Feel free to call it delusion or whatever. I operate in facts. NY AG prohibited them from doing business in NY and proved that they lied. If they lied about having enough dollars to have 1 for 1 peg, it is reasonable to assume they lied about everything else.
@johnarb I am too lazy to look it up, but do you know off hand when the first set of documents is supposed to be produced that tether apparently agreed to releasing? There seems to be a stalemate with regards to the current situation and you seem to think that just because they got somewhat off the hook, that it means they are in the clear. So I'm willing to wait until that quarterly update. I'm not sure how robust this will be, or who will sign off on overseeing the validity of their claims, but at least if they agreed to an audit, it will be better than nothing.
Also, with regards to the huge trading volume between USDT and BTC, I do see some validity in this from the perspective of not wanting to trade into fiat currency. Not sure of tax laws in the US, but I imagine that if you sell BTC for USD, then this might incur a tax bill. But if all you are doing is trading in and out, then you clearly don't want to incur a tax bill for every trade. So if you go in and out of BTC but trade into USDT, then I can see how there is no problem with the IRS since you're just trading one coin for another. Hence, some of this volume might not be fresh tether being printed, but rather just a trader going back and forth. Someone please correct me if I am wrong. And this of course doesn't mean there isn't extra USDT snuck in there, which can very well still be the case, but it also doesn't mean that each USDT coin is freshly minted.
It's all good, RedDuke, we'll never be able to change each other's minds re: bitcoin fwiw: At about the 12 minute mark, there are excuses to why Bitfinex and Tether came to be shady and untrustworthy. I can relate and have experienced the issue Many years ago, bitcoin and cryptos were shunned by the financial institutions (i.e. banks, paypal, visa/mastercard, etc.) Bitwala was going to start a German bank to help the cryptos industry have a banking rail system. I fired up my VPN and signed up on the waiting list even though I would never get verified, just wanted to keep abreast of the progress There are stories of PayPal banning accounts that transacted in crypto related products/services. Visa and Mastercard would deny transactions to merchants in the crypto industry (ran into this a few times, I even called the credit card support, but no help) and banks like Wells Fargo or BofA would freeze accounts that transacted with crypto companies Fast forward to today, we got PayPal, Visa, MC, Bank of New York, etc, all signing up for bitcoin and cryptos But let's not forget the history of how they treated us (crypto people and companies) and how Tether and Bitfinex were pushed outside of the financial system. I think the marijuana industry has a similar problem
To add, the list and penalities paid by REGULATED banks far eclipse the tether fud. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/b...billion-since-the-financial-crisis-2018-02-20 The FUD comes across as a double standard and special pleading.
btcusd 5000Range chart, Feb 27 https://elitetrader.com/et/threads/charts-for-no-reason.344272/page-10#post-5334746 coinbase+going+public https://yippy.com/search?query=coinbase+going+public https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin
Mine and many others minds can easily be changed by 1 of big 4 audits about what backs Tethers. If something that represents 80% of volume is being used to trade an asset, I think it is not unreasonable to want to know what backs it. As far as not being able to find a bank, it is such a lame excuse. How many internet start ups in 90s had this issue? Internet was a new thing back then, just like cryptos few years back.
Let me ask the question back to you, why do you think any of the early internet companies would have any banking relationship problems? Did you ever hear of Amazon or Pets.com having banking problems? Please inform us Now, I told you PayPal, Visa/MC and banks blocked crypto transactions in the past. Don't trust me, please google it Not a lame excuse. These are facts Anyway, Tether has no value for me, but Bitcoin does. I only chimed in because of a major update on the NY AG case settlement with Tether and basically it's over for the Tether fud, but not for Tether fud believers
if Tethers have no value to you, and 80% of Bitcoin is traded in Tethers, what is Bitcoin value then???