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Correction: it is 2/3rds of what their reserves were back in 2017. The amount of Tether in circulation has increased over 150-fold since then, so presumably the

Correction: it is 2/3rds of what their reserves were back in 2017. The amount of Tether in circulation has increased over 150-fold since then, so presumably their reserves have increased as well.

delecti 5y ago
> The amount of Tether in circulation has increased over 150-fold since then, so presumably their reserves have increased as well. They just got punished for not having actual reserves match their circulation. What basis is there to presume that their reserve is matching their circulation now?
- 35fbe7d3d5b9 5y ago
  https://tether.to/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/tether_assuranceconsolidated_reserves_report_2021-06-30.pdf https://tether.to/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/tether_assuranc... This all boils down to two questions in my mind: 1) Do you trust the unsigned report from the auditor, who appears to be a fairly unknown entity? 2) Do you trust the asserted quality of the commercial paper, which makes up 50% of the putative reserves?
  - FireBeyond 5y ago
    This is not an audit. That's why it says "Accountant's Report". Because a real accountancy firm/auditor would risk their ability to practice by calling it something it's not. The last time Tether claimed to have something that was an "actual" audit, they claimed they couldn't release it to the public because ... "... it is in Mandarin". Here's the big problem with this attestation: > Our opinion is limited solely to the CRR and the corresponding consolidated total assets and consolidated total liabilities as of 30 June 2021, at 11:59 PM UTC. Activity prior to and after this time and date was not considered when testing the balances and information described above. They're very, and repeatedly clear that this is a snapshot. There is nothing stopping Tether taking a 72 hour loan before this attestation and then closing that loan after it. They claim $6B in cash holdings, in an undisclosed bank, presumably Deltec, whose "deputy CEO" demonstrated in an interview (among other problems) that he did not know the names of the two banking licenses available to banks in that country, and he wasn't sure which one they had. You can't get a mortgage with a simple attestation of funds - why should it be okay for these guys?
- jyrkesh 5y ago
  Even worse, they just took the opportunity to pay off the govt to avoid disclosing exactly to what extent they lied. At this point, what basis is there to presume that their reserve is non-zero?
- sgpl 5y ago
  While I wouldn't say that their reserve is matching now ( I do not know) there were a few threads on twitter that I read a while back that stated that the folks behind tether were increasing the supply (of tether) to artificially inflate the value of their bitcoin holdings - which is something that they could have liquidated in exchange for more fiat since then. Obviously this is all conjecture. This is the best reference I could find in relation to what I've said above: In newly published research, with Amin Shams of Ohio State University, he finds evidence that Bitcoin’s 2017–2018 bubble was inflated by a lesser-known digital currency called Tether. [0] [0] https://medium.com/texas-mccombs/tether-connection-puts-bitcoin-at-risk-a6d332784f98 https://medium.com/texas-mccombs/tether-connection-puts-bitc...

Correction: it is 2/3rds of what their reserves were back in 2017. The amount of Tether in circulation has increased over 150-fold since then, so presumably their reserves have increased as well.

delecti 5y ago

> The amount of Tether in circulation has increased over 150-fold since then, so presumably their reserves have increased as well. They just got punished for not having actual reserves match their circulation. What basis is there to presume that their reserve is matching their circulation now?

35fbe7d3d5b9 5y ago
https://tether.to/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/tether_assuranceconsolidated_reserves_report_2021-06-30.pdf https://tether.to/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/tether_assuranc... This all boils down to two questions in my mind: 1) Do you trust the unsigned report from the auditor, who appears to be a fairly unknown entity? 2) Do you trust the asserted quality of the commercial paper, which makes up 50% of the putative reserves?
- FireBeyond 5y ago
  This is not an audit. That's why it says "Accountant's Report". Because a real accountancy firm/auditor would risk their ability to practice by calling it something it's not. The last time Tether claimed to have something that was an "actual" audit, they claimed they couldn't release it to the public because ... "... it is in Mandarin". Here's the big problem with this attestation: > Our opinion is limited solely to the CRR and the corresponding consolidated total assets and consolidated total liabilities as of 30 June 2021, at 11:59 PM UTC. Activity prior to and after this time and date was not considered when testing the balances and information described above. They're very, and repeatedly clear that this is a snapshot. There is nothing stopping Tether taking a 72 hour loan before this attestation and then closing that loan after it. They claim $6B in cash holdings, in an undisclosed bank, presumably Deltec, whose "deputy CEO" demonstrated in an interview (among other problems) that he did not know the names of the two banking licenses available to banks in that country, and he wasn't sure which one they had. You can't get a mortgage with a simple attestation of funds - why should it be okay for these guys?
jyrkesh 5y ago
Even worse, they just took the opportunity to pay off the govt to avoid disclosing exactly to what extent they lied. At this point, what basis is there to presume that their reserve is non-zero?
sgpl 5y ago
While I wouldn't say that their reserve is matching now ( I do not know) there were a few threads on twitter that I read a while back that stated that the folks behind tether were increasing the supply (of tether) to artificially inflate the value of their bitcoin holdings - which is something that they could have liquidated in exchange for more fiat since then. Obviously this is all conjecture. This is the best reference I could find in relation to what I've said above: In newly published research, with Amin Shams of Ohio State University, he finds evidence that Bitcoin’s 2017–2018 bubble was inflated by a lesser-known digital currency called Tether. [0] [0] https://medium.com/texas-mccombs/tether-connection-puts-bitcoin-at-risk-a6d332784f98 https://medium.com/texas-mccombs/tether-connection-puts-bitc...