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I built this site in February this year in anticipation: http://www.untether.space/ http://www.untether.space/ The spread between Bitcoin priced in Tether and

I built this site in February this year in anticipation: http://www.untether.space/ http://www.untether.space/ The spread between Bitcoin priced in Tether and Bitcoin priced in USD has been holding steady at <1% until now, but as I type this, the risk premium is at 8.4% and climbing. Looks like the Untethering has begun. For the curious, source at https://github.com/jpatokal/untether https://github.com/jpatokal/untether and also submitted as a Show HN at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18219034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18219034.

zamadatix 8y ago
$2,000,000,000+ worth issued without proof of backing? What value did Tether add that people were willing to deal with it as a middleman to dollars? Side note: The graph could use some TLC. The colors are indistinguishable and there are no static historical charts on the page, just the graph since my visit.
- londons_explore 8y ago
  We have no proof $2B were issued. It's possible that $2M were issued, and the rest don't even exist (or rather they are still controlled by the tether organisation).
  - himlion 8y ago
    We don't have proof, but what would their incentive be to print them but not issue them?
    - vidarh 8y ago
      To appear more credible would be one possible incentive.
    - nerdponx 8y ago
      To make people think it was popular, stable, and safe.
- TylerE 8y ago
  That is could be used to avoid all those annoying banking laws (AML, KYC, etc).
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    (Maybe.)
  - mrep 8y ago
    Until the bank they are using to accept USD decides to check them on that (per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18214935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18214935): @patio11 19h19 hours ago Eventually, a bank or, more likely, a regulator is going to say “Actually this doesn’t look like a legit deposit that we’re uncomfortable with supporting due to AML/regulatory reasons. It looks an awful lot like proceeds of crime intermingled with grey money.” @patio11 19h19 hours ago More And the terrifying outcome, from the cryptocurrency economy perspective, is the regulator doing what the USFH did with respect to Mutum Sigillum (Mt Gox’s US front): “OK, we’re going to give you two choices.” @patio11 19h19 hours ago More Door #1: Prove that it’s legal money. This should be trivial for you because KYC is the law and your compliance should be automatic. So have your lawyer suit up. BTW we expect this to take 3+ years. Door #2: We propose a 50% haircut.
    - yholio 8y ago
      > Prove that it’s legal money. A clear abuse, it's the government's job to prove illegal deeds. Holding customers funds hostage under the threat of bankruptcy, while the company navigates the complex legal minefield the government itself created is just about the most corrupt system and farther from the rule of law you can get, short of direct confiscation. They even went as far as claiming MtGox was a money transmitting business because it was a customer of Dwolla, and so customers of Dwolla could send money to themselves by withdrawing and depositing dwolla to MtGox: http://k.lenz.name/LB/2013/05/16/seizure-warrant-against-mutum-sigillum/ http://k.lenz.name/LB/2013/05/16/seizure-warrant-against-mut...
  - cbau 8y ago
    I never really understand this claim, but also don't have a deep expertise in AML/KYC. How does Tether help here?
- bmh 8y ago
  A major use of USDT is that you can sell your cryptos when they're high, converting them to USDT, which holds it's value. Then, when the crypto prices drop, you buy in again, and repeat. By keeping it entirely in the crypto space, your country's tax system can't charge you for capital gains.
  - charlietango92 8y ago
    pardon my ignorance, but wouldn't you eventually convert your USDT to 'real'/fiat currency at some point? It would be taxed then as 'other income' right?
    - vidarh 8y ago
      I'm guessing the theory (which may or may not be tax evasion depending on your local tax code) is that you're not taking the profit until you sell for fiat or take it out of the exchange.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > By keeping it entirely in the crypto space, your country's tax system can't charge you for capital gains This is blatant, willful and permanently-documented tax evasion, an amusing combination of illegality and stupidity.
    - teilo 8y ago
      No, it’s not. It means you don’t pay capital gains when you’re merely exchanging one form of crypto for another. You have not realized any gains until you have converted your crypto into real assets. Converting from one form of crypto to another for the purposes of arbitrage only delays the taxes. It never eliminates them. This is really no different than selling and buying stocks in an IRA account.
      - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
        > You have not realized any gains until you have converted your crypto into real assets You transacted into (what you believed was) a proxy for cash. That's obviously selling. Every tax jurisdiction has rules about this because every tax jurisdiction has idiots who thought they'd found a clever workaround. (I think the first American one involved a guy in the 19th century selling property for the key to a lockbox full of cash.)
- granaldo 8y ago
  The USDT pairs list here https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/tether/trading_exchanges#panel https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/tether/trading_exchanges#... can be intrigue
wyldfire 8y ago
The graph is tough to read as is. There's no labels for the x data and they y is autoranged. As of 1020 Eastern US time today, all I see are two horizontal lines. So I can see that both the Tether/Bitfinex/Bittrex/Poloniex cluster and the USD/Bitstamp/Kraken clusters are stable. But without an x label I can't tell if they're stable over the last hour, month, or year. * If I mouse-over the x ticks, I can see that the graph spans ~10 minutes, but most people probably wouldn't have the patience. Now that I know it's been stable for ten minutes (is it usually unstable across ten minutes‽), my next question is 'how did it look over the last 30 days? 12 months? * All in all, a cool site! Just a tip from the graph-nitpickers out here. EDIT: I see now, this graph shows only current activity since page load. This was likely a tradeoff to simplify the design of the page such that the data didn't have to be stored on the server. Maybe the page is such that the data is requested directly from the exchanges themselves?
- caioariede 8y ago
  I'm using the web archive to compare: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.untether.space https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.untether.space EDIT: seems like Feb will always display 0.41% and the rest is 27.02%
ndonnellan 8y ago
Currently showing me $NaN (NaN%). Looks like your weightedAvg function doesn't work because the tetherPrices array is empty.
justaj 8y ago
Please add HTTPS.
parliament32 8y ago
This is very nice, thanks for taking the time to make this! The only complaints I have are 1) a history in the graph would be nice, and 2) lack of HTTPS.

zamadatix 8y ago

$2,000,000,000+ worth issued without proof of backing? What value did Tether add that people were willing to deal with it as a middleman to dollars? Side note: The graph could use some TLC. The colors are indistinguishable and there are no static historical charts on the page, just the graph since my visit.

londons_explore 8y ago
We have no proof $2B were issued. It's possible that $2M were issued, and the rest don't even exist (or rather they are still controlled by the tether organisation).
- himlion 8y ago
  We don't have proof, but what would their incentive be to print them but not issue them?
  - vidarh 8y ago
    To appear more credible would be one possible incentive.
  - nerdponx 8y ago
    To make people think it was popular, stable, and safe.
TylerE 8y ago
That is could be used to avoid all those annoying banking laws (AML, KYC, etc).
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  (Maybe.)
- mrep 8y ago
  Until the bank they are using to accept USD decides to check them on that (per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18214935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18214935): @patio11 19h19 hours ago Eventually, a bank or, more likely, a regulator is going to say “Actually this doesn’t look like a legit deposit that we’re uncomfortable with supporting due to AML/regulatory reasons. It looks an awful lot like proceeds of crime intermingled with grey money.” @patio11 19h19 hours ago More And the terrifying outcome, from the cryptocurrency economy perspective, is the regulator doing what the USFH did with respect to Mutum Sigillum (Mt Gox’s US front): “OK, we’re going to give you two choices.” @patio11 19h19 hours ago More Door #1: Prove that it’s legal money. This should be trivial for you because KYC is the law and your compliance should be automatic. So have your lawyer suit up. BTW we expect this to take 3+ years. Door #2: We propose a 50% haircut.
  - yholio 8y ago
    > Prove that it’s legal money. A clear abuse, it's the government's job to prove illegal deeds. Holding customers funds hostage under the threat of bankruptcy, while the company navigates the complex legal minefield the government itself created is just about the most corrupt system and farther from the rule of law you can get, short of direct confiscation. They even went as far as claiming MtGox was a money transmitting business because it was a customer of Dwolla, and so customers of Dwolla could send money to themselves by withdrawing and depositing dwolla to MtGox: http://k.lenz.name/LB/2013/05/16/seizure-warrant-against-mutum-sigillum/ http://k.lenz.name/LB/2013/05/16/seizure-warrant-against-mut...
- cbau 8y ago
  I never really understand this claim, but also don't have a deep expertise in AML/KYC. How does Tether help here?
bmh 8y ago
A major use of USDT is that you can sell your cryptos when they're high, converting them to USDT, which holds it's value. Then, when the crypto prices drop, you buy in again, and repeat. By keeping it entirely in the crypto space, your country's tax system can't charge you for capital gains.
- charlietango92 8y ago
  pardon my ignorance, but wouldn't you eventually convert your USDT to 'real'/fiat currency at some point? It would be taxed then as 'other income' right?
  - vidarh 8y ago
    I'm guessing the theory (which may or may not be tax evasion depending on your local tax code) is that you're not taking the profit until you sell for fiat or take it out of the exchange.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > By keeping it entirely in the crypto space, your country's tax system can't charge you for capital gains This is blatant, willful and permanently-documented tax evasion, an amusing combination of illegality and stupidity.
  - teilo 8y ago
    No, it’s not. It means you don’t pay capital gains when you’re merely exchanging one form of crypto for another. You have not realized any gains until you have converted your crypto into real assets. Converting from one form of crypto to another for the purposes of arbitrage only delays the taxes. It never eliminates them. This is really no different than selling and buying stocks in an IRA account.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > You have not realized any gains until you have converted your crypto into real assets You transacted into (what you believed was) a proxy for cash. That's obviously selling. Every tax jurisdiction has rules about this because every tax jurisdiction has idiots who thought they'd found a clever workaround. (I think the first American one involved a guy in the 19th century selling property for the key to a lockbox full of cash.)
granaldo 8y ago
The USDT pairs list here https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/tether/trading_exchanges#panel https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/tether/trading_exchanges#... can be intrigue

wyldfire 8y ago

The graph is tough to read as is. There's no labels for the x data and they y is autoranged. As of 1020 Eastern US time today, all I see are two horizontal lines. So I can see that both the Tether/Bitfinex/Bittrex/Poloniex cluster and the USD/Bitstamp/Kraken clusters are stable. But without an x label I can't tell if they're stable over the last hour, month, or year. * If I mouse-over the x ticks, I can see that the graph spans ~10 minutes, but most people probably wouldn't have the patience. Now that I know it's been stable for ten minutes (is it usually unstable across ten minutes‽), my next question is 'how did it look over the last 30 days? 12 months? * All in all, a cool site! Just a tip from the graph-nitpickers out here. EDIT: I see now, this graph shows only current activity since page load. This was likely a tradeoff to simplify the design of the page such that the data didn't have to be stored on the server. Maybe the page is such that the data is requested directly from the exchanges themselves?

caioariede 8y ago
I'm using the web archive to compare: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.untether.space https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.untether.space EDIT: seems like Feb will always display 0.41% and the rest is 27.02%

ndonnellan 8y ago

Currently showing me $NaN (NaN%). Looks like your weightedAvg function doesn't work because the tetherPrices array is empty.

justaj 8y ago

Please add HTTPS.

parliament32 8y ago

This is very nice, thanks for taking the time to make this! The only complaints I have are 1) a history in the graph would be nice, and 2) lack of HTTPS.