Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

blockworks.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 376 posts

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

#331

Post by smoovb »

luka-birsa wrote: post #312

I really wonder if USDT bashing will get old or will people finally get that USDT will not just disappear overnight. They've redeemed 11% of their total capitalization and nothing happened. I despise shady accounting practices and I'm sure Tether is on par with a good american financial institution, but I highly doubt it they will ever default. I know it's a long shot, but hear me out: 1. Their redemption process can…

Large US Banks are required to handle a 10% of capitalization bank run. So USDT has already exceeded widely accepted fractional reserve requirements.

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

#332

Post by krzyk »

maccard wrote: post #325
krzyk wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I'm aware how it works in my country and the taxable event is only when you exchange into fiat, service or a physical object. Example for Poland: http://lexplorers.pl/en/polish-taxation-rules-virtual-curren... German law is even better, you don't pay any tax for selling digital currencies if you hold it for at least a year.

My reading of that article is not the same as yours. It clearly state dthat gains due to crypto are to be taxed at 19% - the CGT rate. > German law is even better, you don't pay any tax for selling digital currencies if you hold it for at least a year. That's absolutely not the case - gains are treated as income if held over a year, not tax free. Coinbase has a really solid article on it [0] [0] https://help.coinbase…

Thanks I wasn't aware that Germany has such taxes.

As for Poland see Google translate page of official guidance from goverment: https://www-podatki-gov-pl.translate.goog/pit/rozliczenie-ze...

I poked around on Google and it looks like it is similar to France where crypto swap is also not taxable. (but I don't pay taxes there so it might be more complicated).

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

#333

Post by MerelyMortal »

luka-birsa wrote: post #312

I really wonder if USDT bashing will get old or will people finally get that USDT will not just disappear overnight. They've redeemed 11% of their total capitalization and nothing happened. I despise shady accounting practices and I'm sure Tether is on par with a good american financial institution, but I highly doubt it they will ever default. I know it's a long shot, but hear me out: 1. Their redemption process can…

As long as there is a BTC/USDT and a BTC/USD market, Tether will work. If someone wants to sell USDT for USD, All Tether has to do is buy BTC with USDT, then sell the BTC for USD.

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

#334

Post by smoovb »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #201
jsemrau wrote: post #150

I read about this last week [1] and am still quite perplexed about Tether and its a backing. If you look at the redemption pattern you can see large movements. I.e. a whale must be withdrawing funds. This really reminds me of 2008. [1] https://app.finclout.io/t/kVr06N0

I would imagine exchanges hold a lot of Tether. All of them should be trying to limit their exposure as much as possible as fast as possible.

Exchanges like Binance, FTX and Bitfinex are all Tether supporters, and will not let if fail - or they go down too. Since they themselves hold a larger portion of it, they can in a sense, control if it fails or not.

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

#335

Post by ac29 »

kgwgk wrote: post #299
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the breakdown for USDC. Luckily for crypto, USDC keeps climbing the charts and USDT will be a memory soon. Bad money is always exchanged out for good. >Jeremy Allaire @jerallaire 3/ As of 12:00pm EST Friday, May 13, 2022, the USDC reserve consisted of $11.6 billion cash (22.9%), $39.0 billion U.S. Treasuries (77.1%), for a total of $50.6 billion (100%), and there were 50.6 billion USDC in circulation

> $39.0 billion U.S. Treasuries Par value or market value? If it’s the former the current value is surely less.

Why? Treasury bills are the appropriate choice here and are always bought at a discount to par.

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

#336

Post by dropnerd »

hoschicz wrote: post #260
taspeotis wrote: post #165

Look I am very ignorant about all this stuff but ... is there any downside to shorting a stablecoin? Please be gentle with me: Like if you short it and the price doesn't move (by design) are you out any money? The price won't go up (by design) because nobody's going to spend too much money from their reserves to support a price over US$1. But it's possible for the reserves to run dry in which case the price goes down…

Yes, there is essentially no downside. I do it; on Aave you can deposit USDC and borrow USDT against it, earning an interest on USDC and paying interest on the USDT. It currently costs me about 3 APR to short Tether. What's nice is that you can iterate the strategy, e.g. deposit 1000 USDC, borrow 950 USDT, swap this USDT for USDC, deposit the USDC, borrow more USDT... https://app.aave.com/ offers "E-mode", which lets…

levered shorts do have a liquidation downside, while any short has an implicit opportunity cost downside over time.

the fact that defi shorting is available is a great improvement. now there's only smart contract risk, which for aave is negligible compared to exchange risk.

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

#337

Post by web4 »

FireBeyond wrote: post #315
web4 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep. the rich tend to be given access to better banking services than the poor: higher limits, direct line of contact with a bank manager, additional services. when your account reaches a certain wealth threshold the bank will step in to ensure you have a better experience than the poor. banking is a radically different design philosophy than a protocol where all addresses and transactions are treated equally regardl…

It is self-fulfilling in regards to your point though. "Oh, that's not a useful system, because there are limits." "Well, when you get near those limits the bank starts to work with you so those are still not roadblocks." "Oh, well that's just because they prefer the rich to the poor." No, you miss the point. At lower amounts, it's a non-issue because you're not hitting limits. At the point where you are hitting limi…

the system can and does favour those by social class, connections, race, gender. discrimination in financial and lending services is a well documented issue. the fact that the banking system “imposes limits and barriers until you reach a certain social class” is not a point in favour of the banking system.

most private clients are getting cushy services such as better lending and interest rates, faster payment times, better wealth management services.

but I digress. the banks are useful obviously, despite their flaws, and in the EU and UK the banks tend to be some of the best in the world. this is not to say banks as a whole are useless, but banking systems on average across the globe have many aspects that fall short of our ideals. crypto does not fill all of those, and has plenty of flaws and issues as well, but it does excel in certain areas and at the very least provide a competition that forces us to more closely consider the pitfalls of our typical financial structures.

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

#338

Post by seoaeu »

anonymousab wrote: post #266
viraptor wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Surely it's 100%, surely the Tether project was not abjectly lying about their entire raison d'être this whole time.

Nah, the raison d'être of the project (like anything cryptocurrency related) is earning the creators tons of money. Scamming a whole bunch of cryptocurrency users by selling them tokens, and then absconding with the assets they’re supposedly backed by would be a highly effective way to do that

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

#339

Post by exdsq »

dmitriid wrote: post #330
exdsq wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can actually interact with some crypto projects over SMS, and at the moment there are countries where the majority of txs are SMS mobile credit swaps. The issue is these don’t offer things like account histories, you can’t access financial products like loans (i.e micro loans) and remittance payments are hard to do from abroad in this way. But actually smart phones and internet access is surprisingly high in sub…

> You can actually interact with some crypto projects over SMS Keyword: some. Also, banking over SMS was a thing long before crypto. > But actually smart phones and internet access is surprisingly high in sub Saharan africa where they primarily still use SMS trading. Then it will be swallowed by something smilar to AliPay. Not by crypto.

How do you sign up to AliPay?

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

#340

Post by Jommi »

chx wrote: post #303
Jommi wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Works is an interesting choice of word. https://twitter.com/qrs/status/1395784294451265536 > Smart contracts should be considered self-funded bug-bounty platforms.

You share a link to a tweet with a phot of an ATM. What is your point?

What do you think it true anti-fragility in a system? Something that is built form the ground-up in a regulatory too-big-to-fail environment, or something that starts from the wilderness, gets beaten down multiple times, yet grows back up stronger than before.

That is true antifragility.

Post reply on HN