost certainly break the $1 peg, especially once their exchange friends stop supporting the peg and turn states witness.

[1] https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/08/11/returned-funds-blac...

[2] https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2017/11/21/tether-claims-30...

[3] https://github.com/OmniLayer/omnicore/releases/tag/v0.3.0