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Binance and Tether will not become insolvent, and that is precisely the issue. They have an essentially endless supply of laundered funds, criminal money, and i

Binance and Tether will not become insolvent, and that is precisely the issue. They have an essentially endless supply of laundered funds, criminal money, and international backing. It's essentially a financial weapon aimed at the West, and adversaries of the West will not let it fail. Major regulation is the only way that these beasts will be slain, but they have donned the cloak of "an exciting new fintech industry" and are lobbying like hell, so I'm not terribly optimistic.

einszwei 4y ago
> It's essentially a financial weapon aimed at the West, and adversaries of the West will not let it fail. An interesting way to phrase it but do you have any sources to back your claim? I know that Binance is being investigated for money laundering and sanctions violations. But this could just be a consequence of corporate greed and operating in unregulated markets (not some conspiracy against west).
- rvnx 4y ago
  In Europe, wire transfers work exceptionally well since the introduction of SEPA Instant Credit Transfer. You have the choice between a free, transparent, technically stable, instant payment system (< 10 seconds until 100'000 EUR), using a stable currency. or an unregulated system where unknown people create and control the currency, that is generally slow, often with high payment or exchange fees and where you need to trust a lot of unknown parties (software, tools, network, coins, etc), where you can lose your key, that is falsely transparent (you see transactions, but you don't know who control the network). Mhhh...
  - superjan 4y ago
    True, but how is it relevant to the comment you replied to?
    - rvnx 4y ago
      It's to say that "West" has a quite established and efficient transaction platform. Because of that, as part of the "West", I hardly see any benefit of crypto, unless you are in some other camp (aka: "anti-West"). This is what I meant.
      - m00dy 4y ago
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > what happened to Jews in the 2nd WW in europe Bitcoin is now a solution to a second Holocaust?
        m00dy 4y ago
        TchoBeer 4y ago
        Making it marginally harder to steal wealth from Jewish people would have only slightly abated the negative effects of the holocaust, but it would not at all solve any of their problems.
        acdha 4y ago
        That works as long as you already have liquid assets you can just flee with. The flip side is that bitcoin would have been the SS’ dream for punishing anyone who transferred funds to fleeing Jews and, of course, the ability to taint entire chains of transactions would mean that anyone hiding in country wouldn’t be able to use those funds like they would cash or gold. I also don’t like the possibilities were, say, refugees trying to buy passage suddenly hit with the German government reporting all of their accounts as stolen. It’s an interesting thought exercise but ultimately the lesson is “don’t let fascists gain power” because technology can’t save you.
  - corv 4y ago
    SEPA only works within the EU whereas what you are comparing is a global payments system. In Europe it is also necessary to report any transactions over 10,000 EUR which causes more friction than you imply. It is not transparent as to how much currency debasement is taking place, nor does anybody outside a small group at the ECB have any control over it. It is quite clear who owns decentralized networks - the participants. Are they perfectly equal? No but they are more egalitarian than what they seek to replace. Decentralized networks are more resilient to outages than the electrical supply of some countries. It may not make sense for you to use but millions around the world have found a use for it.
    - sbolt 4y ago
      From a legal perspective do Crypto transfers over 10k have to be reported too?
      - corv 4y ago
        According to newly announced regulations crypto transfers over 1000 Euros are to be scrutinized. How exactly this will be enforced is not clear to me. Also noteworthy, cash payments are limited to 10,000 Euros (1000 Euro in Spain)
        sbolt 4y ago
        Awesome, thanks for the reply!
    - lottin 4y ago
      What a whole lot of nonsense. Blockchains operate on the basis of one dollar one vote. There's nothing egalitarian (not to mention democratic) about this. A central bank, on the other hand, is a public institution with a public mandate. By the way, currency debasement is not an economic term. The only people who use it are conspiracy theorists and crackpots, as far as I know.
      - m00dy 4y ago
  - patrickaljord 4y ago
    > You have the choice between a free, transparent Transparent you say? Could you point me to the SEPA explorer where I can inspect every single transaction and account balance please? Here is the one for ethereum https://etherscan.io/ https://etherscan.io/ and for bitcoin https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transactions https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transactions
    - JanSt 4y ago
      SEPA is transparent for authorities though. Ethereum and Bitcoin are transparent on transactions but intransparent on beneficial owner. Who is Satoshi?
      - patrickaljord 4y ago
        So SEPA allows the government to spy on us while being a black box to the rest of us while Ethereum and Bitcoin are fully transparent while protecting our privacy. Not sure how this is a good point in favor of SEPA but ok.
        raverbashing 4y ago
        > while Ethereum and Bitcoin are fully transparent while protecting our privacy Transparency plays both ways, and be sure that every address can be deanonimized
        csomar 4y ago
        Every year millions of people start running in circles around a black box building in the middle of the desert. I'm not sure if that's a useful analogy. Might explain why they get so violent if you question their god or their beliefs.
        survirtual 4y ago
        When you put it that way, the landscape makes a lot more sense. Just as there would be no convincing people on a Ramadan pilgrimage to Mecca of a better option, there may not be any convincing people who worship the black box of legacy banking. In fact, they might ridicule / murder you if you do — a tale of caution? Seems people everywhere are largely the same.
  - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
    Absolutely true and I use it daily however some people want to dodge taxes or pay for child prostitutes. In which case the official banking channels are unusable.
  - mopsi 4y ago
    You forgot to mention UX. SEPA payments have horrible user experience. The "modern" way of receiving money in automated manner in Europe and using SEPA is through payment providers. On checkout, customers get redirected to payment providers with strange startup names they've never heard about to initiate a transaction, and then redirected to their bank to log in and approve the initiated transaction. This is basically training people to accept phishing and MITM attacks. Checkout via Paypal or debit/credit cards is much more straightforward and user-friendly, which is why they are still widely used (along with local services like Swish). A crypto wallet app that just requires scanning a QR code is even better, and miles ahead of anything SEPA/PSD2 offers in terms of user experience.
    - KarlKemp 4y ago
      How do I scan a QR code on my phone? Do I need a mirror? If it’s so great, why is nobody using it? If people are so easily fooled into MITM attacks, why do they not happen? Have you used Apple Pay? Works quite well.
      - lmm 4y ago
        > How do I scan a QR code on my phone? Do I need a mirror? > If it’s so great, why is nobody using it? Where I live people pay by scanning QR codes all the time. > If people are so easily fooled into MITM attacks, why do they not happen? They do! People are getting scammed on these systems all the time; usually the provider agrees to repay the funds to keep them quiet.
    - omnimus 4y ago
      If QR codes are such a big UX plus then i hate to break it to you but all bank apps in my country read and create QR and people use it all the time. SEPA included. Its quite lovely on invoices i must say. Whats probably not there is that not every EU country uses this but that is matter of time. The banks are international, popular features spread. It will probably become standard very soon.
  - seydor 4y ago
    if only they did the same for gold
- FormerBandmate 4y ago
  There are no sources to be found because no one even knows what country Binance operates out of. They're deliberately as opaque as possible
- spamizbad 4y ago
  I mean, that's basically the pitch I've personally received from various web3 founders trying to recruit me. It's overtly political and is some flavor of "Boy howdy the US dollar hegemony sure is a big problem. It sure would be nice if we had true economic freedom. Want to be part of the solution?"
concinds 4y ago
Why “the West”? Crypto is anti-state power generally, not anti-West (most repressive countries crack down on its use). And I doubt the North Korean or Russian governments are using Binance.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  Crypto only benefits those states shut out of the orderly financial system, like Syria, North Korea, Russia and Iran. North Korea has amassed a veritable crypto fortune, hundreds of millions worth, that they're using to finance their illicit nuclear weapons programs. They don't need to use binance, but binance continued existence props up the value of the crypto space and their holdings allowing their games to continue. [edit] To be clear I'm not saying that NK or any other state actor is propping up binance or Tether (I just don't know) however it's pretty clear IMO that they benefit from its continued existence.
  - corv 4y ago
    So the Russian and Iranian people who are not at fault for their governments misgivings are supposed to be shut out of the global financial system too? Thank Satoshi for true net neutrality.
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      > So the Russian and Iranian people who are not at fault for their governments misgivings are supposed to be shut out of the global financial system too? If it helps exert pressure then financial sanctions are strictly better than kinetic war. The ability to end around those sanctions can lead to significantly more death and suffering - both there and potentially elsewhere. It's not about fairness it's about minimizing harm. If you disagree, vote. > Thank Satoshi for true net neutrality. No thanks man. Seems like an interesting cult y'all have there. [edit] Nobody has the right to trade. If you want to not conform to social norms and pose a risk, fine - but you don't have a fundamental right to exchange with foreign powers whom you detest. If you want to go down that path you better be prepared to be self-sufficient.
corv 4y ago
No, Tether and their banking partner Deltec have very little international backing, nor are they the same entity as Binance. Strange to call Tether and Binance, "weapons aimed at the West", when their implosion would surely do more to damage cryptocurrencies than global US Dollar hegemony. Of course one would be smart to use other platforms rather than creating single points of failure....
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > their implosion would surely do more to damage cryptocurrencies than global US Dollar hegemony Crypto never threatened the dollar. What is creating issues is crypto’s risks causing losses to Americans and, possibly, the American financial system.
  - corv 4y ago
    This crypto and asset bubble was of their own making! Quantitative easing directly lead to inflated asset prices and inflation. Then VCs jumped on the bandwagon and pushed FTX to unsustainable heights. Now people all over the world are suddenly supposed to sit in cash while everything is crashing with high inflation to boot?
    - rvnx 4y ago
      This is why God created I-Bonds.
- fredgrott 4y ago
  also strange wording given US banks are for the most part prevented from offering banking services of crypto exchanges.
- __derek__ 4y ago
  > Tether and their banking partner Deltec have very little international backing Isn't Tether based in Hong Kong?
canadiantim 4y ago
Why does Binance need to be slain? Seems aggressive...
oc852 4y ago
Why even give these guys any legitimacy by regulating them? As some experts opined, just let them burn. Regulating them will end up bringing risk to actual financial markets.
helloworld11 4y ago
Binance and Tether are nowhere near big enough to be major financial weapons against the west. They also have nowhere near the sort of supposed major government or criminal support from anyone interested or powerful enough to stop their possible collapse. That you're claiming they do is odd compared to many, many other more mainstream financial systems that have been used as tools by governments and criminals for a lot longer than crypto has even existed. People could have claimed something similar to what you say about FTX just months ago, and would have, as we now know, been very wrong. Edit: Just the daily trading volume of, say, the forex market, completely dwarfs both the total market cap of tether or the daily volume of Binance. The total value of global equity trading worldwide is also insanely bigger than these two combined.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  I get that you'd need evidence, but wouldn't crypto be the perfect space for dark money? I believe there has been quite a bit of talk about the US's own intelligence investment in the crypto space. Almost everyone I've encountered that worked in US intelligence likes to operate unregulated more or less so that they can use their position to make money. Sure, there might be some laws against it but it happens very frequently. I witnessed it firsthand when working in government seeing the decision-makers getting kickbacks or eventually leaving to go work at the same vendor in a high-level position after approving a $20 million purchase for crap software.
  - csomar 4y ago
    > I get that you'd need evidence, but wouldn't crypto be the perfect space for dark money? It should/could/is. However, there are two things you need to understand: 1. Crypto is mostly a young people game. Who happens to be quite broke. The people who have money where I'm from, are not comfortable with crypto. They'd rather deal cash, real estate, gold or valuable objects. 2. You can't launder money with crypto. You can only launder money with something that has an off-ramp. For now, crypto acceptance is very limited. The number of places, stores and businesses that accept crypto is quite minuscule that you almost always need an off-ramp into the traditional financial system. And that's where the laundering will happen, and is happening.
femto113 4y ago
In fiat terms, unless you really believe there is over $60BN sitting in a bank account that they just choose not to show for "reasons", Tether is already insolvent. Since most of Binance's non-self-issued reserves are in the form of Tether they, by extension, are insolvent as well. The open question is how long can they can keep the game going, thus the current rescue fund/proof of reserves/transparency audit circuses.
- 55555 4y ago
  The NYAG strongly implied that the funds are there.
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    Nope, not at all: From the AG statement: >Tether’s claims that its virtual currency was fully backed by U.S. dollars at all times was a lie… >…for periods of time held no reserves to back tethers in circulation at the rate of one dollar for every tether, contrary to its representations. >In reality, however, the cash ostensibly backing tethers had only been placed in Tether’s account as of the very morning of the company’s ‘verification.’ >… 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 The AG’s statement was pretty clear in going much further than “strongly implying” there are actual serious problems with Tether’s backing claims. 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-...
    - csomar 4y ago
      That's from 2018... look at Tether market cap to get an idea how much the landscape has changed. I guess US regulators will know if Tether is really holding half its reserves in Treasuries (around $30bn). Of course that's not a 1:1 but it's also not 0.
jacquesm 4y ago
Will you make everybody that believes you and that may end up holding the bag in case you are wrong whole? If not then this is content free. Agreed on the regulation front though, that may well - and should - happen.
ineedasername 4y ago
They’re not big enough to be a weapon. Keep in mind the Cold War was as much an economic war as the other aspects. That was countless $billions. The space race alone through 1973 cost a quarter $trillion and that was a minor bit of spending compared to military and intelligence agencies. The US recently during the Covid shutdowns rapidly spent and extra $trillion, then did it again 3 more times roughly a year. This is essentially done via minting fiat money. The US also has too many strategic interests in Europe to allow an economic attack there either, although all of crypto is still too small to bother the EU to any high degree in terms of an economic attack. Finally, Binance may be filled with criminal gains but criminals frown on people taking their money so if anything Binance, to the extent it’s resources have criminal origins, is constrained in deploying them beyond a certain point to defend their business. No, Binance is far from immune to collapse, it’s just that if they start down that pathway then the criminals will be pretty insistent on being first in line to get their money out.
csomar 4y ago
Isn't that cute? So any financial system that is not under tight control by the west is now dangerous, a threat and an attack on the west. Might as well conquer these countries again and steal anything from them 1800s style. That being said, Tether USDT is priced (and supposedly backed) in USD. Is the USA part of the West?

einszwei 4y ago

> It's essentially a financial weapon aimed at the West, and adversaries of the West will not let it fail. An interesting way to phrase it but do you have any sources to back your claim? I know that Binance is being investigated for money laundering and sanctions violations. But this could just be a consequence of corporate greed and operating in unregulated markets (not some conspiracy against west).

rvnx 4y ago
In Europe, wire transfers work exceptionally well since the introduction of SEPA Instant Credit Transfer. You have the choice between a free, transparent, technically stable, instant payment system (< 10 seconds until 100'000 EUR), using a stable currency. or an unregulated system where unknown people create and control the currency, that is generally slow, often with high payment or exchange fees and where you need to trust a lot of unknown parties (software, tools, network, coins, etc), where you can lose your key, that is falsely transparent (you see transactions, but you don't know who control the network). Mhhh...
- superjan 4y ago
  True, but how is it relevant to the comment you replied to?
  - rvnx 4y ago
    It's to say that "West" has a quite established and efficient transaction platform. Because of that, as part of the "West", I hardly see any benefit of crypto, unless you are in some other camp (aka: "anti-West"). This is what I meant.
    - m00dy 4y ago
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > what happened to Jews in the 2nd WW in europe Bitcoin is now a solution to a second Holocaust?
        m00dy 4y ago
        TchoBeer 4y ago
        Making it marginally harder to steal wealth from Jewish people would have only slightly abated the negative effects of the holocaust, but it would not at all solve any of their problems.
        acdha 4y ago
        That works as long as you already have liquid assets you can just flee with. The flip side is that bitcoin would have been the SS’ dream for punishing anyone who transferred funds to fleeing Jews and, of course, the ability to taint entire chains of transactions would mean that anyone hiding in country wouldn’t be able to use those funds like they would cash or gold. I also don’t like the possibilities were, say, refugees trying to buy passage suddenly hit with the German government reporting all of their accounts as stolen. It’s an interesting thought exercise but ultimately the lesson is “don’t let fascists gain power” because technology can’t save you.
- corv 4y ago
  SEPA only works within the EU whereas what you are comparing is a global payments system. In Europe it is also necessary to report any transactions over 10,000 EUR which causes more friction than you imply. It is not transparent as to how much currency debasement is taking place, nor does anybody outside a small group at the ECB have any control over it. It is quite clear who owns decentralized networks - the participants. Are they perfectly equal? No but they are more egalitarian than what they seek to replace. Decentralized networks are more resilient to outages than the electrical supply of some countries. It may not make sense for you to use but millions around the world have found a use for it.
  - sbolt 4y ago
    From a legal perspective do Crypto transfers over 10k have to be reported too?
    - corv 4y ago
      According to newly announced regulations crypto transfers over 1000 Euros are to be scrutinized. How exactly this will be enforced is not clear to me. Also noteworthy, cash payments are limited to 10,000 Euros (1000 Euro in Spain)
      - sbolt 4y ago
        Awesome, thanks for the reply!
  - lottin 4y ago
    What a whole lot of nonsense. Blockchains operate on the basis of one dollar one vote. There's nothing egalitarian (not to mention democratic) about this. A central bank, on the other hand, is a public institution with a public mandate. By the way, currency debasement is not an economic term. The only people who use it are conspiracy theorists and crackpots, as far as I know.
    - m00dy 4y ago
- patrickaljord 4y ago
  > You have the choice between a free, transparent Transparent you say? Could you point me to the SEPA explorer where I can inspect every single transaction and account balance please? Here is the one for ethereum https://etherscan.io/ https://etherscan.io/ and for bitcoin https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transactions https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transactions
  - JanSt 4y ago
    SEPA is transparent for authorities though. Ethereum and Bitcoin are transparent on transactions but intransparent on beneficial owner. Who is Satoshi?
    - patrickaljord 4y ago
      So SEPA allows the government to spy on us while being a black box to the rest of us while Ethereum and Bitcoin are fully transparent while protecting our privacy. Not sure how this is a good point in favor of SEPA but ok.
      - raverbashing 4y ago
        > while Ethereum and Bitcoin are fully transparent while protecting our privacy Transparency plays both ways, and be sure that every address can be deanonimized
      - csomar 4y ago
        Every year millions of people start running in circles around a black box building in the middle of the desert. I'm not sure if that's a useful analogy. Might explain why they get so violent if you question their god or their beliefs.
        survirtual 4y ago
        When you put it that way, the landscape makes a lot more sense. Just as there would be no convincing people on a Ramadan pilgrimage to Mecca of a better option, there may not be any convincing people who worship the black box of legacy banking. In fact, they might ridicule / murder you if you do — a tale of caution? Seems people everywhere are largely the same.
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  Absolutely true and I use it daily however some people want to dodge taxes or pay for child prostitutes. In which case the official banking channels are unusable.
- mopsi 4y ago
  You forgot to mention UX. SEPA payments have horrible user experience. The "modern" way of receiving money in automated manner in Europe and using SEPA is through payment providers. On checkout, customers get redirected to payment providers with strange startup names they've never heard about to initiate a transaction, and then redirected to their bank to log in and approve the initiated transaction. This is basically training people to accept phishing and MITM attacks. Checkout via Paypal or debit/credit cards is much more straightforward and user-friendly, which is why they are still widely used (along with local services like Swish). A crypto wallet app that just requires scanning a QR code is even better, and miles ahead of anything SEPA/PSD2 offers in terms of user experience.
  - KarlKemp 4y ago
    How do I scan a QR code on my phone? Do I need a mirror? If it’s so great, why is nobody using it? If people are so easily fooled into MITM attacks, why do they not happen? Have you used Apple Pay? Works quite well.
    - lmm 4y ago
      > How do I scan a QR code on my phone? Do I need a mirror? > If it’s so great, why is nobody using it? Where I live people pay by scanning QR codes all the time. > If people are so easily fooled into MITM attacks, why do they not happen? They do! People are getting scammed on these systems all the time; usually the provider agrees to repay the funds to keep them quiet.
  - omnimus 4y ago
    If QR codes are such a big UX plus then i hate to break it to you but all bank apps in my country read and create QR and people use it all the time. SEPA included. Its quite lovely on invoices i must say. Whats probably not there is that not every EU country uses this but that is matter of time. The banks are international, popular features spread. It will probably become standard very soon.
- seydor 4y ago
  if only they did the same for gold
FormerBandmate 4y ago
There are no sources to be found because no one even knows what country Binance operates out of. They're deliberately as opaque as possible
spamizbad 4y ago
I mean, that's basically the pitch I've personally received from various web3 founders trying to recruit me. It's overtly political and is some flavor of "Boy howdy the US dollar hegemony sure is a big problem. It sure would be nice if we had true economic freedom. Want to be part of the solution?"

concinds 4y ago

Why “the West”? Crypto is anti-state power generally, not anti-West (most repressive countries crack down on its use). And I doubt the North Korean or Russian governments are using Binance.

arcticbull 4y ago
Crypto only benefits those states shut out of the orderly financial system, like Syria, North Korea, Russia and Iran. North Korea has amassed a veritable crypto fortune, hundreds of millions worth, that they're using to finance their illicit nuclear weapons programs. They don't need to use binance, but binance continued existence props up the value of the crypto space and their holdings allowing their games to continue. [edit] To be clear I'm not saying that NK or any other state actor is propping up binance or Tether (I just don't know) however it's pretty clear IMO that they benefit from its continued existence.
- corv 4y ago
  So the Russian and Iranian people who are not at fault for their governments misgivings are supposed to be shut out of the global financial system too? Thank Satoshi for true net neutrality.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    > So the Russian and Iranian people who are not at fault for their governments misgivings are supposed to be shut out of the global financial system too? If it helps exert pressure then financial sanctions are strictly better than kinetic war. The ability to end around those sanctions can lead to significantly more death and suffering - both there and potentially elsewhere. It's not about fairness it's about minimizing harm. If you disagree, vote. > Thank Satoshi for true net neutrality. No thanks man. Seems like an interesting cult y'all have there. [edit] Nobody has the right to trade. If you want to not conform to social norms and pose a risk, fine - but you don't have a fundamental right to exchange with foreign powers whom you detest. If you want to go down that path you better be prepared to be self-sufficient.

corv 4y ago

No, Tether and their banking partner Deltec have very little international backing, nor are they the same entity as Binance. Strange to call Tether and Binance, "weapons aimed at the West", when their implosion would surely do more to damage cryptocurrencies than global US Dollar hegemony. Of course one would be smart to use other platforms rather than creating single points of failure....

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> their implosion would surely do more to damage cryptocurrencies than global US Dollar hegemony Crypto never threatened the dollar. What is creating issues is crypto’s risks causing losses to Americans and, possibly, the American financial system.
- corv 4y ago
  This crypto and asset bubble was of their own making! Quantitative easing directly lead to inflated asset prices and inflation. Then VCs jumped on the bandwagon and pushed FTX to unsustainable heights. Now people all over the world are suddenly supposed to sit in cash while everything is crashing with high inflation to boot?
  - rvnx 4y ago
    This is why God created I-Bonds.
fredgrott 4y ago
also strange wording given US banks are for the most part prevented from offering banking services of crypto exchanges.
__derek__ 4y ago
> Tether and their banking partner Deltec have very little international backing Isn't Tether based in Hong Kong?

canadiantim 4y ago

Why does Binance need to be slain? Seems aggressive...

oc852 4y ago

Why even give these guys any legitimacy by regulating them? As some experts opined, just let them burn. Regulating them will end up bringing risk to actual financial markets.

helloworld11 4y ago

Binance and Tether are nowhere near big enough to be major financial weapons against the west. They also have nowhere near the sort of supposed major government or criminal support from anyone interested or powerful enough to stop their possible collapse. That you're claiming they do is odd compared to many, many other more mainstream financial systems that have been used as tools by governments and criminals for a lot longer than crypto has even existed. People could have claimed something similar to what you say about FTX just months ago, and would have, as we now know, been very wrong. Edit: Just the daily trading volume of, say, the forex market, completely dwarfs both the total market cap of tether or the daily volume of Binance. The total value of global equity trading worldwide is also insanely bigger than these two combined.

encryptluks2 4y ago
I get that you'd need evidence, but wouldn't crypto be the perfect space for dark money? I believe there has been quite a bit of talk about the US's own intelligence investment in the crypto space. Almost everyone I've encountered that worked in US intelligence likes to operate unregulated more or less so that they can use their position to make money. Sure, there might be some laws against it but it happens very frequently. I witnessed it firsthand when working in government seeing the decision-makers getting kickbacks or eventually leaving to go work at the same vendor in a high-level position after approving a $20 million purchase for crap software.
- csomar 4y ago
  > I get that you'd need evidence, but wouldn't crypto be the perfect space for dark money? It should/could/is. However, there are two things you need to understand: 1. Crypto is mostly a young people game. Who happens to be quite broke. The people who have money where I'm from, are not comfortable with crypto. They'd rather deal cash, real estate, gold or valuable objects. 2. You can't launder money with crypto. You can only launder money with something that has an off-ramp. For now, crypto acceptance is very limited. The number of places, stores and businesses that accept crypto is quite minuscule that you almost always need an off-ramp into the traditional financial system. And that's where the laundering will happen, and is happening.

femto113 4y ago

In fiat terms, unless you really believe there is over $60BN sitting in a bank account that they just choose not to show for "reasons", Tether is already insolvent. Since most of Binance's non-self-issued reserves are in the form of Tether they, by extension, are insolvent as well. The open question is how long can they can keep the game going, thus the current rescue fund/proof of reserves/transparency audit circuses.

55555 4y ago
The NYAG strongly implied that the funds are there.
- ineedasername 4y ago
  Nope, not at all: From the AG statement: >Tether’s claims that its virtual currency was fully backed by U.S. dollars at all times was a lie… >…for periods of time held no reserves to back tethers in circulation at the rate of one dollar for every tether, contrary to its representations. >In reality, however, the cash ostensibly backing tethers had only been placed in Tether’s account as of the very morning of the company’s ‘verification.’ >… 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 The AG’s statement was pretty clear in going much further than “strongly implying” there are actual serious problems with Tether’s backing claims. 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-...
  - csomar 4y ago
    That's from 2018... look at Tether market cap to get an idea how much the landscape has changed. I guess US regulators will know if Tether is really holding half its reserves in Treasuries (around $30bn). Of course that's not a 1:1 but it's also not 0.

jacquesm 4y ago

Will you make everybody that believes you and that may end up holding the bag in case you are wrong whole? If not then this is content free. Agreed on the regulation front though, that may well - and should - happen.

ineedasername 4y ago

They’re not big enough to be a weapon. Keep in mind the Cold War was as much an economic war as the other aspects. That was countless $billions. The space race alone through 1973 cost a quarter $trillion and that was a minor bit of spending compared to military and intelligence agencies. The US recently during the Covid shutdowns rapidly spent and extra $trillion, then did it again 3 more times roughly a year. This is essentially done via minting fiat money. The US also has too many strategic interests in Europe to allow an economic attack there either, although all of crypto is still too small to bother the EU to any high degree in terms of an economic attack. Finally, Binance may be filled with criminal gains but criminals frown on people taking their money so if anything Binance, to the extent it’s resources have criminal origins, is constrained in deploying them beyond a certain point to defend their business. No, Binance is far from immune to collapse, it’s just that if they start down that pathway then the criminals will be pretty insistent on being first in line to get their money out.

csomar 4y ago

Isn't that cute? So any financial system that is not under tight control by the west is now dangerous, a threat and an attack on the west. Might as well conquer these countries again and steal anything from them 1800s style. That being said, Tether USDT is priced (and supposedly backed) in USD. Is the USA part of the West?