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> Right now, when you can buy a tether at $0.997 and (in theory) sell it back to tether at $1 No, you can't. Not even in theory. You have no right to redeem. T

> Right now, when you can buy a tether at $0.997 and (in theory) sell it back to tether at $1 No, you can't. Not even in theory. You have no right to redeem. They can choose to buy it back from you for $1, but it's not a right of the token.

Yeahsureok 4y ago
Everyone in the developed world can sign up for kraken right now. Why are mistruths like this always presented so strongly and at the top here? Are you all so heavily invested in this belief? You can sell tether for usd, all day every day, I guess screaming into the void and getting upvotes is more valuable on an emotional level. https://trade.kraken.com/charts/KRAKEN:USDT-USD https://trade.kraken.com/charts/KRAKEN:USDT-USD
- anonymoushn 4y ago
  That's not redeeming. Redeeming is sending your Tethers to Tether and receiving a USD wire transfer. Fairly few entities can do this. We can't do it yet.
  - Yeahsureok 4y ago
    So imagine you get what you want here, and tether open trading for all customers down to those who want to redeem 20 cents... Ignoring that the last person who tried to create a digital token pegged to USD. Ignoring all the AMC/KYC risks You'd actually be happy? You truly wouldn't just move onto accusing them of facilitating money laundering on a massive scale as tethers can move across borders for a few cents? I doubt this.
  - prvit 4y ago
    >Fairly few entities can do this What do you mean? You just have to complete the fairly simple KYC process and you can start redeeming. Perhaps you mean that fairly few entities have bothered to do this?
    - anonymoushn 4y ago
      It's not clear that we will succeed at the fairly simple KYC process. A lot of exchanges have fairly stringent requirements around customers' directors' citizenships, and those that do not often like to play 100 round matches of email tag with us. If you work for Tether and you created a new Hacker News account to offer to onboard us, that sounds great :)
    - cuteboy19 4y ago
      The average trader does not have 100k USDT lying around unfortunately. Though I suppose Mr Paolo has no time to talk to poor people, just like Mr Kwon https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/terrausd-founder-do-kwon-mocked-an-economist-for-being-poor-after-she-criticized-his-cryptocurrency-which-is-now-collapsing/articleshow/91524379.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/terrausd-...
      - prvit 4y ago
        100k USDT is a small amount of money for anyone trading professionally.
- mjburgess 4y ago
  If you buy/sell $100k USD and pay the relevant transaction fees; and if tether doesnt run of out capital just as you are doing it. Which, at <1$/$, tether should now be bankrupt. It's presently advertising free money: just buy at <1 and sell back at 1. If it were actually possible to do that, tether would be out of capital tomorrow.
  - anonymoushn 4y ago
    That's not really true. The amount of redemptions needed to restore the peg is capped at the size of their reserves, and in reality is probably a lot less. I think a lot of commenters get confused about why big crypto firms don't defend the peg more aggressively. The reason is that defending the peg less aggressively is more profitable.
- paulgb 4y ago
  You’re referring to selling the USDT back to the market at the market rate. OP and GP are referring to selling USDT back to Tether at its face value when that face value has deviated from the market price.
- milkshakes 4y ago
  the argument is not that you can’t exchange 1 usdt for 1 usd today. the argument is that nobody, not tether and not any exchange, is committed to maintain this exchange rate peg. in fact the topic of this thread is a discussion on how (long) and whether the peg can be maintained.
joosters 4y ago
Look, I said I was a tether skeptic, but I think it is undeniable that Tether are buying back tethers from some people. If they weren't doing that right now, we'd see a whole lot of stories like "I tried to redeem $100M of tether and they refused!" out there. Tether undoubtedly has several large trading partners that buy and sell large volumes of coins from them. If they stopped redemptions, you can bet that everyone would soon hear about it. Now, it's absolutely true that their crappy terms & conditions give them complete freedom to refuse redemptions from anybody at any time for any reason. And that (in my view) makes it a very dubious company to rely on. But you are completely and utterly wrong to say that "No, you can't. Not even in theory".
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  This isn't the same thing though. They may be buying Tether. I'm not aware of evidence that they do this, but I'll believe it because it seems logical that they would. You cannot REDEEM the coins. Which may look a lot like just selling it back to them for $1 but it's not the same. That's a problem. They can stop buying tethers whenever they want and, theoretically, you have no recourse. It's only going to keep going while it suits them. edit: and, importantly, you cannot even SELL tether back to them for $1. They just won't do this right now. They'll do market price at best.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > we'd see a whole lot of stories like "I tried to redeem $100M of tether and they refused!" out there If I had a $100mm Tether they refused to redeem, the last thing I’d do is talk about it.
  - cuteboy19 4y ago
    I would try to sell it on the open market at 0.997
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    Yeah, it would be the last thing you do: 1. dump on the market 2. take out a huge short position 3. tell the world that Tether refused to redeem
prvit 4y ago
There's no guarantee that Tether will continue to do this in the future, but as of today you can in fact redeem your USDT for USD on tether.to
- joecool1029 4y ago
  With the large caveat that you must have at least $100k in it.
  - prvit 4y ago
    This is a minor caveat. Whats the problem with just selling your USDT on the market if you have less than 100k?

Yeahsureok 4y ago

Everyone in the developed world can sign up for kraken right now. Why are mistruths like this always presented so strongly and at the top here? Are you all so heavily invested in this belief? You can sell tether for usd, all day every day, I guess screaming into the void and getting upvotes is more valuable on an emotional level. https://trade.kraken.com/charts/KRAKEN:USDT-USD https://trade.kraken.com/charts/KRAKEN:USDT-USD

anonymoushn 4y ago
That's not redeeming. Redeeming is sending your Tethers to Tether and receiving a USD wire transfer. Fairly few entities can do this. We can't do it yet.
- Yeahsureok 4y ago
  So imagine you get what you want here, and tether open trading for all customers down to those who want to redeem 20 cents... Ignoring that the last person who tried to create a digital token pegged to USD. Ignoring all the AMC/KYC risks You'd actually be happy? You truly wouldn't just move onto accusing them of facilitating money laundering on a massive scale as tethers can move across borders for a few cents? I doubt this.
- prvit 4y ago
  >Fairly few entities can do this What do you mean? You just have to complete the fairly simple KYC process and you can start redeeming. Perhaps you mean that fairly few entities have bothered to do this?
  - anonymoushn 4y ago
    It's not clear that we will succeed at the fairly simple KYC process. A lot of exchanges have fairly stringent requirements around customers' directors' citizenships, and those that do not often like to play 100 round matches of email tag with us. If you work for Tether and you created a new Hacker News account to offer to onboard us, that sounds great :)
  - cuteboy19 4y ago
    The average trader does not have 100k USDT lying around unfortunately. Though I suppose Mr Paolo has no time to talk to poor people, just like Mr Kwon https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/terrausd-founder-do-kwon-mocked-an-economist-for-being-poor-after-she-criticized-his-cryptocurrency-which-is-now-collapsing/articleshow/91524379.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/terrausd-...
    - prvit 4y ago
      100k USDT is a small amount of money for anyone trading professionally.
mjburgess 4y ago
If you buy/sell $100k USD and pay the relevant transaction fees; and if tether doesnt run of out capital just as you are doing it. Which, at <1$/$, tether should now be bankrupt. It's presently advertising free money: just buy at <1 and sell back at 1. If it were actually possible to do that, tether would be out of capital tomorrow.
- anonymoushn 4y ago
  That's not really true. The amount of redemptions needed to restore the peg is capped at the size of their reserves, and in reality is probably a lot less. I think a lot of commenters get confused about why big crypto firms don't defend the peg more aggressively. The reason is that defending the peg less aggressively is more profitable.
paulgb 4y ago
You’re referring to selling the USDT back to the market at the market rate. OP and GP are referring to selling USDT back to Tether at its face value when that face value has deviated from the market price.
milkshakes 4y ago
the argument is not that you can’t exchange 1 usdt for 1 usd today. the argument is that nobody, not tether and not any exchange, is committed to maintain this exchange rate peg. in fact the topic of this thread is a discussion on how (long) and whether the peg can be maintained.

joosters 4y ago

Look, I said I was a tether skeptic, but I think it is undeniable that Tether are buying back tethers from some people. If they weren't doing that right now, we'd see a whole lot of stories like "I tried to redeem $100M of tether and they refused!" out there. Tether undoubtedly has several large trading partners that buy and sell large volumes of coins from them. If they stopped redemptions, you can bet that everyone would soon hear about it. Now, it's absolutely true that their crappy terms & conditions give them complete freedom to refuse redemptions from anybody at any time for any reason. And that (in my view) makes it a very dubious company to rely on. But you are completely and utterly wrong to say that "No, you can't. Not even in theory".

spywaregorilla 4y ago
This isn't the same thing though. They may be buying Tether. I'm not aware of evidence that they do this, but I'll believe it because it seems logical that they would. You cannot REDEEM the coins. Which may look a lot like just selling it back to them for $1 but it's not the same. That's a problem. They can stop buying tethers whenever they want and, theoretically, you have no recourse. It's only going to keep going while it suits them. edit: and, importantly, you cannot even SELL tether back to them for $1. They just won't do this right now. They'll do market price at best.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> we'd see a whole lot of stories like "I tried to redeem $100M of tether and they refused!" out there If I had a $100mm Tether they refused to redeem, the last thing I’d do is talk about it.
- cuteboy19 4y ago
  I would try to sell it on the open market at 0.997
- fallingknife 4y ago
  Yeah, it would be the last thing you do: 1. dump on the market 2. take out a huge short position 3. tell the world that Tether refused to redeem

prvit 4y ago

There's no guarantee that Tether will continue to do this in the future, but as of today you can in fact redeem your USDT for USD on tether.to

joecool1029 4y ago
With the large caveat that you must have at least $100k in it.
- prvit 4y ago
  This is a minor caveat. Whats the problem with just selling your USDT on the market if you have less than 100k?