51–60 of 119 posts
Sounds similar to basis. [1] I wonder how they are going to get around the unregistered security problem. [1] https://www.basis.io/
From their Ethics page. Should go over well with regulators.
When it removes the peg to the dollar, how it's supposed to be stabilized? "bunch of random collateral" isn't quite convincing. How are people going to trust that the collateral, like tokenized bonds, are actually valuable? I'm not going to trust such a system. Money based on trust is dead. The only purpose of this currency is to enrich those who invented it.
On one hand, yes, you are right. This "it's turtles all the way down" approach regarding valuation of tokenized assets is a huge source of systemic risk and those that want to be able to get greenbacks will be better off by using centralized stable tokens (like Circle's USDC or STASIS' EURS) On the other hand, any project that can be transparent about its reserves (whether though "smart contracts" or plain old armies…
I'd rather hold banks, regulators, and governments accountable so that I can safely and sensibly transfer funds rather than having to rely on bullshit nerd Ponzi schemes.
This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
"Somewhere" isn't good enough! Arcticbull was very clever to check the Bahamain government report. It's interesting to see how much money can be laundered and hidden, but $10bn starts to be noticeable.
https://twitter.com/SBF_Alameda/status/1349331577390579718?s...
Many of the other points are discussed in this rebuttle:
https://danheld.substack.com/p/dont-fear-tether
The more alternatives to Tether the better, so long as they compete towards realizing transparency where it matters.
> Crypto-as-money is still young. We have a lot to do. Do you remember Napster? Tether is kinda like Napster – it's taking off, people love it, it's a little sketchy, and it's probably not the design that will last. We don't want to make the equivalent of Kazaa – another blip in the history that ultimately doesn't ultimately work out. The challenge is to build a platform that's as robust as BitTorrent and as great to…
They do not apply to all financial interactions. Fortunately they have not yet passed KYC laws that apply to many types of peer-to-peer financial activity, as the ones in force were designed for an era where electronic transactions were only intermediated by large trusted third parties, and largely exempt direct p2p transactions.
So this sudden opportunity to legally engage in financial interactions without the encumberance of 40 years of accumulated AML/KYC laws that has arrived with the emergence of decentralized finance offers the opportunity to reverse the trend toward governments, at the behest of international organizations like the FATF, increasingly resorting to the warrantless dragnet surveillance of finance approach to combating crime, i.e. Total Information Awareness applied to private financial interactions.
Similar to how the internet forced governments to back off on censorship laws, cryptocurrency has the potential to force the political class to rethink current financial crime laws and liberalize people's access to money. It has the potential to lead to criminal laws being limited to those that respect traditional due process and privacy rights, and the principles of freedom of association and presumption of innocence that free societies depend on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On one hand, yes, you are right. This "it's turtles all the way down" approach regarding valuation of tokenized assets is a huge source of systemic risk and those that want to be able to get greenbacks will be better off by using centralized stable tokens (like Circle's USDC or STASIS' EURS) On the other hand, any project that can be transparent about its reserves (whether though "smart contracts" or plain old armies…
Remove the unconstrained supply of Mickey Mouse money (Tether) and eliminate wash trading, and you will watch Bitcoin descend into the abyss rather quickly.
Yeah, yeah, I get it. No one can really know the true price of BTC. It's all speculation. Nothing to back it up... what else do you have?
Understand this: there is a large number of people that will keep working with BTC (and crypto) regardless of price and current market conditions. There is a large number of people that don't care about the price. People will keep building things on crypto, regardless of price and it will become more and more of an alternative to existing financial/economical systems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Somewhere" isn't good enough! Arcticbull was very clever to check the Bahamain government report. It's interesting to see how much money can be laundered and hidden, but $10bn starts to be noticeable.
I recently read the rebuttle to this layer of the Tether saga and it seems this has been addressed (to a degree). https://twitter.com/SBF_Alameda/status/1349331577390579718?s... Many of the other points are discussed in this rebuttle: https://danheld.substack.com/p/dont-fear-tether The more alternatives to Tether the better, so long as they compete towards realizing transparency where it matters.
Further, one of the Tether clowns has stated his defense for printing huge piles of Tether on a Saturday morning is that all of the major exchanges and OTC desks actually have accounts with Deltec and they're doing an intra-account transfer. [edit] it was Paolo.
Last, in their weird vlog post, someone at Deltec admitted they had a huge stake in Bitcoin, which more than likely represents the assets "backing" Tether. They printed tether, bought bitcoin with it, drove up the price, and used it to back their tokens.
You should be utterly and totally terrified of Tether and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you a bridge.
[edit] FWIW, I've heard rumors of them buying up small community banks in the US to force them to take on the relationship. You know, like money launderers do. That's the only way I could see them having a US routing number.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Precisely. Provide stability in exchange of absorbing the risks from the underlying assets. It's what every bank could do, even without fractional reserve. I've had my share of discussions with arcticbull, it's amazing how smart he can be when he wants and how clueless he makes himself to be when it comes to acknowledging the upside of crypto projects.
It's always a pleasure though! :) I certainly learn a lot from y'all. I should say, I freely acknowledge I don't have all the answers - clueless in some cases even, to borrow a turn of phrase. I find crypto fascinating, like many folks, from a technical perspective. I remain unconvinced about it's practical real-world applications.
When your idea of "real-world" is one where all people have access to stable, robust and functional institutions, it's no surprise that you don't see the necessity of alternatives.
Consider it a privilege. And I don't mean it in a derogatory way.
My personal expectation is that the existing frontrunners, Bitcoin and Ethereum, will stabilize in price as the percentage of retail speculators decreases and the percentage of institutional investors + users increase.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Remove the unconstrained supply of Mickey Mouse money (Tether) and eliminate wash trading, and you will watch Bitcoin descend into the abyss rather quickly.
Codebolt calls for the death of BTC, news at 11. Yeah, yeah, I get it. No one can really know the true price of BTC. It's all speculation. Nothing to back it up... what else do you have? Understand this: there is a large number of people that will keep working with BTC (and crypto) regardless of price and current market conditions. There is a large number of people that don't care about the price . People will keep b…
How can Tether have a daily trading volume of almost 100 bln on a supply of 'just' 24 bln? Seems rather obvious that the vast majority of crypto trades are done by HFT algos and not people (or worse, that the actual supply of Tether is much higher than the reported supply).
You can't deny that Tether is a very essential component in the crypto markets. It is also an unregulated, unaudited private entity operating outside western jurisdictions, with a long history of controversies: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2019/10/28/tether-and-bitfinex/
Hardly the group you'd want managing a global currency system.