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USDC by Circle, holds only cash and US government bonds. They are considered the safest stable coin. They are on-shore in the U.S. and registered as a money tra

USDC by Circle, holds only cash and US government bonds. They are considered the safest stable coin. They are on-shore in the U.S. and registered as a money transmitter. They do get frequent audits but that being said USDC itself is not FDIC insured, so there's still higher risk than a bank account. https://www.circle.com/en/usdc https://www.circle.com/en/usdc Then there are truly collateralized stable coins, like DAI, which work off an automated system of collateralized on-chain deposits. DAI is borrowed into existence up to a limit. If a borrower's collateral gets within a threshold of going under water (depending on collateral risk params, could be 150%), they can get liquidated and their assets are sold to cover their debt. DAI is the most established of the "decentralized" stable coins. It was formed in 2017 by MakerDAO. All CDPs are on chain, and auditable. https://daistats.com/#/ https://daistats.com/#/ USDD literally launched within the past 60 days, right about when UST was going bust. These coins are algo ponzis that are not fully backed and promise exorbitant interest rates which are completely unsustainable.

ceejayoz 4y ago
No, USDC doesn't get audits, and they stopped publishing their reserve breakdown in their attestations; compare September 2021 (page four) as an example against the more recent ones. https://www.centre.io/usdc-transparency https://www.centre.io/usdc-transparency > Top five accounting services firm Grant Thornton LLP issues attestations each month on the US dollar denominated reserves that back the USDC tokens in circulation. Same trick Tether pulled for years. 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-... > 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.
- TameAntelope 4y ago
  It's not the "same trick", because they're not doing any of the shit Tether is doing. Honestly it's wildly irresponsible to just claim without evidence that USDC isn't what it claims to be. With Tether, there was tons of evidence. With USDC, there's absolutely zero. Also, "attestations" aren't meaningless. They're not full audits, but they're not meaningless.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    > It's not the "same trick" To be clear, I'm referring to "calling attestations audits". Both Tether and USDC are using that same trick. There are two options; they don't know the difference (incompetent), or they know the difference and still choose to publicly conflate the two (fraudulent). Neither is good. > Also, "attestations" aren't meaningless. They're not full audits, but they're not meaningless. They are meaningless for purposes of "does this organization control the money they claim to control".
    - TameAntelope 4y ago
      Attestations are not meaningless when determining whether or not something an organization claims as true is true. It’s just a talking point by anti-crypto to claim otherwise. Attestations are used for similar purposes all the time, but only in crypto is it “not good enough”.
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        > Attestations are not meaningless when determining whether or not something an organization claims as true is true. Well, sure. The problem is the claims are too narrow to be useful. "Here's my bank balance" - roughly what Tether and other attest to - isn't even enough info for me to get a mortgage. The bank will want substantially more info; they want to know how I got that bank balance, how much I owe to other people, whether I'm employed to continue building it, etc. Again, Tether attested to bank balances, and those attestations were truthful, but they entirely lacked the very important context of "we didn't have money yesterday, and we won't have money tomorrow".

ceejayoz 4y ago

No, USDC doesn't get audits, and they stopped publishing their reserve breakdown in their attestations; compare September 2021 (page four) as an example against the more recent ones. https://www.centre.io/usdc-transparency https://www.centre.io/usdc-transparency > Top five accounting services firm Grant Thornton LLP issues attestations each month on the US dollar denominated reserves that back the USDC tokens in circulation. Same trick Tether pulled for years. 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-... > 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.

TameAntelope 4y ago
It's not the "same trick", because they're not doing any of the shit Tether is doing. Honestly it's wildly irresponsible to just claim without evidence that USDC isn't what it claims to be. With Tether, there was tons of evidence. With USDC, there's absolutely zero. Also, "attestations" aren't meaningless. They're not full audits, but they're not meaningless.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  > It's not the "same trick" To be clear, I'm referring to "calling attestations audits". Both Tether and USDC are using that same trick. There are two options; they don't know the difference (incompetent), or they know the difference and still choose to publicly conflate the two (fraudulent). Neither is good. > Also, "attestations" aren't meaningless. They're not full audits, but they're not meaningless. They are meaningless for purposes of "does this organization control the money they claim to control".
  - TameAntelope 4y ago
    Attestations are not meaningless when determining whether or not something an organization claims as true is true. It’s just a talking point by anti-crypto to claim otherwise. Attestations are used for similar purposes all the time, but only in crypto is it “not good enough”.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      > Attestations are not meaningless when determining whether or not something an organization claims as true is true. Well, sure. The problem is the claims are too narrow to be useful. "Here's my bank balance" - roughly what Tether and other attest to - isn't even enough info for me to get a mortgage. The bank will want substantially more info; they want to know how I got that bank balance, how much I owe to other people, whether I'm employed to continue building it, etc. Again, Tether attested to bank balances, and those attestations were truthful, but they entirely lacked the very important context of "we didn't have money yesterday, and we won't have money tomorrow".