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> Finally, in April 2019, Tether admitted it was only 74% backed. And that’s before it went off and printed another 17.5 billion tethers. So what’s backing all

by mcintyre1994 6y ago

> Finally, in April 2019, Tether admitted it was only 74% backed. And that’s before it went off and printed another 17.5 billion tethers. So what’s backing all those? So 7/8 of tethers have been printed in the last ~20 months? Is there any reason to think they've increased their cash holdings by anything like $17.5b in that time? They claim to have increased it from $1.85b to something close to $20b since April 2019?

panarky 6y ago
Tether skeptics always point to this, and then say even that 74% wasn't all in cash, a lot of it was in Bitcoin. If that's true, and it Bitcoin has tripled since then, doesn't that mean they could be over-collateralized now? I don't mean to defend Tether here because I don't have evidence either way, but the skeptics would be more believable if they followed their own accusations to their logical conclusions.
- mcintyre1994 6y ago
  To be honest I don't really know enough about their model to follow it to its logical conclusions - I'm just a bit skeptical of any non-audited company that claims to have 11x its cash on hand in 20 months. I didn't know that people say some of the apparent cash was in Bitcoin, I was assuming that 74% was all in cash. Even if we assume the entire $1.85b all in bitcoin though, the tripled price only takes you to ~6b. And they've apparently now put out 8x as many tether, which means they (if I understand correctly) claim to have 8x as much cash/assets on hand. I don't understand how Bitcoin holdings would cover that increase, and I even less understand how anything they could claim was cash could. To be honest I just don't get the model, which is why I'm not making any claims or trying to follow it to a logical conclusion. I just don't get why they can't prove they hold ~$20b in ~cash if the entire point of tether is that they do so.

panarky 6y ago

Tether skeptics always point to this, and then say even that 74% wasn't all in cash, a lot of it was in Bitcoin. If that's true, and it Bitcoin has tripled since then, doesn't that mean they could be over-collateralized now? I don't mean to defend Tether here because I don't have evidence either way, but the skeptics would be more believable if they followed their own accusations to their logical conclusions.

mcintyre1994 6y ago
To be honest I don't really know enough about their model to follow it to its logical conclusions - I'm just a bit skeptical of any non-audited company that claims to have 11x its cash on hand in 20 months. I didn't know that people say some of the apparent cash was in Bitcoin, I was assuming that 74% was all in cash. Even if we assume the entire $1.85b all in bitcoin though, the tripled price only takes you to ~6b. And they've apparently now put out 8x as many tether, which means they (if I understand correctly) claim to have 8x as much cash/assets on hand. I don't understand how Bitcoin holdings would cover that increase, and I even less understand how anything they could claim was cash could. To be honest I just don't get the model, which is why I'm not making any claims or trying to follow it to a logical conclusion. I just don't get why they can't prove they hold ~$20b in ~cash if the entire point of tether is that they do so.