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What's the difference between "attested" and "audited" in this context. That really sounds like a linguistic cop-out.

vkou 4y ago
My understanding is that an attestation that you have a billion dollars looks at your bank balance, and observes that you have a billion dollars in your accounts. An audit looks at the history of your overall financials, to ensure that you didn't just borrow that billion dollars two days ago for the sole purpose of passing the audit. Or that you didn't, like, cash a half-billion dollar check from yourself to yourself, and have the money immediately show up in the destination account, before it was debited from the source account.
- noneeeed 4y ago
  Oh, well that doesn't sound shady at all... I definitely feel like this is one of those situations where "if you have nothing to fear you have nothing to hide" actually applies. I couldn't get a mortgage without a thorough check that income was indeed real income, the idea that billions in assets could be "attested" and not actually audited is incredibly shady.
DebtDeflation 4y ago
Read the actual report to see what they are attesting to: https://www.centre.io/hubfs/PDF/2022%20Circle%20Examination%20Report%20March%202022.pdf?hsLang=en https://www.centre.io/hubfs/PDF/2022%20Circle%20Examination%... 1) There are 51.39 billion USDC in circulation. 2) On a particular day (the Report Date) Circle held an amount of USD-denominated assets at least equal to the number of USDC in circulation in a segregated account. Note what is absent: No statement as to what these assets are. No statement as to where they came from and whether they were in the account the day before or the day after the Report Date.
- Animats 4y ago
  On a particular date and time - 11:59 PM on March 31, 2022. In the crypto world, where you can borrow a few billion dollars for a few seconds cheaply, that doesn't mean much.
dylan604 4y ago
I attest that the last time I looked under the cushions, there was money there, but nobody has audited my claims. Has anybody trusted the attestations, but verified (audited)?
ceejayoz 4y ago
> What's the difference between "attested" and "audited" in this context. Attestation: "Person X has $50 million dollars in an account." Audit: "Person X has $50 million dollars in an account, and we know how it got there, who has claims on it, and whether it's fairly likely to still exist tomorrow." As a concrete example: https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.02.17_-_settlement_agreement_-_execution_version.b-t_signed-c2_oag_signed.pdf https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.02.17_-_settlemen... > On the morning of September 15, 2017, Tether opened an account at Noble Bank. Later that day, Bitfinex transferred $382,446,847.71 from Bitfinex’s account at Noble Bank into Tether’s account at Noble Bank. Friedman conducted its verification of Tether’s assets as of 8:00 p.m. EST. https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-ends-virtual-currency-trading-platform-bitfinexs-illegal https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-... > On November 1, 2018, Tether publicized another self-proclaimed ‘verification’ of its cash reserve; this time at Deltec Bank & Trust Ltd. of the Bahamas. The announcement linked to a letter dated November 1, 2018, which stated that tethers were fully backed by cash, at one dollar for every one tether. However, the very next day, on November 2, 2018, Tether began to transfer funds out of its account, ultimately moving hundreds of millions of dollars from Tether’s bank accounts to Bitfinex’s accounts. And so, as of November 2, 2018 — one day after their latest ‘verification’ — tethers were again no longer backed one-to-one by U.S. dollars in a Tether bank account. An audit would've flagged this. An attestation does not. It's like a kid who answers "are you eating cookies before dinner" with "no" because they stopped when you asked the question and are not currently eating one.

vkou 4y ago

My understanding is that an attestation that you have a billion dollars looks at your bank balance, and observes that you have a billion dollars in your accounts. An audit looks at the history of your overall financials, to ensure that you didn't just borrow that billion dollars two days ago for the sole purpose of passing the audit. Or that you didn't, like, cash a half-billion dollar check from yourself to yourself, and have the money immediately show up in the destination account, before it was debited from the source account.

noneeeed 4y ago
Oh, well that doesn't sound shady at all... I definitely feel like this is one of those situations where "if you have nothing to fear you have nothing to hide" actually applies. I couldn't get a mortgage without a thorough check that income was indeed real income, the idea that billions in assets could be "attested" and not actually audited is incredibly shady.

DebtDeflation 4y ago

Read the actual report to see what they are attesting to: https://www.centre.io/hubfs/PDF/2022%20Circle%20Examination%20Report%20March%202022.pdf?hsLang=en https://www.centre.io/hubfs/PDF/2022%20Circle%20Examination%... 1) There are 51.39 billion USDC in circulation. 2) On a particular day (the Report Date) Circle held an amount of USD-denominated assets at least equal to the number of USDC in circulation in a segregated account. Note what is absent: No statement as to what these assets are. No statement as to where they came from and whether they were in the account the day before or the day after the Report Date.

Animats 4y ago
On a particular date and time - 11:59 PM on March 31, 2022. In the crypto world, where you can borrow a few billion dollars for a few seconds cheaply, that doesn't mean much.

dylan604 4y ago

I attest that the last time I looked under the cushions, there was money there, but nobody has audited my claims. Has anybody trusted the attestations, but verified (audited)?

ceejayoz 4y ago

> What's the difference between "attested" and "audited" in this context. Attestation: "Person X has $50 million dollars in an account." Audit: "Person X has $50 million dollars in an account, and we know how it got there, who has claims on it, and whether it's fairly likely to still exist tomorrow." As a concrete example: https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.02.17_-_settlement_agreement_-_execution_version.b-t_signed-c2_oag_signed.pdf https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.02.17_-_settlemen... > On the morning of September 15, 2017, Tether opened an account at Noble Bank. Later that day, Bitfinex transferred $382,446,847.71 from Bitfinex’s account at Noble Bank into Tether’s account at Noble Bank. Friedman conducted its verification of Tether’s assets as of 8:00 p.m. EST. https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-ends-virtual-currency-trading-platform-bitfinexs-illegal https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-... > On November 1, 2018, Tether publicized another self-proclaimed ‘verification’ of its cash reserve; this time at Deltec Bank & Trust Ltd. of the Bahamas. The announcement linked to a letter dated November 1, 2018, which stated that tethers were fully backed by cash, at one dollar for every one tether. However, the very next day, on November 2, 2018, Tether began to transfer funds out of its account, ultimately moving hundreds of millions of dollars from Tether’s bank accounts to Bitfinex’s accounts. And so, as of November 2, 2018 — one day after their latest ‘verification’ — tethers were again no longer backed one-to-one by U.S. dollars in a Tether bank account. An audit would've flagged this. An attestation does not. It's like a kid who answers "are you eating cookies before dinner" with "no" because they stopped when you asked the question and are not currently eating one.