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It's kind of mind boggling that anyone who spends any amount of time looking at Tether comes away with the same exact conclusion: this seems like scam... and y

It's kind of mind boggling that anyone who spends any amount of time looking at Tether comes away with the same exact conclusion: this seems like scam... and yet there's a billions of tethers flowing around. Luckily for me, I have no money, so I don't need to worry about losing it.

ChainOfFools 6y ago
> and yet there's a billions of tethers flowing around. It may simply be to make hay while the sun shines? As I understand it Tether creates liquidity, facilitates inter-exchange transfers without incurring huge on-chain Tx fees, which greases the day trading gears all while providing a thin psychological security blanket to people who may believe that the downside risk doesn't exceed the opportunity for enormous gains. Everyone thinks they'll be the first into the lifeboats when the ship starts to sink. The extreme reliance on a centralized token like Tether, like the existence of centralized exchanges in general, is a tacit admission that blockchains are completely unsuited to the pace of financial activity and need these informal crutches to work effectively at all. Real ideologues who care about decentralization are thin on the ground, and rationalize these shortcomings away as readily as the most degen speculator when 10x profits are on the table.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ranger207 6y ago
If everyone trusts it regardless of what's actually backing it, then that makes it a de facto fiat currency.
- WA 6y ago
  ...with a private unregulated overlord. Small difference to USD.
  - gillesjacobs 6y ago
    You probably knew this but the Federal Reserve is mixed public and privately owned. USD monetary policy is for a significant part in private hands.
    - lottin 6y ago
      It's a private organization with a public mandate. Big difference.
      - csomar 6y ago
        That could be changed by the same guys when needed. The difference is in some parliamentary theater.
        xwolfi 6y ago
        Which you pay for with your little taxes. You own the parliement whatever they pretend to say, even in communist China. They cannot go further than your taxes allow, so they will have to benefit you eventually. The consortium of mining farms behind bitcoin however, it s not sure they ll ever feel the leash.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> I have no money, so I don't need to worry about losing it To date I’ve been relatively confident that when this melts down, the silver lining will be no bailouts for the afflicted. As the phenomenon spreads, however, this becomes less and less likely.
- lottin 6y ago
  I don't know who would bail them out, considering that bitcoin is an unregulated international currency. It isn't tied to any government or national entity. It doesn't belong to any jurisdiction. I don't think bitcoin "investors" have any lobbying power either.
  - xwolfi 6y ago
    The people scared of a violent revolts and the populist riding on it? Why do they bail homeowners who cant pay their loan? (or "banks" like every anarchist yell since 2008... No bailout, no more loans for everyone, no more support for politicians.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > violent revolts and the populist riding on it? Few of any country’s elite, nowadays, would be better off fighting a revolt than fleeing with their capital. It’s probably the defining characteristic of modern revolutions compared with pre-Industrial ones: the increasing intangibility and thus mobility of skill and capital.
- csomar 6y ago
  $30bn is a drop in the ocean at the international scale. So is $300bn. None of these guys is getting bailed out.
- bhouston 6y ago
  > As the phenomenon spreads, however, this becomes less and less likely. To big to fail often is related to who is involved. Are influential big companies, politically connected and banking companies involved? Then it is more likely there is a bailout of some time.
SergeAx 6y ago
Market cap of Tether is $33B (that much is "flowing around"). At the same time market cap of Dogecoin is $6.5B, only 5 times less. Everybody knows dogecoin worth nothing, and even it's creators are telling everybody that it's a joke. Whatever.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  It's worth what the market thinks it's worth, like every crypto out there. And the lack of seriousness is working. There's still a lot of people who bought a ton of doge and are seeing their investment's value increase tenfold, with the potential of a lot more though, which will make them greedy and try and pump the value up via memes. It stopped being a joke coin when you could start trading it for fiat.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  Look at the daily volumes, instead. Doge isn’t used as the primary on/off ramp for the entire crypto market, but Tether is. Tether has basically become the crypto fed. Without tether, this whole thing falls apart.
  - xorcist 6y ago
    How can something like tether be a primary on-ramp? No one has their salary in tethers. It must be bought somewhere.
    - xwolfi 6y ago
      It s because banks were horribly slow to work with exchanges. In my country, China, many exchanges closed down due to account freezes by their banks (granted they might never have followed proper regulations in the first place). So, when your bank freezes you out a few times, you build an exchange entirely on Tether and tell people it s like money. And then all exchanges do it and when you look back at it, Tether is the only way to redeem BTC, which you wanted an exposure on because your grandma is a paper millionaire. So each time there s a bubble you rush to an exchange, give your RMB for BTC, the bubble burst you rush out and what s the only way? Calling Bank of China to beg them to reinstate yout exchange? Or take the USDT and go elsewhere? It s better these days but a few years ago everyone I knew was locked in BTC or Tether. And the more they re locked in, the more delusional these people are abt their crypto things, pushing the bull up... I tell you in 10 years everyone will see it like the scam it is, but boy is it hard to yell at the wind meanwhile :D DONT BUY VIRTUAL MONEY IT S VIRTUAL BUT NOT MONEY

ChainOfFools 6y ago

> and yet there's a billions of tethers flowing around. It may simply be to make hay while the sun shines? As I understand it Tether creates liquidity, facilitates inter-exchange transfers without incurring huge on-chain Tx fees, which greases the day trading gears all while providing a thin psychological security blanket to people who may believe that the downside risk doesn't exceed the opportunity for enormous gains. Everyone thinks they'll be the first into the lifeboats when the ship starts to sink. The extreme reliance on a centralized token like Tether, like the existence of centralized exchanges in general, is a tacit admission that blockchains are completely unsuited to the pace of financial activity and need these informal crutches to work effectively at all. Real ideologues who care about decentralization are thin on the ground, and rationalize these shortcomings away as readily as the most degen speculator when 10x profits are on the table.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ranger207 6y ago

If everyone trusts it regardless of what's actually backing it, then that makes it a de facto fiat currency.

WA 6y ago
...with a private unregulated overlord. Small difference to USD.
- gillesjacobs 6y ago
  You probably knew this but the Federal Reserve is mixed public and privately owned. USD monetary policy is for a significant part in private hands.
  - lottin 6y ago
    It's a private organization with a public mandate. Big difference.
    - csomar 6y ago
      That could be changed by the same guys when needed. The difference is in some parliamentary theater.
      - xwolfi 6y ago
        Which you pay for with your little taxes. You own the parliement whatever they pretend to say, even in communist China. They cannot go further than your taxes allow, so they will have to benefit you eventually. The consortium of mining farms behind bitcoin however, it s not sure they ll ever feel the leash.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> I have no money, so I don't need to worry about losing it To date I’ve been relatively confident that when this melts down, the silver lining will be no bailouts for the afflicted. As the phenomenon spreads, however, this becomes less and less likely.

lottin 6y ago
I don't know who would bail them out, considering that bitcoin is an unregulated international currency. It isn't tied to any government or national entity. It doesn't belong to any jurisdiction. I don't think bitcoin "investors" have any lobbying power either.
- xwolfi 6y ago
  The people scared of a violent revolts and the populist riding on it? Why do they bail homeowners who cant pay their loan? (or "banks" like every anarchist yell since 2008... No bailout, no more loans for everyone, no more support for politicians.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > violent revolts and the populist riding on it? Few of any country’s elite, nowadays, would be better off fighting a revolt than fleeing with their capital. It’s probably the defining characteristic of modern revolutions compared with pre-Industrial ones: the increasing intangibility and thus mobility of skill and capital.
csomar 6y ago
$30bn is a drop in the ocean at the international scale. So is $300bn. None of these guys is getting bailed out.
bhouston 6y ago
> As the phenomenon spreads, however, this becomes less and less likely. To big to fail often is related to who is involved. Are influential big companies, politically connected and banking companies involved? Then it is more likely there is a bailout of some time.

SergeAx 6y ago

Market cap of Tether is $33B (that much is "flowing around"). At the same time market cap of Dogecoin is $6.5B, only 5 times less. Everybody knows dogecoin worth nothing, and even it's creators are telling everybody that it's a joke. Whatever.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
It's worth what the market thinks it's worth, like every crypto out there. And the lack of seriousness is working. There's still a lot of people who bought a ton of doge and are seeing their investment's value increase tenfold, with the potential of a lot more though, which will make them greedy and try and pump the value up via memes. It stopped being a joke coin when you could start trading it for fiat.
cwhiz 6y ago
Look at the daily volumes, instead. Doge isn’t used as the primary on/off ramp for the entire crypto market, but Tether is. Tether has basically become the crypto fed. Without tether, this whole thing falls apart.
- xorcist 6y ago
  How can something like tether be a primary on-ramp? No one has their salary in tethers. It must be bought somewhere.
  - xwolfi 6y ago
    It s because banks were horribly slow to work with exchanges. In my country, China, many exchanges closed down due to account freezes by their banks (granted they might never have followed proper regulations in the first place). So, when your bank freezes you out a few times, you build an exchange entirely on Tether and tell people it s like money. And then all exchanges do it and when you look back at it, Tether is the only way to redeem BTC, which you wanted an exposure on because your grandma is a paper millionaire. So each time there s a bubble you rush to an exchange, give your RMB for BTC, the bubble burst you rush out and what s the only way? Calling Bank of China to beg them to reinstate yout exchange? Or take the USDT and go elsewhere? It s better these days but a few years ago everyone I knew was locked in BTC or Tether. And the more they re locked in, the more delusional these people are abt their crypto things, pushing the bull up... I tell you in 10 years everyone will see it like the scam it is, but boy is it hard to yell at the wind meanwhile :D DONT BUY VIRTUAL MONEY IT S VIRTUAL BUT NOT MONEY