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Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend

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Re: Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend

#51
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you just buy USD directly? How does that help? What does the C part of it do?

No, in many countries you cannot buy USD directly. You also cannot store USD in a local bank account. And in various places it's explicitly forbidden to hold USD as savings because it would devalue local currency if everyone started transacting in USD instead. So, the "C" makes USD exposure available to anyone worldwide, assuming you have e.g. an Ethereum wallet.

The big one is that many countries do offer foreign currency accounts, but don’t properly hold reserves for them, so the security is there until it isn’t.

Re: Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend

#52
post #41

Tether, the Sauron of stablecoins, has zero exposure to SVB and is holding the peg just fine. Sorry Patio and friends, maybe next time :)

Tether has lots of experience in this field. They were "pioneer" and they went through a lot worse: Tons of FUD, the Bitfinex exchange hack, lawsuits, bank runs etc... In short, they are battle and stress tested to the maximum.

more like experienced fraudsters. madoff was able to keep his scheme going for far too long i.e. multiple decades

Re: Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend

#53
post #43

So USDC is currently trading at $0.93. Which, if you believe in Coinbase, is free money. And if you don't, then its very bad news for the company and possibly worse news for the banks that are keeping the USDC reserves, because they are about to have a massive bank run on monday. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/usd-coin/

now .89

there are no freebies in finance. no one knows what is left. probably less than many think.

Re: Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend

#54

USDC is managed the Centre consortium, which was founded by Circle and includes Coinbase as a member. Circle held around $3.3 billion in Silicon Valley Bank, leading to a run on USDC which resulted in it trading for as little as $0.95 on some exchanges today (Mar 10, 2023). This represents around 30% of USDC's cash reserves and 7% of its total reserves. The balance of reserves are held in T-Bills, which are liquid an…

The balance of reserves are held in T-Bills, which are liquid and typically can only be traded during market hours.

Ok I'll buy that if you or I wanted to sell treasury bills, but... if a company needs to liquidate $10B of treasury bills over the weekend, can't they just call up the CEO of JPMorgan and say "hey we'll give you 10 basis points over Monday's 9AM rate" and make a deal happen?

Re: Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend

#55

USDC is managed the Centre consortium, which was founded by Circle and includes Coinbase as a member. Circle held around $3.3 billion in Silicon Valley Bank, leading to a run on USDC which resulted in it trading for as little as $0.95 on some exchanges today (Mar 10, 2023). This represents around 30% of USDC's cash reserves and 7% of its total reserves. The balance of reserves are held in T-Bills, which are liquid an…

The balance of reserves are held in T-Bills, which are liquid and typically can only be traded during market hours. Ok I'll buy that if you or I wanted to sell treasury bills, but... if a company needs to liquidate $10B of treasury bills over the weekend, can't they just call up the CEO of JPMorgan and say "hey we'll give you 10 basis points over Monday's 9AM rate" and make a deal happen?

They can try, but no guarantees.

Re: Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend

#57
post #43

So USDC is currently trading at $0.93. Which, if you believe in Coinbase, is free money. And if you don't, then its very bad news for the company and possibly worse news for the banks that are keeping the USDC reserves, because they are about to have a massive bank run on monday. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/usd-coin/

now .89 there are no freebies in finance. no one knows what is left. probably less than many think.

Coinbase should be buying that USDC on chain. They can guarantee it's worth $1 to themselves.

Re: Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend

#59
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

now .89 there are no freebies in finance. no one knows what is left. probably less than many think.

Coinbase should be buying that USDC on chain. They can guarantee it's worth $1 to themselves.

They can't if the USD backing the USDC is stuck in SVB.

Re: Coinbase suspending USDC:USD conversions over the weekend

#60

USDC is managed the Centre consortium, which was founded by Circle and includes Coinbase as a member. Circle held around $3.3 billion in Silicon Valley Bank, leading to a run on USDC which resulted in it trading for as little as $0.95 on some exchanges today (Mar 10, 2023). This represents around 30% of USDC's cash reserves and 7% of its total reserves. The balance of reserves are held in T-Bills, which are liquid an…

Looks like USDC dropped all the way down to $0.85 on some exchanges.

USDC, FRAX, DAI, USDD and USDP all seem to be having a moment.

As someone who only observes crypto, the past 4.5 hours (at my time of writing) has been interesting to watch.

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