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Tether has a blockchain so you can see for yourself how much was stolen. Also, they blacklisted the hacker's address^. The @bitfinexed narrative is so flaky,

Tether has a blockchain so you can see for yourself how much was stolen. Also, they blacklisted the hacker's address^. The @bitfinexed narrative is so flaky, especially the chart "proving" that Tether issuance pumps BTC. I could post a similar chart showing that my trips to Costco pump BTC. There are legitimate concerns around Bitfinex and Tether^^ but the FUD has gotten out of hand. Things to keep in mind if you disagree: 1) There is increased demand for Tether mostly from exchanges other than Bitfinex. They aren't even the largest holder of Tether by a long shot. This explains increased issuance as much as any conspiracy. 2) There are no widespread complaints about being able to withdraw from Bitfinex 3) There is no premium on BTC price on Bitfinex as there would be if there were problems withdrawing in things other than BTC, a la Mt. Gox. All this being said -- all this would go away if they would prove they had the funds backing Tether. ^https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/932862730415017984 https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/932862730415017984 ^^Mostly, IMO, around 1) making themselves a target for FinCEN, 2) the market not pricing a proper risk premium into Tether

noitsnot 9y ago
/r/bitfinex has quite a lot of people claiming both ways. The people having problems withdrawing say support is non-existent.
- jraines 9y ago
  This is why I qualified with "widespread". All the exchanges have poor support, and all of them have haters. It wasn't long ago that even seemingly knowledgeable people were urging people to get out of Poloniex because they were about to be the next Gox. Nothing yet, in fact they've gotten better likely because the exodus of many traders eased the support and scaling burden. Again, I don't mean to defend any exchange in particular, it is still the wild west and I'm sure a lot of shady stuff goes on. There's just a lot about the Bitfinex narrative that doesn't make a lot of sense, and it seems mostly because one guy has built a successful brand around beating his drum the loudest.
  - lazyasciiart 9y ago
    > It wasn't long ago that even seemingly knowledgeable people were urging people to get out of Poloniex because they were about to be the next Gox. Nothing yet, in fact they've gotten better likely because the exodus of many traders eased the support and scaling burden. I have no idea what the truth is there, but this sounds a lot like "people said Y2K would be a big deal and spent millions fixing code and then nothing happened!"
Kiro 9y ago
> Tether has a blockchain How can they create new tether on demand if it's backed by a blockchain? Do they control all the mining?
- jacobush 9y ago
  Something like that.
  - fiatjaf 9y ago
    Stupid, right? Why don't they just use a Postgres database?
    - ForHackernews 9y ago
      Because the cryptocurrency set is more easily impressed by a "blockchain" than a "database". E.g. this nonsense: http://www.ibtimes.com/un-will-use-blockchain-ids-fight-child-trafficking-2613948 http://www.ibtimes.com/un-will-use-blockchain-ids-fight-chil...
      - fiatjaf 9y ago
        Amazing.
    - trophycase 9y ago
      Because then we wouldn't have a known number of issued coins as well as the full set of holders of those coins? Nor would we be able to trustlessly send them anywhere?
      - runeks 9y ago
        > Nor would we be able to trustlessly send them anywhere? That’s not the case anyway, since Tether can retroactively refuse to honor tokens that were allegedly stolen. What if the attacker had traded his 30m Tether-USD in exchange for bitcoins? Then the seller of these bitcoins would be left holding the bag, because the central party that is Tether refuses to honor these obligations. Tether can never be trustless, because it’s credit. Some party needs to redeem tether tokens for USD, and if that party refuses to do so then your money is gone.
freeflight 9y ago
> I could post a similar chart showing that my trips to Costco pump BTC. Obligatory mention: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
- arcticfox 9y ago
  Baffling how you think that's relevant here. A relevant analogy would be a correlation between "trips to Costco and dollars spent at Costco". Do more trips to Costco definitely cause more dollars to be spent there? Maybe, maybe not, but there is strong reason to believe so.
  - bigtunacan 9y ago
    It’s relevance is in how clearly it illustrates the ease of being able to correlate two unrelated things, but despite this fact many people repeatedly try to use correlation to imply causation.

noitsnot 9y ago

/r/bitfinex has quite a lot of people claiming both ways. The people having problems withdrawing say support is non-existent.

jraines 9y ago
This is why I qualified with "widespread". All the exchanges have poor support, and all of them have haters. It wasn't long ago that even seemingly knowledgeable people were urging people to get out of Poloniex because they were about to be the next Gox. Nothing yet, in fact they've gotten better likely because the exodus of many traders eased the support and scaling burden. Again, I don't mean to defend any exchange in particular, it is still the wild west and I'm sure a lot of shady stuff goes on. There's just a lot about the Bitfinex narrative that doesn't make a lot of sense, and it seems mostly because one guy has built a successful brand around beating his drum the loudest.
- lazyasciiart 9y ago
  > It wasn't long ago that even seemingly knowledgeable people were urging people to get out of Poloniex because they were about to be the next Gox. Nothing yet, in fact they've gotten better likely because the exodus of many traders eased the support and scaling burden. I have no idea what the truth is there, but this sounds a lot like "people said Y2K would be a big deal and spent millions fixing code and then nothing happened!"

Kiro 9y ago

> Tether has a blockchain How can they create new tether on demand if it's backed by a blockchain? Do they control all the mining?

jacobush 9y ago
Something like that.
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  Stupid, right? Why don't they just use a Postgres database?
  - ForHackernews 9y ago
    Because the cryptocurrency set is more easily impressed by a "blockchain" than a "database". E.g. this nonsense: http://www.ibtimes.com/un-will-use-blockchain-ids-fight-child-trafficking-2613948 http://www.ibtimes.com/un-will-use-blockchain-ids-fight-chil...
    - fiatjaf 9y ago
      Amazing.
  - trophycase 9y ago
    Because then we wouldn't have a known number of issued coins as well as the full set of holders of those coins? Nor would we be able to trustlessly send them anywhere?
    - runeks 9y ago
      > Nor would we be able to trustlessly send them anywhere? That’s not the case anyway, since Tether can retroactively refuse to honor tokens that were allegedly stolen. What if the attacker had traded his 30m Tether-USD in exchange for bitcoins? Then the seller of these bitcoins would be left holding the bag, because the central party that is Tether refuses to honor these obligations. Tether can never be trustless, because it’s credit. Some party needs to redeem tether tokens for USD, and if that party refuses to do so then your money is gone.

freeflight 9y ago

> I could post a similar chart showing that my trips to Costco pump BTC. Obligatory mention: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

arcticfox 9y ago
Baffling how you think that's relevant here. A relevant analogy would be a correlation between "trips to Costco and dollars spent at Costco". Do more trips to Costco definitely cause more dollars to be spent there? Maybe, maybe not, but there is strong reason to believe so.
- bigtunacan 9y ago
  It’s relevance is in how clearly it illustrates the ease of being able to correlate two unrelated things, but despite this fact many people repeatedly try to use correlation to imply causation.