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I worked at Circle. If you think that Jeremy Allaire is going to go to federal prison, you are out of your mind. Their combined in-house plus external legal tea

I worked at Circle. If you think that Jeremy Allaire is going to go to federal prison, you are out of your mind. Their combined in-house plus external legal teams are larger than 95% of the YC startup headcounts. The US government has been all over them for years.

qeternity 5y ago
> I worked at Circle. If you think that Jeremy Allaire is going to go to federal prison, you are out of your mind. You're making massive leap in logic. I completely agree with you. Regulators have been absurdly slow to react, and I think that both Circle and Tether will probably end up just fine, at least legally. There may be a cataclysmic breaking of the peg but ultimately it will be retail that gets slaughtered. Tether's own terms from day 1 have basically told you that all you're getting from them is something that hopefully someone else will value for close to $1. I think these guys are pretty iron clad. Doesn't change the fact that Tether has almost certainly played a key role in manipulating crypto higher, on the mild end by providing leverage through crypto collateralized loans, and at the serious end by outright fraudulently printing Tether.
- seibelj 5y ago
  How it is a massive leap when you are insinuating that the attestation means Circle is doing something shady? You are trying to have it both ways. Circle is not a sketchy Eastern European or Caribbean operation. They have a big office in Boston across the street from the Federal Bank of Boston and employ highly paid people who wouldn’t jeopardize their careers. The FUD is just ludicrous.
  - qeternity 5y ago
    > How it is a massive leap when you are insinuating that the attestation means Circle is doing something shady? Because being shady isn't illegal? You're the one suggesting this might amount to something felonious, which is perhaps telling. > They have a big office in Boston across the street from the Federal Bank of Boston and employ highly paid people who wouldn’t jeopardize their careers. This is a terrible argument. I have worked with people who were highly paid people working for well connected shops in fancy offices (Enron, Lehman, etc). > The FUD is just ludicrous. What FUD? Point to a single thing I've said that isn't purely factual.
rglullis 5y ago
As someone who worked at Circle, how comfortable would you be if you held a significant percentage of your savings as USDC? Same question, but for USDT, DAI and hard-cash-in-hand?
- otoburb 5y ago
  What purpose would somebody have to keep a significant percentage of their savings in USDC, which isn't subject to FDIC protections? The same logic would extend to anything else that is a similar digital cash-equivalent. Given the purported 1:1 peg with the USD, there is no advantage to holding any cash savings in USD[C|T] form.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    Because my main strategy for DeFI has been to (a) provide liquidity in Uniswap pools with tokens paired against USDC and (b) liquidity on Curve, where you stake USDC and DAI. I have had returns that are simply unmatched by any savings account, the liquidity pools with stabletokens help to reduce a lot of the volatility while generating some income from the collected fees, and if I there is any big downswings, I don't need to rush to cash out because most of my holdings are in stables. I know that I don't want to touch Tether, but if USDC is also deemed toxic, it forces me to reevaluate the risks of both USDC and DAI (which is basically 50% backed by USDC currently)
    - xur17 5y ago
      > Because my main strategy for DeFI has been to (a) provide liquidity in Uniswap pools with tokens paired against USDC and (b) liquidity on Curve, where you stake USDC and DAI. It's worth pointing out that most pools with USDC on curve also expose you to USDT.
      - rglullis 5y ago
        Not the one from Compound. It is cDAI + cUSDC only. But to be completely honest, I am not on this anymore. I moved to the EURS/sEURS based one, as the CRV incentives are very good at the moment. Seeing how I was wrong about Circle status regarding audits, I need to do some more checks about the bank behind EURS.

qeternity 5y ago

> I worked at Circle. If you think that Jeremy Allaire is going to go to federal prison, you are out of your mind. You're making massive leap in logic. I completely agree with you. Regulators have been absurdly slow to react, and I think that both Circle and Tether will probably end up just fine, at least legally. There may be a cataclysmic breaking of the peg but ultimately it will be retail that gets slaughtered. Tether's own terms from day 1 have basically told you that all you're getting from them is something that hopefully someone else will value for close to $1. I think these guys are pretty iron clad. Doesn't change the fact that Tether has almost certainly played a key role in manipulating crypto higher, on the mild end by providing leverage through crypto collateralized loans, and at the serious end by outright fraudulently printing Tether.

seibelj 5y ago
How it is a massive leap when you are insinuating that the attestation means Circle is doing something shady? You are trying to have it both ways. Circle is not a sketchy Eastern European or Caribbean operation. They have a big office in Boston across the street from the Federal Bank of Boston and employ highly paid people who wouldn’t jeopardize their careers. The FUD is just ludicrous.
- qeternity 5y ago
  > How it is a massive leap when you are insinuating that the attestation means Circle is doing something shady? Because being shady isn't illegal? You're the one suggesting this might amount to something felonious, which is perhaps telling. > They have a big office in Boston across the street from the Federal Bank of Boston and employ highly paid people who wouldn’t jeopardize their careers. This is a terrible argument. I have worked with people who were highly paid people working for well connected shops in fancy offices (Enron, Lehman, etc). > The FUD is just ludicrous. What FUD? Point to a single thing I've said that isn't purely factual.

rglullis 5y ago

As someone who worked at Circle, how comfortable would you be if you held a significant percentage of your savings as USDC? Same question, but for USDT, DAI and hard-cash-in-hand?

otoburb 5y ago
What purpose would somebody have to keep a significant percentage of their savings in USDC, which isn't subject to FDIC protections? The same logic would extend to anything else that is a similar digital cash-equivalent. Given the purported 1:1 peg with the USD, there is no advantage to holding any cash savings in USD[C|T] form.
- rglullis 5y ago
  Because my main strategy for DeFI has been to (a) provide liquidity in Uniswap pools with tokens paired against USDC and (b) liquidity on Curve, where you stake USDC and DAI. I have had returns that are simply unmatched by any savings account, the liquidity pools with stabletokens help to reduce a lot of the volatility while generating some income from the collected fees, and if I there is any big downswings, I don't need to rush to cash out because most of my holdings are in stables. I know that I don't want to touch Tether, but if USDC is also deemed toxic, it forces me to reevaluate the risks of both USDC and DAI (which is basically 50% backed by USDC currently)
  - xur17 5y ago
    > Because my main strategy for DeFI has been to (a) provide liquidity in Uniswap pools with tokens paired against USDC and (b) liquidity on Curve, where you stake USDC and DAI. It's worth pointing out that most pools with USDC on curve also expose you to USDT.
    - rglullis 5y ago
      Not the one from Compound. It is cDAI + cUSDC only. But to be completely honest, I am not on this anymore. I moved to the EURS/sEURS based one, as the CRV incentives are very good at the moment. Seeing how I was wrong about Circle status regarding audits, I need to do some more checks about the bank behind EURS.