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I have the same doubts you do about Tether's legitimacy, but there's a few conclusions I believe you're jumping to which I think don't quite hold: - Tether's v

I have the same doubts you do about Tether's legitimacy, but there's a few conclusions I believe you're jumping to which I think don't quite hold: - Tether's volumes being greater than other crypto-currencies don't have much impact on the legitimacy of other crypto-currencies. The volume is so high because USDT is the other side of most crypto-currency trading pair. Given the liquidity of the market, you can trade almost anything (BTC, ETH, all alts, etc) against USDT without being exposed to any underlying USDT risk. - The market value of crypto-currencies minus any deposit-backed USD coins far exceeds those coins. Tether "printing" coins out of nothing cannot alone explain the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies. - Even if everything alleged were true, it really wouldn't be a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of shenanigans central banks have been pulling for centuries. If the crypto-currency market is illegitimate due to money printing by Tether, then so is the conventional financial system due to quantitive easing by the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world.

kaibee 6y ago
> If the crypto-currency market is illegitimate due to money printing by Tether, then so is the conventional financial system due to quantitive easing by the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world. The difference is that central banks aren't lying about whether they're printing money or not.
- ericns 6y ago
  Instead, they control the methodologies that define the value of what they've printed as well as the flows. Differences...Distinctions...are there?
rglullis 6y ago
> If the crypto-currency market is illegitimate due to money printing by Tether, then so is the conventional financial system due to quantitive easing by the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world. IOW, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"? No, there should be no moral relativism to get Tether out of the hook. It doesn't matter if they manipulated the market by one or one hundred billion dollars, they are a bad actor in the space that we must get rid of.
CarelessExpert 6y ago
> Even if everything alleged were true, it really wouldn't be a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of shenanigans central banks have been pulling for centuries. If the crypto-currency market is illegitimate due to money printing by Tether, then so is the conventional financial system due to quantitive easing by the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world. Man, I find it endlessly amusing that cryptocurrency utopians touted the benefits of BTC based on how it will democratize finance and finally remove the yoke of corrupt governments manipulating currencies and markets to their benefit. And then when a private company like Tether comes along and starts engaging in shenanigans in this cryptoanarchist libertarian fantasy land, all of a sudden the whataboutisms pop out and the excuse is "well... whatever dude, like, the government does this, too!"
- rglullis 6y ago
  Both your paragraphs are correct, yet each refers to different groups of people.
FireBeyond 6y ago
> - Even if everything alleged were true, it really wouldn't be a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of shenanigans central banks have been pulling for centuries. If the crypto-currency market is illegitimate due to money printing by Tether, then so is the conventional financial system due to quantitive easing by the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world. Currently Tether is printing $3.5B worth of Tether per week. They, and supporters are claiming with a straight face that those printings are supported by USD deposits. But who knows what bank this supposed $180B/year is going into? Recognizing that revenue is not a straight comparative metric (but that much revenue is banked and/or/then invested), that would put Tether's deposit rate at the top 20 in the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r...). We're going to need to accept that there's some pretty large optimism needed to believe this.
- carleverett 6y ago
  Tether is using Deltec Bank and Trust in the Bahamas. Deltec's CEO actually did an interview where he responded to the Tether fraud claims: https://unchainedpodcast.com/is-tether-a-fraud-its-bank-says-its-not/ https://unchainedpodcast.com/is-tether-a-fraud-its-bank-says... When Tether started, most financial institutions weren't open to working with cryptocurrency companies, but the fact that it's still the top stablecoin by value is troubling since there are plenty of better options now.
  - FireBeyond 6y ago
    I'm sure it'll get me flagged as a naysayer, but this raises more questions than it answers (https://www.coindesk.com/tether-bank-deltec-stablecoin-reserves https://www.coindesk.com/tether-bank-deltec-stablecoin-reser...): > "Every tether is backed by a reserve and their reserve is more than what is in circulation," said Gregory Pepin, Deltec Bank's deputy CEO. What business does the bank have in auditing Tethers? Why would they care? They're just holding funds. > “We can see it firsthand, so I can confirm that.” That to me more reads like Deltec is heavily involved in the actual day-to-day operations at Bitfinex/Tether. Which wouldn't be surprising - after all, remember when Bitfinex and Tether were claimed to be entirely separate and independent entities. It's a little bit of a stretch to say that Bitfinex has been able to get Deltec on board with keeping this all going by providing a "partnership" above and beyond the usual "banking relationship", but that's very much the vibe I get from all this, and as I said, to me, it just increases the sketchiness of everything. Oh, and WTF, I watched the video of the interview with the "Deputy CEO" of Deltec Bank, self-described as a "50-year-old bank [whose] customers range from asset managers to high-net-worth individuals" It's a damn "kid" who looks to be 30 at most, sitting in his gamer seat with red slashes in the black, wearing a Razer gaming headset. He has almost no photos on the internet, his LinkedIn profile is full of multiple spelling errors ("Independance Weath Management"), who claims to be a Professor of Finance at a University in Lebanon (a year after graduating from a Lausanne University) while working for numerous Swiss funds, oh and in Jacksonville, Florida, simultaneously. How the hell are people taking this seriously?!? EDIT: He's 33. So he apparently graduated with a Masters in Science from HEC Lausanne when he was FIFTEEN. I'm sorry, I'm crying now with laughter. Sources: - https://wallmine.com/nasdaq/tenx/officer/2087842/gregory-pepin https://wallmine.com/nasdaq/tenx/officer/2087842/gregory-pep... - https://www.linkedin.com/public-profile/in/gregory-pepin-0a83b315 https://www.linkedin.com/public-profile/in/gregory-pepin-0a8...

kaibee 6y ago

ericns 6y ago
Instead, they control the methodologies that define the value of what they've printed as well as the flows. Differences...Distinctions...are there?

rglullis 6y ago

> If the crypto-currency market is illegitimate due to money printing by Tether, then so is the conventional financial system due to quantitive easing by the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world. IOW, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"? No, there should be no moral relativism to get Tether out of the hook. It doesn't matter if they manipulated the market by one or one hundred billion dollars, they are a bad actor in the space that we must get rid of.

CarelessExpert 6y ago

> Even if everything alleged were true, it really wouldn't be a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of shenanigans central banks have been pulling for centuries. If the crypto-currency market is illegitimate due to money printing by Tether, then so is the conventional financial system due to quantitive easing by the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world. Man, I find it endlessly amusing that cryptocurrency utopians touted the benefits of BTC based on how it will democratize finance and finally remove the yoke of corrupt governments manipulating currencies and markets to their benefit. And then when a private company like Tether comes along and starts engaging in shenanigans in this cryptoanarchist libertarian fantasy land, all of a sudden the whataboutisms pop out and the excuse is "well... whatever dude, like, the government does this, too!"

rglullis 6y ago
Both your paragraphs are correct, yet each refers to different groups of people.

FireBeyond 6y ago

> - Even if everything alleged were true, it really wouldn't be a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of shenanigans central banks have been pulling for centuries. If the crypto-currency market is illegitimate due to money printing by Tether, then so is the conventional financial system due to quantitive easing by the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world. Currently Tether is printing $3.5B worth of Tether per week. They, and supporters are claiming with a straight face that those printings are supported by USD deposits. But who knows what bank this supposed $180B/year is going into? Recognizing that revenue is not a straight comparative metric (but that much revenue is banked and/or/then invested), that would put Tether's deposit rate at the top 20 in the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r...). We're going to need to accept that there's some pretty large optimism needed to believe this.

carleverett 6y ago
Tether is using Deltec Bank and Trust in the Bahamas. Deltec's CEO actually did an interview where he responded to the Tether fraud claims: https://unchainedpodcast.com/is-tether-a-fraud-its-bank-says-its-not/ https://unchainedpodcast.com/is-tether-a-fraud-its-bank-says... When Tether started, most financial institutions weren't open to working with cryptocurrency companies, but the fact that it's still the top stablecoin by value is troubling since there are plenty of better options now.
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  I'm sure it'll get me flagged as a naysayer, but this raises more questions than it answers (https://www.coindesk.com/tether-bank-deltec-stablecoin-reserves https://www.coindesk.com/tether-bank-deltec-stablecoin-reser...): > "Every tether is backed by a reserve and their reserve is more than what is in circulation," said Gregory Pepin, Deltec Bank's deputy CEO. What business does the bank have in auditing Tethers? Why would they care? They're just holding funds. > “We can see it firsthand, so I can confirm that.” That to me more reads like Deltec is heavily involved in the actual day-to-day operations at Bitfinex/Tether. Which wouldn't be surprising - after all, remember when Bitfinex and Tether were claimed to be entirely separate and independent entities. It's a little bit of a stretch to say that Bitfinex has been able to get Deltec on board with keeping this all going by providing a "partnership" above and beyond the usual "banking relationship", but that's very much the vibe I get from all this, and as I said, to me, it just increases the sketchiness of everything. Oh, and WTF, I watched the video of the interview with the "Deputy CEO" of Deltec Bank, self-described as a "50-year-old bank [whose] customers range from asset managers to high-net-worth individuals" It's a damn "kid" who looks to be 30 at most, sitting in his gamer seat with red slashes in the black, wearing a Razer gaming headset. He has almost no photos on the internet, his LinkedIn profile is full of multiple spelling errors ("Independance Weath Management"), who claims to be a Professor of Finance at a University in Lebanon (a year after graduating from a Lausanne University) while working for numerous Swiss funds, oh and in Jacksonville, Florida, simultaneously. How the hell are people taking this seriously?!? EDIT: He's 33. So he apparently graduated with a Masters in Science from HEC Lausanne when he was FIFTEEN. I'm sorry, I'm crying now with laughter. Sources: - https://wallmine.com/nasdaq/tenx/officer/2087842/gregory-pepin https://wallmine.com/nasdaq/tenx/officer/2087842/gregory-pep... - https://www.linkedin.com/public-profile/in/gregory-pepin-0a83b315 https://www.linkedin.com/public-profile/in/gregory-pepin-0a8...