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> (probably is now) This kind of argumentation makes cryptocurrency proponents so insufferable. There’s no evidence Tether is backed, but somehow we can just a

by pavlov 6y ago

> (probably is now) This kind of argumentation makes cryptocurrency proponents so insufferable. There’s no evidence Tether is backed, but somehow we can just assume in a parenthesis that they probably are, and then go on a tangential rant about banks or fiat or digital gold or something.

thedudeabides5 6y ago
Exactly. We've traded confidence in centralized, old world financial institutions, for decentralized, techno-utopian...financial institutions. Same s**, different marketing.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  At least banks have to operate within the realities of regulations and legal recourse. It’s not perfect, but it does provide a forcing function to make them think long and hard before doing anything that might be fraudulent. Cryptocurrency proponents like to tout crypto’s ability to escape regulation as a good thing, while ignoring that the same property makes it a dream come true for financial fraud schemes.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- aqme28 6y ago
  Nothing about Tether or Bitfinex is decentralized.
inter_netuser 6y ago
You can take redemption from tether and they will wire you the money, they are in fact registered and regulated. on several exchanges it can be exchanged into fiat, for smaller participant.s It would collapse a long time ago, if it weren't backed.
- 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
  > You can take redemption from tether and they will wire you the money Tether says they will. Has anyone successfully done this? > on several exchanges it can be exchanged into fiat, for smaller participant.s No one says you can't trade USDT. But that requires a counterparty, and if it turns out that Tether is mostly backed by air they may evaporate as well.
  - lettergram 6y ago
    That’s usually the way these things work. That’s why the AG is making statements like “stop the illegal activity” and stuff, it degrades trust. However, if you read the statement it’s a win for the crypto exchange. Only an $18m fine for supposedly “billions in fraud” (course if you read deeper, they found no fraud).
    - 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
      I'm surprised that you read a settlement narrowly focused on activities in 2017-2018 and apply it to today. Tether was nearing a lifetime market cap of two billion when investigated. Their "100% backed!" claim at two billion turned out to be 13.8% backed. They printed two billion USDT over the course of six days earlier this month. Wonder how backed that is.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  Heh. I just made another comment saying that Tether is not like Madoff, so of course I now need to make one comparing Tether to Madoff. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities was also registered and regulated, and also had to wire people their money when asked. Even though they didn't actually have all the assets they said they did. He was able to keep it up for 3 or 4 decades. It will only collapse if outflows exceed inflows for long enough to deplete their supply of assets. Which is something that is unlikely to happen for as long as this Bitcoin rocket keeps racing toward the moon.
  - inter_netuser 6y ago
jkhdigital 6y ago
Tether is Tether. Bitcoin is Bitcoin. The fact that exchanges exist which allow you to trade one for the other does not make them the same kind of thing.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  No one would care how many Bitcoin they had without an exchange rate. Tether printing is a convenient way to inflate the exchange rate. Remove Tether printing and the exchange rate falls. As long as people talk about Bitcoin in terms of the exchange rate, Tether and Bitcoin are deeply connected.
  - sekai 6y ago
    No it would not, plenty of stablecoins to take it's place, or just crypto/crypto ratios.
    - user-the-name 6y ago
      That assumes that Tether is being honest and not printing unbacked coins to drive the price up. So, no, it would still tank the price, because the price is quite likely inflated through fraud.
      - sekai 6y ago
        Let's not ignore major funds and companies investing in BTC like crazy, that's what is propping up the price not the "Tether scam" that's being going on for 5 years unproven.
- user-the-name 6y ago
  Remind me, what percentage of Bitcoin trades happens in Tether, again?
- notahacker 6y ago
  If I could buy tulips on cryptoexchanges with freshly printed Tether, I could bid the price of tulips up. If the majority of tulip trades took place on crypto exchanges and much of that was bidding the price up with newly printed Tether, tulips would be exactly as useful as before, but cost a lot more. As such, if Tether were to collapse, people's bulbs would be worth a lot less. Tulips would still be tulips, but they'd be part of a Tether bubble.
lettergram 6y ago
Seems logical they would given the investigations and the reason they supposedly didn’t have the funds at the time. I don’t think tether is necessary or a good idea, simply stating what I see. Frankly, the AG admitted it was backed, just not “the entire time”.
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  > Frankly, the AG admitted it was backed, just not “the entire time”. The AG did not. Certainly not completely, nor to the extent that Tether claims that it is. The AG merely acknowledged that Tether had some portion of the funds it claimed to.
eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
> makes cryptocurrency proponents so insufferable Tether is not a cryptocurrency. It's a cargo cult: A plain old centralized system which got the word "cryptocurrency" slapped onto it to attract dumb money.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mannykannot 6y ago
  That is beside the point: "(probably now)" is an entirely fanciful and blatantly self-serving attempt by a cryptocoin proponent to avoid the very real problem Tether poses for Bitcoin.
gruez 6y ago
>This kind of argumentation makes cryptocurrency proponents so insufferable. There’s no evidence Tether is backed, but somehow we can just assume in a parenthesis that they probably are, and then go on a tangential rant about banks or fiat or digital gold or something. Ah yes, because all cryptocurrency proponents are pro-tether.
- johnmaguire2013 6y ago
  The comment you're responding to isn't implying they are. It's implying a larger issue: that claims are often made by cryptocurrency proponents without any evidence to back them.

by pavlov 6y ago

thedudeabides5 6y ago

Exactly. We've traded confidence in centralized, old world financial institutions, for decentralized, techno-utopian...financial institutions. Same s**, different marketing.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
At least banks have to operate within the realities of regulations and legal recourse. It’s not perfect, but it does provide a forcing function to make them think long and hard before doing anything that might be fraudulent. Cryptocurrency proponents like to tout crypto’s ability to escape regulation as a good thing, while ignoring that the same property makes it a dream come true for financial fraud schemes.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
aqme28 6y ago
Nothing about Tether or Bitfinex is decentralized.

inter_netuser 6y ago

You can take redemption from tether and they will wire you the money, they are in fact registered and regulated. on several exchanges it can be exchanged into fiat, for smaller participant.s It would collapse a long time ago, if it weren't backed.

35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
> You can take redemption from tether and they will wire you the money Tether says they will. Has anyone successfully done this? > on several exchanges it can be exchanged into fiat, for smaller participant.s No one says you can't trade USDT. But that requires a counterparty, and if it turns out that Tether is mostly backed by air they may evaporate as well.
- lettergram 6y ago
  That’s usually the way these things work. That’s why the AG is making statements like “stop the illegal activity” and stuff, it degrades trust. However, if you read the statement it’s a win for the crypto exchange. Only an $18m fine for supposedly “billions in fraud” (course if you read deeper, they found no fraud).
  - 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
    I'm surprised that you read a settlement narrowly focused on activities in 2017-2018 and apply it to today. Tether was nearing a lifetime market cap of two billion when investigated. Their "100% backed!" claim at two billion turned out to be 13.8% backed. They printed two billion USDT over the course of six days earlier this month. Wonder how backed that is.
mumblemumble 6y ago
Heh. I just made another comment saying that Tether is not like Madoff, so of course I now need to make one comparing Tether to Madoff. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities was also registered and regulated, and also had to wire people their money when asked. Even though they didn't actually have all the assets they said they did. He was able to keep it up for 3 or 4 decades. It will only collapse if outflows exceed inflows for long enough to deplete their supply of assets. Which is something that is unlikely to happen for as long as this Bitcoin rocket keeps racing toward the moon.
- inter_netuser 6y ago

jkhdigital 6y ago

Tether is Tether. Bitcoin is Bitcoin. The fact that exchanges exist which allow you to trade one for the other does not make them the same kind of thing.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
No one would care how many Bitcoin they had without an exchange rate. Tether printing is a convenient way to inflate the exchange rate. Remove Tether printing and the exchange rate falls. As long as people talk about Bitcoin in terms of the exchange rate, Tether and Bitcoin are deeply connected.
- sekai 6y ago
  No it would not, plenty of stablecoins to take it's place, or just crypto/crypto ratios.
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    That assumes that Tether is being honest and not printing unbacked coins to drive the price up. So, no, it would still tank the price, because the price is quite likely inflated through fraud.
    - sekai 6y ago
      Let's not ignore major funds and companies investing in BTC like crazy, that's what is propping up the price not the "Tether scam" that's being going on for 5 years unproven.
user-the-name 6y ago
Remind me, what percentage of Bitcoin trades happens in Tether, again?
notahacker 6y ago
If I could buy tulips on cryptoexchanges with freshly printed Tether, I could bid the price of tulips up. If the majority of tulip trades took place on crypto exchanges and much of that was bidding the price up with newly printed Tether, tulips would be exactly as useful as before, but cost a lot more. As such, if Tether were to collapse, people's bulbs would be worth a lot less. Tulips would still be tulips, but they'd be part of a Tether bubble.

lettergram 6y ago

Seems logical they would given the investigations and the reason they supposedly didn’t have the funds at the time. I don’t think tether is necessary or a good idea, simply stating what I see. Frankly, the AG admitted it was backed, just not “the entire time”.

FireBeyond 6y ago
> Frankly, the AG admitted it was backed, just not “the entire time”. The AG did not. Certainly not completely, nor to the extent that Tether claims that it is. The AG merely acknowledged that Tether had some portion of the funds it claimed to.

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago

> makes cryptocurrency proponents so insufferable Tether is not a cryptocurrency. It's a cargo cult: A plain old centralized system which got the word "cryptocurrency" slapped onto it to attract dumb money.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mannykannot 6y ago
That is beside the point: "(probably now)" is an entirely fanciful and blatantly self-serving attempt by a cryptocoin proponent to avoid the very real problem Tether poses for Bitcoin.

gruez 6y ago

>This kind of argumentation makes cryptocurrency proponents so insufferable. There’s no evidence Tether is backed, but somehow we can just assume in a parenthesis that they probably are, and then go on a tangential rant about banks or fiat or digital gold or something. Ah yes, because all cryptocurrency proponents are pro-tether.

johnmaguire2013 6y ago
The comment you're responding to isn't implying they are. It's implying a larger issue: that claims are often made by cryptocurrency proponents without any evidence to back them.