No, I'm not joking. You try handling billions of USD in a very well known company/product, putting on your website that you self report to all sorts of US agencies, DON'T report (because you're lying), and see if the Americans give you a pass, let alone armies of lawyers decending sent from your clients.
Pek Make sure you've taken a valium and/or had a stiff drink before reading this article - https://www.coindesk.com/tether-mints-record-2b-usdt-in-one-week By the way, I do share some of the concern many have with tether over Deltec Bank so I'm not a complete fanboi. Deltec/Bahamas etc is a long way from away from something like HSBC/JPM in London/NY etc. My point is that the tether FUD is way overblown and has been running the same message for 4+ years 'any day now tether will implode and that will be the end of Bitcoin FOEVER!'
I am aware. I think they printed 4 B this year alone! Anyhow, simple question: If I buy their explanation of HFs buying Tether when they want to invest in crypto (most likely BTC), then who the hell buys it FROM THEM when they are selling Tether and buying BTC? That would assume there is suddenly a huge need at the exact same time when the HF is getting into BTC, holders suddenly want to cash out into Tether. I am not buying that. I am also not buying that Bitfinex is buying up Tether to maintain the peg, because then what was the point of selling Tether just to buy it back a few hours later? ------------------------------ Let's forget about tether for a moment! Let's remember Madoff and Theranos. What was similar about them? : 1. The story was too good to be true. 2. The explanation didn't make sense. Duck, duck, duck, it is a whole row of ducks, they are walking and quacking away...
Many people (large and small) buy tethers for all sorts of reasons. 1. Ease of moving dollars (in tether format) between exchanges 2. Safety (you'll like that one Pek!), ie if you think BTC will fall, sell BTC, buy tether until you want to re-enter BTC at a (hopefully) lower price 3. Tethers used in DeFi is a big use case as well - https://www.hedgeweek.com/2020/05/28/285974/tether-usdt-use-spikes-growing-defi-interest 4. Merchants also buy/sell to settle business. As I said before, massive business being done in Russia, Chinese merchants selling their Chinese goods and much of it settled in tether. Also, the Chinese merchants will buy from Chinese factories, much of the trade done in tether as well. And, yes, when the Chinese are involved you can bet there's loads of monkey business involved but that's not tethers fault because if there was no tether they'd still be monkey business going on with whatever instrument is used for the transaction. 5. Random uses. Let's say we're both Americans and have a bet this Sunday for $100 on a sports team (you live in NY me in LA). I lose the bet. If we're both interested in Crypto and have accounts, why not make it instant and I send you $100 using Tether, you might prefer it that way. Of course we could also use Paypal or some other similar service so Tether is just another payment option for the market. Some will use it, others not. As for you not buying it, that's fine, but with a $24b+ market cap, there are clearly 24billion reasons for people buying/using it. On to Maddoff-Theranos Yes, big time scams and certainly too good to be true with Maddoff, spitting out those 1% monthly returns like clockwork over many years. No way many of the clients didn't know because common sense says those ultra steady results are impossible. So I do agree with you that something sucessful which makes people money can blind them to the risks and/or keep them from saying anything. Theranos not the same in my opinion because someone will crack the idea at some stage in the future (a prick of blood to determine all sorts of important health information). She just couldn't get the idea to work so lied and was then found out. I don't think she set out to scam from the beginning but ego took over when the idea didn't start to work. But I don't agree with you that Tether is too good to be true. Yes, it's an incredible useful tool, as the ever increasing market cap and velocity of it proves, but again it's no silver bullet. The market also thinks it's a great idea as competing firms have bought out their own stable coins. Finally, probably the smartest guys in cryto are Alemeda (rocket scientists basically), and their track record is superb. They are heavy heavy users of Tether and they have massive amounts of their own money at risk (private company). If they're using Tether, you can bet they've done some serious behind the scenes due diligence into the risks involved. So if it's good for them we can assume with pretty high odds that it's good for the general market. Here's a recent set of Tether Tweets from one of their guys - Key point "Having done so much of this (arbing) and worked so closely with their team (Tether team) is why we trust USDT much more than the rest of crypto twitter seems to at times" ===================================================== Big day today, the 15th. By the close of business tether could be gone forever and that will also mean, according to many, the final end of Bitcoin...
And BitFinex fired all their auditors years ago, dismissing them for not understanding new word, why????
Who knows, maybe they weren't up to the job? Anyway, the fact is you, and most namesless internet posters saying tether is a fraud have no skin in the game, and in your case have never used it, nor probably know how to use it (not having a go at you, just stating facts). Whereas Alemeda, who probably do in excess of $1billion tethers a week (trading, creating and redeeming), and are generally viewed as the smartest operators in crypto, say they're super comfortable using it and with the management of Tether and their operations. If tether were to go down, Alemeda would probably lose 10s millions of dollars of their own money (no investors) and with that potential risk, there's no doubt they're looked at the risks as they're the masters of taming and understaning risk. Sometimes in life, we don't have to do much of our own research or due diligence, we can just piggy back on the work of others who are far better and more informed than us. So if Alemeda say it's fine, you can pretty much take that to the bank, which if you're read their tweets re tether trading, they're doing exactly that!
Remember Enron? How about Theranos? Madoff too? There were only one (or a few) person criticizing them and the rest of the establishment of the trading world were completely fine believing in them. I criticized GroupOn whenever they IPOd, that their business didn't make sense. It went from $600 to 10 in the following 9 years. Just because I didn't short it didn't make me wrong about them.
Pek, even if Tether implodes all it will mean is Tether disappears (only to be replaced with other Stable coins that will do a better job at managing everything especially re regulation). Bitcoin in the larger scheme of things will keep chugging along like it successfully has for 12 or so years. Is Tether important for Bitcoin? Yes and no. Of course it's a big part of the DAE (Digital Assets Ecosystem) and is no doubt important for what it brings and offers participants. But it's neither the foundation of the DAE nor its bridge stone. So if/when tether goes it will no doubt cause some major ripples perhaps even a massive earthquake where everything gets effected. But just like major earthquakes in LA or Toyko that do a lot of damage, Bitcoin like those two cities will dust itself down and start rebuilding what needs to be rebuilt (and often better I might add). So Pek, if your beef is with Tether and only tether then fine, you might be right and good luck to ya. I however don't think tether will fail but who says I'm right? But if your beef is with Bitcoin and thinking that tether will mean the end of Bitcoin and in turn set the DAE back at least a decade, then you're going to be on the wrong side of history... So which one is it?