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> My own theory of what's actually going on here is that Tether is intentionally obtuse, because it allows them to make seignorage profits against their own use

by hiq 4y ago

> My own theory of what's actually going on here is that Tether is intentionally obtuse, because it allows them to make seignorage profits against their own users. From https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-14/hedge-funds-drawn-to-crypto-s-big-short-tether-after-ftx-reveals-cracks https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-14/hedge-fun...: > Tether concealed the loss of more than $850 million of reserves to a Panamanian entity called Crypto Capital Corp. as recently as 2018, the New York Attorney General found. In a separate case, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found Tether didn’t have enough fiat reserves to back circulating tokens more than two-thirds of the time, in a period between 2016 and 2018. so it's more than just being obtuse. I don't think they're playing with the trust of their own stablecoin to get cheap USDT, it'd be better for them to be more trustworthy and have more USD to invest in safe investments with low interests, but they're probably losing some market share to more trustworthy (US-based) stablecoins because of how shady they look.

darawk 4y ago
> I don't think they're playing with the trust of their own stablecoin to get cheap USDT, it'd be better for them to be more trustworthy and have more USD to invest in safe investments with low interests, but they're probably losing some market share to more trustworthy (US-based) stablecoins because of how shady they look. I think as of today that is a true statement, because yields on safe investments are now so high. But for the last decade I think it has been quite false. If Tether had only been investing in treasuries and had no other revenue strategy for the past 10 years, their profits would not be nearly as high as if they had pursued the strategy I suggested. And remember, for many years they were literally the only game in town, they had no competition to worry about.

by hiq 4y ago

darawk 4y ago

> I don't think they're playing with the trust of their own stablecoin to get cheap USDT, it'd be better for them to be more trustworthy and have more USD to invest in safe investments with low interests, but they're probably losing some market share to more trustworthy (US-based) stablecoins because of how shady they look. I think as of today that is a true statement, because yields on safe investments are now so high. But for the last decade I think it has been quite false. If Tether had only been investing in treasuries and had no other revenue strategy for the past 10 years, their profits would not be nearly as high as if they had pursued the strategy I suggested. And remember, for many years they were literally the only game in town, they had no competition to worry about.