Tether price manipulation • Hacker News Board

Re: Tether price manipulation

#91

Post by michaelchisari » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #86

qeternity wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even worse than that. Shorting TSLA is dangerous because of the above. But it's mitigated by people purchasing shares with real fiat. They have a natural incentive to not be absurd: whether or not $800/share is absurd is a matter of opinion...but everyone would agree that $1m/share is absurd. Tether has no such limitation. All the exchanges are complicit in this, wash trading is rampant, and there's an de facto…

Wait what’s the January 15th date?

Bitfinex and Tether have till the 15th of January to submit documents to the New York state attorney general about their financial relationship. The shortfall of $850m was allegedly printed by Tether and given to Bitfinex to cover up the losses Crypto Capital created. It is speculated Bitfinex and Tether can't submit any documents without revealing their cover-up. This will result in the conclusion that Tether isn't backed 1:1 by USD by a lot of investors and will results in more investigation by the attorney general. Tether is unaudited at the moment, meaning no one checked the bankroll of Tether if there really is $23b USD there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/ksdfne/why_...

Re: Tether price manipulation

#92

Post by griffoa » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

leppr wrote: post #74

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, it's just that nobody cares about BTC itself, but only about its value relative to USD. Crypto is not a currency but an investment product; can we please just accept that and talk about it for what it is?

"Nobody" is an exaggeration. There is a big community of enthusiasts who enjoy cryptocurrencies for what they are and enable, not for their USD value in the markets.

What do they enable?

Is what they enable worth $40.000 to the enthusiasts?

Re: Tether price manipulation

#93

Post by kilnr » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

arvindamirtaa wrote: post #12

dsr_ wrote: post #2

While correlation is not causation, correlation is evidence for causation... and there's a lot of correlation in those graphs.

>"...correlation is evidence for causation" Yeah...that's not how it works.

I assume you've conflated evidence and proof?

Re: Tether price manipulation

#94

Post by caeril » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:28 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #64

qeternity wrote: post #15

The problem is that in the early days of @Bitfinex'ed this was all a bit of a sideshow because there was genuinely large interest from retail and the outcome of crypto was far less certain. However three years on, crypto still does not have a "killer app" and is 99.99% used for speculation. Bitcoin's narrative has had to morph from "digital currency" to "digital gold". But in the depths of the March panic, Tether jum…

>does not have a "killer app" and is 99.99% used for speculation You could argue speculation is the killer app. I'm not a fan but it's hard to deny it's a huge business and some people seem to like it. Kind of like Las Vegas in a way.

It definitely has a killer app. Probably not a big enough app to justify these prices, but one nonetheless.

As Stripe, PayPal, Visa, Gofundme, Patreon, et. al. shut down avenues of payments for legal, but unpopular purchases, BTC is the obvious workaround.

Vendors of firearms, pornography, legal funds for unpopular causes, dissident content creators, etc have become increasingly estranged from the "normal" payments market in the last few years. BTC is the killer app for this.

Re: Tether price manipulation

#95

Post by lukebuehler » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:28 PM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #15

The problem is that in the early days of @Bitfinex'ed this was all a bit of a sideshow because there was genuinely large interest from retail and the outcome of crypto was far less certain. However three years on, crypto still does not have a "killer app" and is 99.99% used for speculation. Bitcoin's narrative has had to morph from "digital currency" to "digital gold". But in the depths of the March panic, Tether jum…

I’ve been wondering if Tether is really a scam for a long time.

In all these analyses, one key point is missing: arbitrage traders have to make up for the sell pressure on USDT when Tethers are being printed and sold for BTC. Can anyone show me how there is a plausible mechanism/scheme/conspiracy that keeps the USD/USDT exchange rate stable while a crazy amount of illegitimate Tethers are being printed?

Edit: typo and removed link.

Re: Tether price manipulation

#96

Post by shuntress » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:32 PM UTC

40four wrote: post #78

shuntress wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gathered basically this same explanation but it still makes no sense. Are people trading BTC for "Land for sale on the moon" too? This sounds like exchanges handing out IOUs instead of money when their patrons try to cash out.

It’s not individuals buying Tether from Bitfinex and then buying Bitcoin that causes this. It is Bitfinex as an organization ‘printing’ free money and using it to pump the market.

>Bitfinex as an organization ‘printing’ free money and using it to pump the market.

How?

Re: Tether price manipulation

#97

Post by seibelj » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

vegannet wrote: post #71

Traster wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I don't understand about the "Illegit" method is that it relies on people accepting USDT for BTC and then not cashing them out to real USD. Because if the company is printing USDT it wouldn't have the cash to pay the people trying to cash out USDT. So to allow this to happen you would need a people to be holding a huge amount of USDT.

You can’t redeem Tether — that’s a core part of the fraud, they have “banking issues” and had them for years. You can sell it on an exchange but the Tether organisation have prevented any redemption of USD from USDT for years. Anybody turning USDT into USD is selling their USDT.

Plenty of companies redeem USDT for USD. I myself worked at a company that redeemed billions of dollars. The FUD on HN is approaching delusional levels.

Re: Tether price manipulation

#98

Post by tim333 » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #39

mmiliauskas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you copy/paste this from 2017? :D

The fact that the above still remains true 3 years later is pretty damning.

It also suggests things will go on and we'll be in much the same situation in years going forward.

Re: Tether price manipulation

#99

Post by Triv888 » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

sharperguy wrote: post #19

Surely the only way to keep the valuer of tether stable is to "print" more of it whenever its value starts to increase? Otherwise it wouldn't be always worth $1.

They would have to destroy some too at some point otherwise the price would go down? Do they do that?

Re: Tether price manipulation

#100

Post by martinko » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

40four wrote: post #78

shuntress wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gathered basically this same explanation but it still makes no sense. Are people trading BTC for "Land for sale on the moon" too? This sounds like exchanges handing out IOUs instead of money when their patrons try to cash out.

It’s not individuals buying Tether from Bitfinex and then buying Bitcoin that causes this. It is Bitfinex as an organization ‘printing’ free money and using it to pump the market.

Nonsense. If this were the case then tether could not trade at par.