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> I keep waiting for Yakety Sax to start playing, but to the true believers, it never does, and apparently all us nay-sayers are just neanderthal and don't see

> I keep waiting for Yakety Sax to start playing, but to the true believers, it never does, and apparently all us nay-sayers are just neanderthal and don't see "the vision". It reminds me of the initial dot-com bubble, where anybody who asked questions was also painted as not getting it. Ditto the mortgage bubble, come to think of it. Then when the inevitable crash comes, nobody apologizes. It's either "who could have known" or just moving on to the next grift and never saying another word.

hef19898 5y ago
Not that nobody apologizes, more often than not those early warning voices are singled out. Because obviously, having seen it coming, they could have done something to avoid the crash. So of course they are to blame.
api 5y ago
I’ve seen this happen in companies with stupid projects. Same thing happened with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Anyone who dares ask questions is ignored, sidelined, or fired. Seems to be a general pattern when there is an economic or policy “bubble” and big players in an organization or sector are holding the bag. Everyone who holds cryptocurrency is holding Tether’s bag of poo. No they are not even the majority of money in cryptocurrency, but they are enough to prop up the price a lot given that it’s a fairly thin market. They are also structured so as to make it very easy to use their funny money to manipulate cryptocurrency price. Their joker CEO sounds like a cutout and fall guy.
- thebean11 5y ago
  > Everyone who holds cryptocurrency is holding Tether’s bag of poo. Or they recognize you can't time the market, and see upside despite a nearly-inevitable tether crash? If investors had been waiting for tether to crash they would have missed the run from $1k - $30+k, and I don't think you can claim with a straight face that was all tether manipulation. Again, can't time the market.
  - freewilly1040 5y ago
    What you describe is timing the market though? Specifically, getting in on a run with confidence you can get out before the crash.
    - thebean11 5y ago
      No definitely not assuming you can get out before the crash. I'm talking about longer term investors who see the Tether crash as temporary, not a permanent end to crypto.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    Everybody holding a bag of poo believes there's upside. That's why they're holding it. I will grant that the cryptocurrency ecosystem is incredibly good at not just finding but creating greater fools. [1] But the fool supply is finite, and more than 10 years on cryptocurrencies still aren't good for much practical. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28781968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28781968
    - thebean11 5y ago
      If you’re criticism is based on payments you have not been paying attention to the space for the last 5 years. Anyway, it’s easy to make a circular argument of “people buy it because they are fools, and they are fools because they buy it.” You’ll be right whether it goes up or down so there’s not much of a debate to be had..
      - wpietri 5y ago
        Well I'm glad we agree that Bitcoin has failed in its original purpose. Perhaps you can set straight all the people who argue otherwise? Because there sure are a lot of them. The trouble is, it doesn't actually have another one, not a practical one.
        5y ago
- madmax96 5y ago
  > Everyone who holds cryptocurrency is holding Tether’s bag of poo Everyone who holds Tether is holding Tether’s bag. If you don’t own tether, this doesn’t directly affect you. Most of the people I know don’t own (and have never owned) Tether.
  - thephyber 5y ago
    How many people who didn’t invest directly in CDOs or subprime mortgages were affected by the Great Recession in 2008? Tether (or a substitute stablecoin) is currently a requirement for lots of the Wall Street investment in cryptocurrencies. If it turns to poo, lots of that Wall Street investment does too and it creates huge liquidity/ volume issues.
    - mcguire 5y ago
      "Then, this year, Tether Holdings started putting out a huge amount of digital coins. There are now 69 billion Tethers in circulation, 48 billion of them issued this year. That means the company supposedly holds a corresponding $69 billion in real money to back the coins—an amount that would make it one of the 50 largest banks in the U.S., if it were a U.S. bank and not an unregulated offshore company." A Tether crash would take down a lot of stuff.
johanneskanybal 5y ago
I don't think that's fair, these concerns have been around for probably five years plus and get a lot of media attention. As someone invested in this area it does get a bit old and counter productive being scared of the various boogie mens while missing all the enormous upside so far. After all, tether is 3% of total market cap, I think it's fair to say the effect if they disappeared tomorrow would be a bit bigger than that in an emotional market, might see a 40% dip or so but after that greed would make a recovery pretty fast and then grind to all time highs like allways. my five cents. edit: As the Dothraki slaves would say it, tether has pretty scummy people behind it, it is known. but that's ok.
- thefreeman 5y ago
  Quoting tether's total market cap is a bit disingenuous. What % of daily trade volume is tether?
- cycrutchfield 5y ago
  Market cap is a meaningless metric to use here. How many actual dollars are invested into cryptos? When it is revealed that 1 USDT != 1 USD there will be a rush to the exits and you will be begging and praying for only a 40% drawdown.
- gammarator 5y ago
  The most serious argument is that the “enormous upside” is being driven by Tether fraud. Take some money off the table…
- spiralx 5y ago
  Tether counts for 80% of the trading volume though, which is the important figure instead of the nonsensical "market cap" value so beloved of crypto fans.
- wpietri 5y ago
  "Market cap" is not a real thing here, because it implies that there is an asset to value. Cryptocurrencies are synthetic commodities with no use value. Your basic theory here is that bubbles always keep going up, even if sometimes they go down. But that's not how bubbles work. Tulip bulbs did not "grind to all time highs like allways". Neither did Beanie Babies. They both fell back to something approximating their use value. But what's the use value of some numbers on another person's computer? Approximately zero.

hef19898 5y ago

Not that nobody apologizes, more often than not those early warning voices are singled out. Because obviously, having seen it coming, they could have done something to avoid the crash. So of course they are to blame.

api 5y ago

I’ve seen this happen in companies with stupid projects. Same thing happened with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Anyone who dares ask questions is ignored, sidelined, or fired. Seems to be a general pattern when there is an economic or policy “bubble” and big players in an organization or sector are holding the bag. Everyone who holds cryptocurrency is holding Tether’s bag of poo. No they are not even the majority of money in cryptocurrency, but they are enough to prop up the price a lot given that it’s a fairly thin market. They are also structured so as to make it very easy to use their funny money to manipulate cryptocurrency price. Their joker CEO sounds like a cutout and fall guy.

thebean11 5y ago
> Everyone who holds cryptocurrency is holding Tether’s bag of poo. Or they recognize you can't time the market, and see upside despite a nearly-inevitable tether crash? If investors had been waiting for tether to crash they would have missed the run from $1k - $30+k, and I don't think you can claim with a straight face that was all tether manipulation. Again, can't time the market.
- freewilly1040 5y ago
  What you describe is timing the market though? Specifically, getting in on a run with confidence you can get out before the crash.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    No definitely not assuming you can get out before the crash. I'm talking about longer term investors who see the Tether crash as temporary, not a permanent end to crypto.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Everybody holding a bag of poo believes there's upside. That's why they're holding it. I will grant that the cryptocurrency ecosystem is incredibly good at not just finding but creating greater fools. [1] But the fool supply is finite, and more than 10 years on cryptocurrencies still aren't good for much practical. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28781968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28781968
  - thebean11 5y ago
    If you’re criticism is based on payments you have not been paying attention to the space for the last 5 years. Anyway, it’s easy to make a circular argument of “people buy it because they are fools, and they are fools because they buy it.” You’ll be right whether it goes up or down so there’s not much of a debate to be had..
    - wpietri 5y ago
      Well I'm glad we agree that Bitcoin has failed in its original purpose. Perhaps you can set straight all the people who argue otherwise? Because there sure are a lot of them. The trouble is, it doesn't actually have another one, not a practical one.
      - 5y ago
madmax96 5y ago
> Everyone who holds cryptocurrency is holding Tether’s bag of poo Everyone who holds Tether is holding Tether’s bag. If you don’t own tether, this doesn’t directly affect you. Most of the people I know don’t own (and have never owned) Tether.
- thephyber 5y ago
  How many people who didn’t invest directly in CDOs or subprime mortgages were affected by the Great Recession in 2008? Tether (or a substitute stablecoin) is currently a requirement for lots of the Wall Street investment in cryptocurrencies. If it turns to poo, lots of that Wall Street investment does too and it creates huge liquidity/ volume issues.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    "Then, this year, Tether Holdings started putting out a huge amount of digital coins. There are now 69 billion Tethers in circulation, 48 billion of them issued this year. That means the company supposedly holds a corresponding $69 billion in real money to back the coins—an amount that would make it one of the 50 largest banks in the U.S., if it were a U.S. bank and not an unregulated offshore company." A Tether crash would take down a lot of stuff.

johanneskanybal 5y ago

I don't think that's fair, these concerns have been around for probably five years plus and get a lot of media attention. As someone invested in this area it does get a bit old and counter productive being scared of the various boogie mens while missing all the enormous upside so far. After all, tether is 3% of total market cap, I think it's fair to say the effect if they disappeared tomorrow would be a bit bigger than that in an emotional market, might see a 40% dip or so but after that greed would make a recovery pretty fast and then grind to all time highs like allways. my five cents. edit: As the Dothraki slaves would say it, tether has pretty scummy people behind it, it is known. but that's ok.

thefreeman 5y ago
Quoting tether's total market cap is a bit disingenuous. What % of daily trade volume is tether?
cycrutchfield 5y ago
Market cap is a meaningless metric to use here. How many actual dollars are invested into cryptos? When it is revealed that 1 USDT != 1 USD there will be a rush to the exits and you will be begging and praying for only a 40% drawdown.
gammarator 5y ago
The most serious argument is that the “enormous upside” is being driven by Tether fraud. Take some money off the table…
spiralx 5y ago
Tether counts for 80% of the trading volume though, which is the important figure instead of the nonsensical "market cap" value so beloved of crypto fans.
wpietri 5y ago
"Market cap" is not a real thing here, because it implies that there is an asset to value. Cryptocurrencies are synthetic commodities with no use value. Your basic theory here is that bubbles always keep going up, even if sometimes they go down. But that's not how bubbles work. Tulip bulbs did not "grind to all time highs like allways". Neither did Beanie Babies. They both fell back to something approximating their use value. But what's the use value of some numbers on another person's computer? Approximately zero.