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I think people aren't as rich as they think they are. Let them try and cash out the bitcoins on bitfinex and discover that what they actually get are funny-mon
by empath75 9y ago
I think people aren't as rich as they think they are. Let them try and cash out the bitcoins on bitfinex and discover that what they actually get are funny-money tokens called 'tether' which they can't exchange for dollars anywhere.
- alanfalcon 9y ago... nobody would do that though. I can sell my BTC for USD on Kraken and withdraw to my bank account. And I have.
- sparkie 9y agoKraken is the only exchange where you can actually exchange USDT for USD. However, at the time of posting, you can only redeem 320k Tether before the price of it will half. Only 320k out of 650M+ (and growing) has any real value. Where are the remaining 649780k USDT going to be redeemed for USD? (Hint: Not from Tether themselves, they clearly state in their own terms of service that they're not redeemable for USD).
- alanfalcon 9y agoRight, Tether is a scam. But my point is that Bitcoin can be sold directly for USD (not USDT) on some exchanges.
- empath75 9y agoI like how you just sort of blithely say that tether is a scam when there’s nearly a billion dollars of it trading on margin, inflating the bitcoin price.
- socialist_coder 9y agoI haven't traded any BTC for years, but when I did, I was using Kraken. Why do you think Kraken isn't more popular now? It seems to be the least shady of the exchanges.
- zeven7 9y ago> Why do you think Kraken isn't more popular now? When you try to place an order on Kraken it 100% of the time on the first try gives you some generic message that says something like "We're not sure if your order went through. Check back later." So you wait a bit, refresh, and it looks like it hasn't gone through, so you enter it again. You get the same message 5 times in a row. On the 6th try, your order goes through. Sometimes you end up with 2 orders going through because one you thought didn't go through just took longer than you had the patience for. I'm being completely serious when I say this isn't something that happens occasionally; it happens every time. They say they're working on a new engine or something that should be out in a few months, but it's a known and annoying problem for now. Other than that, I like Kraken and agree that it seems less shady than most.
- fourstar 9y agoKraken is trash. The app always breaks. I gave up with it.
- placeybordeaux 9y agotether seems like garbage to me, I wouldn't trade BTC for tether.
- strong_silent_t 9y agoI've been sort of following the situation, At least they are protected against a bank run because they don't do withdrawals, only deposits. I think that at a bare minimum, if they are doing exactly what they say they are doing with no mistakes, they are extremely vulnerable to getting a bank account frozen. I think this is a good overview of the basic numbers and banking situation: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2017/09/15/2193370/crypto-tethers-as-the-new-eurodollars/ https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2017/09/15/2193370/crypto-tether...
- xapata 9y ago> [no] withdrawals, only deposits Oh, like write-only memory?
- solotronics 9y agonope, I regularly sell tens of thousands on Gemini and GDAX. Never had any issues on Gemini, can wire $50k+ USD in and out at any time.
- StanislavPetrov 9y agoI'm sure there are people dumb enough to trade their dollars for tokens too. That doesn't mean dollars are worthless.