They kind of do. According to their own lawyer, they are only backed by 75%. So in real life that is probably below 50%. They could get an audit to prove us wrong anytime....
What you guys have to understand is that it doesn't even matter if Tether is illicitly created. If you know anything about trading, then you will understand that ANY of the correlated 'shitcoins' can be used to lay off bitcoin/btc (whatever) risk. Hypothetical scenario (don't give a phuck about crypto one way or another) Shady coin bros will e-print a bunch of shitcoins because of no regs. Then they sell them (short) into the market and buy a correlation ratio'd amount of 'legitimate' crypto. The NET MARKET IMPACT is that bitcoin was inflated and/or manipulated. The only reason this wouldn't happen is if there were no correlated shitcoins to e-print. Notice how many correlated shitcoins there are now. Also, they even made a shitcoin index so that shady coin bros can mass produce shitcoins. It's a phucking win/win! Flame away.
Those are very strong claims and I have no horse in this race so you don't need to provide documentation, but let's define some numbers, you say "the lawyer states Tether is only backed by 75% (cash), but then you make further assertion that it is below 50% in real life? Yea, I don't know about that. Who has the burden of proof here on a public forum called EliteTrader? https://wallet.tether.to/transparency But, again, that is beside the point, I answered the question that USD Tether is not printed out of thin air and if you do not accept it, you are more than welcome to do some work and get your proof and documentation from outside of ET where the official documents that are legally binding, audited and certified.
Ahh...actually, you did. Like all other Bitcoin hodlers, you seem to believe that you have an obligation to sell it. A few sentences in to your reply on my first post in this thread, you said this: I actually did look into cryptos and I actually mentioned a few useful properties of Bitcoin in my first post here -- portability and lack of transparency which make it great for black market activities, tax evasion, ransomware, and to escape a failing currency when there is no other alternative. Again, you are trying to imply that anyone who does not like Bitcoin is either stupid or never took the time to understand it. There are plenty of people smarter than you who looked into it, understand it far better than you do, and realized that it is highly speculative and unlikely to appreciate over a long time horizon.
So it's basically what the FED is doing, just with a few digits less. I never understood why it would be a bad thing that a market is manipulated. Because to be very honest, there is no market being more manipulated and in a much more serious way than the US markets as a whole. Everybody knows it and everybody dances to the music. When there is a clear cause and effect and everybody can see what is going on (which obviously there is one, because otherwise there would not be so many tinfoil hats being 100% sure that everything is a manipulated scam), why are you sitting on your couch, beer in the left hand, TV remote in the other and talk about how evil this market is and how manipulated and how everybody is shady? Why don't you just open a trading account and make a couple of bucks? It IS a fucking win/win...except for you guys. It's a lose/lose because you get nothing and you have to watch the other guys making serious dosh
Well, the crypto shills like to use a 'fundamentals' angle when they pitch this shit to unsophisticated investors. But market manipulation just doesn't really fit into the pitchbook. They're pushing a story about a fundamental basis for the valuation, and that there's legitimate price discovery taking place at crypt finex, inc.
I think you are confusing a very fundamental thing here. There are cryptocurrencies and there are tokens. The shills you are refering to are shilling tokens...but this has nothing to do with bitcoin There is a legitimate price discovery taking place and the basic fundamental valuation can be calculated to the T as a function of price per hashrate and demand that can be measured as tx - reward flow from miners into the public ledger. So let's just say you don't know how to gauge all this...others can. But you know what? If you take your time and look into it, you will be able to see what's going on, too. And what the hell is crypt finex, inc. ?
I could do that. Agree. But, those are my favorite markets. Bonds, bills, and notes. Rate futures, spreads, and index trading. I don't have any problem with the US markets. I gather that you make markets in the crypto space and so you have some good intel on it. Kudos to you. I also happen to know that you got bonafides in the pro trading space as well. Just curious, but what would you be trading if it wasn't crypto? What did you like to trade when you traded US markets?
Well, first of all thanks for initiating a civilised discussion. When you feel at home and have found a place in the US markets then of course you stick to it. Why would a baker scoff at a butcher because he's trading meat instead of wheat To adress your questions, I still trade US - markets, mostly rates and FX stuff like Eurodollars and Fed Funds. But I don't trade them as a source of edge but rather as a hedge to balance out my portfolio. I have traded basically everything and anything that is available but found my niche in spreading and risk - arbitrage stuff. To replace crypto with anything is not really possible I'm afraid. It's a level playing field that is complex and fragmented and there is no other market that offers all of these features. They're either complex but you need an ISDA and serious money to do anything, or it's not fragmented like US futures and competition kills you or it's a level playing field but not complex like microcap stocks so it becomes to risky. In crypto, anyone can connect to an exchange without paying huge money for priority datafeeds and can trade anything and build any portfolio he likes. You can be a bank with an actively hedged borrowing/lending book with just a couple of bucks, no license required. Wanna set up an index arb operation, trade a dispersion portfolio or play on the forward curve? You can do all that with less than 500$ in your pocket. So while I'm still doing the majority of my volume in other markets, I advocate crypto especially for retail because of this. Imagine you had the chance to trade on the floor when the first index futures were introduced or the first Eurodollars, how much of an opportunity you could have had because you were right at the frontline of development? Now you have the once in a lifetime chance to see a market grow from the very beginning, be a part of it and learn without breaking the bank