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Am I missing something obvious? Bitcoin has moved between 120k <--> 110K pretty much continuously since July. I don't really see the move Friday as a huge deal

Am I missing something obvious? Bitcoin has moved between 120k <--> 110K pretty much continuously since July. I don't really see the move Friday as a huge deal (in the scope of the Wild West crypto is), looks like business as usual.

postflopclarity 1y ago
it happened really fast so a lot of positions were liquidated automatically by force, rather than voluntarily by the user. that's really the main distinction
- Ekaros 1y ago
  These things happen when too many participants are leveraged... Not that I feel sad for them. They took a gamble where sometimes they do lose...
candiddevmike 1y ago
It's a big deal from the standpoint that tether stepped in, printed ~ a billion USDT over the past three days, and prevented further plunging. Someone should investigate that... Reminder, if you're invested in crypto long term, you'd better say a prayer every night that Tether is actually backed by ~$180B of liquidity.
- scotty79 1y ago
  Assuming it happened, if Tether didn't de-peg due to this then it was probably the right thing to do. If they printed it and bought BTC in the dip they are massively ahead since BTC already regained a third of what it lost in the wipe.
- sidewndr46 1y ago
  Does anyone actually believe that Tether is backed by anything? I know there are at least a few companies that have to pretend Tether is backed by something. But I can't really believe anyone saying it. It'd be sort of like if someone just declared Madoff never really ran Ponzi scheme. It was just a big misunderstanding. Furthermore does it even really matter if Tether is backed by anything? My understanding is they've always maintained an absolute veto on any redemption. So tehter could be backed by Trillions in assets and it'd be irrelevant.
  - candiddevmike 1y ago
    Tether is the defacto central bank for Bitcoin. Since iFinex isn't a country, doesn't have a GDP, and doesn't have a military, MMT doesn't really apply to them. So yes, it's very important, especially during a significant Bitcoin contraction. Tether represents 8% of Bitcoin's (liquid) market cap, and BTC's market cap is already overly inflated due to wash trading.
  - monerozcash 1y ago
    At this point there's no reason to pretend that Tether isn't likely fully backed, they're printing absurd amounts of money without any need for fraud. This is the most profitable business in the world by many metrics.
    - notimetorelax 1y ago
      What’s the mechanism through which they print money? I.e. if everyone decided to redeem all coins that have dollar to give.
      - wmf 1y ago
        They make 4% on treasury bonds (that's ~$4B) and they've also profited on Bitcoin and gold.
    - simmerup 1y ago
      So you're saying they buy their own Tether with profits they make elsewhere on the platform?
      - monerozcash 1y ago
        Tether holds closer to 200B USD reserves (customer money) and keeps all interest on that, it's a ridiculously good business. Jeopardizing that in any way would be absurd. Just assuming treasury returns they're making more than 7B USD profit a year with just a couple of employees.
- ptero 1y ago
  > Reminder, if you're invested in crypto long term, you'd better say a prayer every night that Tether is actually backed by ~$180B of liquidity. As a long-term holder of Bitcoin I do not see why I should lose any sleep due to Tether risks. Why should I care even if it de-pegs? On the liquidation itself: leveraged bets gone wrong will get liquidated, whether the bets were on stocks, currencies, Treasuries, crypto or grain futures. BoJ, for example, regularly makes rapid large buys to shake out leveraged yen speculators. I do not see anything concerning or unusual with this week's crypto shakeout. My 2c.
  - kasey_junk 1y ago
    Presumably you should care because tether is (per the OP argument) pushing the value of the entire crypto ecosystem up and the Bitcoin price is a primary beneficiary of that.
    - ptero 1y ago
      Fair, but there are so many things pushing the Bitcoin price up and down: approvals and rejections of various ETFs, tax law changes around the world, corporate adoption and lack thereof, successes and failures of L2 networks, etc. And each of those can cause comparable long-term movement in the BTC than tether's or altcoin's adoption or collapse. As a long-term BTC holder my primary reason is protection against debasement. It is a volatile asset, historically with 50-80% drawdowns from time to time. But as long as I think it still serves as a hedge against debasement I am happy to hold a portion of my net worth it in. Growing up, I have seen fiat go worthless twice in my life: once the government zeroed out previous money overnight, once it hyperinflated fiat by over 1000x in two years. An 80% temporary drop is peanuts compared to that.
- exabrial 1y ago
  > tether stepped in, printed ~ a billion USDT over the past three days, and prevented further plunging Being completely ignorant on all of these, where can I read about this?
  - jawiggins 1y ago
    1. Bloomberg Businessweek — “Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?” (Cover Story, Oct 2021) — a deep investigation into Tether’s backing, counterparties, and leadership. www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-07/crypto-mystery-where-s-the-69-billion-backing-the-stablecoin-tether 2. Wall Street Journal — “Cantor Fitzgerald Helps Oversee Tether’s Billions in Treasurys” — on who holds and manages a large chunk of Tether’s reserves. https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/wall-street-firm-oversees-billions-of-dollars-backing-tether-b56c68c1 https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/wall-street-firm-over... 3. CoinDesk — “Tether’s banking relationships & commercial paper exposure in newly released NYAG docs” — FOIL-sourced documents on what sat inside reserves. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/06/16/tethers-banking-relationships-commercial-paper-exposure-detailed-in-newly-released-legal-documents https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/06/16/tethers-banking-r... 4. CFTC (primary source) — 2021 order fining Tether over reserve claims — official enforcement record on “fully backed” statements. https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8450-21 https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8450-21
    - exabrial 1y ago
      Apologies, I meant about them printing the money Friday. Trying to understand the relationship with them stabilizing bitcoin prices somehow but also why everyone is worried about USDT and it being "real"
      - ethbr1 1y ago
        https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/09/30/tether-adds-usd1b-in-bitcoin-to-reserves-as-usdt-supply-nears-usd175b-blockchain-data-shows https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/09/30/tether-adds-usd... Tether's backing / solvency become more important when it's a major provider of crypto liquidity. If liquidity is generated by many participants, the failure of one doesn't impact the underlying asset. If liquidity is concentrated in one participant, it increases the potential volatility of the asset, as that participant's failure can drastically limit liquidity and leave the asset open to bigger price swings. That said, even at $1B, Tether is a smaller portion of the BTC market than it was historically.
bluecalm 1y ago
The wild moves occurred on alt coins, some went down 80%. Mr. President's own World Liberty Financial for example went down from 18c to even 6c in an instant.
- exabrial 1y ago
  That too seems like business as usual though?
  - tim333 1y ago
    Not really. It was the biggest such crash ever.
wmf 1y ago
There was a flash crash down to ~$104K that wiped out leveraged traders. Liquidation cascades are relatively uncommon and the last one was in 2021 IIRC.
scotty79 1y ago
Yeah, the commotion is a bit silly. "The crash" basically brought the price of BTC to the level it was comfortably at two weeks ago. I think disproportional media interest in last two weeks of appreciation and "the crash" is a failed attempt to finally kickstart this BTC bull or bear market. Somebody is getting impatient with last two years of steady growth.
factorialboy 1y ago
For long-term holders, this hardly matters. The real story here is insider trading and corruption by people close to President Trump, who knew, down to the exact minute, when to short BTC and ETH. BTC, meanwhile, being a scarce asset, will recover as fiat supply increases with time.
- thehappypm 1y ago
  Is insider trading even illegal with bitcoin?
  - wmf 1y ago
    Insider trading of Bitcoin is illegal under CFTC regulations. It won't be enforced because crime is legal though.
  - factorialboy 1y ago
    This President, too, will pardon his son and the rest of their family. So, it doesn't really matter if it's a crime or not.
- crowbahr 1y ago
  Yeah insider traders opening new accounts just over 1 day before, putting tens of millions into those accounts as shorts and stopping right before the president's announcement (to the second in some cases) meaning they walked away with hundreds of millions... It's obvious, it's out in the open, and nobody will prosecute it.
smcleod 1y ago
It's not really bitcoin but the huge alt coin market much of which dropped 60%+ in just two hours.
kkfx 1y ago
Nowadays many like 100-1000× leverage, with no real stoploss strategy and with significant portion of their capitals. The pump of ZCash also prove some like to clean their history (nowadays that Monero was attacked to crash Houthis international trades). It's business as usual for those who know the business, many are newcomers.

postflopclarity 1y ago

it happened really fast so a lot of positions were liquidated automatically by force, rather than voluntarily by the user. that's really the main distinction

Ekaros 1y ago
These things happen when too many participants are leveraged... Not that I feel sad for them. They took a gamble where sometimes they do lose...

candiddevmike 1y ago

It's a big deal from the standpoint that tether stepped in, printed ~ a billion USDT over the past three days, and prevented further plunging. Someone should investigate that... Reminder, if you're invested in crypto long term, you'd better say a prayer every night that Tether is actually backed by ~$180B of liquidity.

scotty79 1y ago
Assuming it happened, if Tether didn't de-peg due to this then it was probably the right thing to do. If they printed it and bought BTC in the dip they are massively ahead since BTC already regained a third of what it lost in the wipe.
sidewndr46 1y ago
Does anyone actually believe that Tether is backed by anything? I know there are at least a few companies that have to pretend Tether is backed by something. But I can't really believe anyone saying it. It'd be sort of like if someone just declared Madoff never really ran Ponzi scheme. It was just a big misunderstanding. Furthermore does it even really matter if Tether is backed by anything? My understanding is they've always maintained an absolute veto on any redemption. So tehter could be backed by Trillions in assets and it'd be irrelevant.
- candiddevmike 1y ago
  Tether is the defacto central bank for Bitcoin. Since iFinex isn't a country, doesn't have a GDP, and doesn't have a military, MMT doesn't really apply to them. So yes, it's very important, especially during a significant Bitcoin contraction. Tether represents 8% of Bitcoin's (liquid) market cap, and BTC's market cap is already overly inflated due to wash trading.
- monerozcash 1y ago
  At this point there's no reason to pretend that Tether isn't likely fully backed, they're printing absurd amounts of money without any need for fraud. This is the most profitable business in the world by many metrics.
  - notimetorelax 1y ago
    What’s the mechanism through which they print money? I.e. if everyone decided to redeem all coins that have dollar to give.
    - wmf 1y ago
      They make 4% on treasury bonds (that's ~$4B) and they've also profited on Bitcoin and gold.
  - simmerup 1y ago
    So you're saying they buy their own Tether with profits they make elsewhere on the platform?
    - monerozcash 1y ago
      Tether holds closer to 200B USD reserves (customer money) and keeps all interest on that, it's a ridiculously good business. Jeopardizing that in any way would be absurd. Just assuming treasury returns they're making more than 7B USD profit a year with just a couple of employees.
ptero 1y ago
> Reminder, if you're invested in crypto long term, you'd better say a prayer every night that Tether is actually backed by ~$180B of liquidity. As a long-term holder of Bitcoin I do not see why I should lose any sleep due to Tether risks. Why should I care even if it de-pegs? On the liquidation itself: leveraged bets gone wrong will get liquidated, whether the bets were on stocks, currencies, Treasuries, crypto or grain futures. BoJ, for example, regularly makes rapid large buys to shake out leveraged yen speculators. I do not see anything concerning or unusual with this week's crypto shakeout. My 2c.
- kasey_junk 1y ago
  Presumably you should care because tether is (per the OP argument) pushing the value of the entire crypto ecosystem up and the Bitcoin price is a primary beneficiary of that.
  - ptero 1y ago
    Fair, but there are so many things pushing the Bitcoin price up and down: approvals and rejections of various ETFs, tax law changes around the world, corporate adoption and lack thereof, successes and failures of L2 networks, etc. And each of those can cause comparable long-term movement in the BTC than tether's or altcoin's adoption or collapse. As a long-term BTC holder my primary reason is protection against debasement. It is a volatile asset, historically with 50-80% drawdowns from time to time. But as long as I think it still serves as a hedge against debasement I am happy to hold a portion of my net worth it in. Growing up, I have seen fiat go worthless twice in my life: once the government zeroed out previous money overnight, once it hyperinflated fiat by over 1000x in two years. An 80% temporary drop is peanuts compared to that.
exabrial 1y ago
> tether stepped in, printed ~ a billion USDT over the past three days, and prevented further plunging Being completely ignorant on all of these, where can I read about this?
- jawiggins 1y ago
  1. Bloomberg Businessweek — “Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?” (Cover Story, Oct 2021) — a deep investigation into Tether’s backing, counterparties, and leadership. www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-07/crypto-mystery-where-s-the-69-billion-backing-the-stablecoin-tether 2. Wall Street Journal — “Cantor Fitzgerald Helps Oversee Tether’s Billions in Treasurys” — on who holds and manages a large chunk of Tether’s reserves. https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/wall-street-firm-oversees-billions-of-dollars-backing-tether-b56c68c1 https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/wall-street-firm-over... 3. CoinDesk — “Tether’s banking relationships & commercial paper exposure in newly released NYAG docs” — FOIL-sourced documents on what sat inside reserves. https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/06/16/tethers-banking-relationships-commercial-paper-exposure-detailed-in-newly-released-legal-documents https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/06/16/tethers-banking-r... 4. CFTC (primary source) — 2021 order fining Tether over reserve claims — official enforcement record on “fully backed” statements. https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8450-21 https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8450-21
  - exabrial 1y ago
    Apologies, I meant about them printing the money Friday. Trying to understand the relationship with them stabilizing bitcoin prices somehow but also why everyone is worried about USDT and it being "real"
    - ethbr1 1y ago
      https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/09/30/tether-adds-usd1b-in-bitcoin-to-reserves-as-usdt-supply-nears-usd175b-blockchain-data-shows https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/09/30/tether-adds-usd... Tether's backing / solvency become more important when it's a major provider of crypto liquidity. If liquidity is generated by many participants, the failure of one doesn't impact the underlying asset. If liquidity is concentrated in one participant, it increases the potential volatility of the asset, as that participant's failure can drastically limit liquidity and leave the asset open to bigger price swings. That said, even at $1B, Tether is a smaller portion of the BTC market than it was historically.

bluecalm 1y ago

The wild moves occurred on alt coins, some went down 80%. Mr. President's own World Liberty Financial for example went down from 18c to even 6c in an instant.

exabrial 1y ago
That too seems like business as usual though?
- tim333 1y ago
  Not really. It was the biggest such crash ever.

wmf 1y ago

There was a flash crash down to ~$104K that wiped out leveraged traders. Liquidation cascades are relatively uncommon and the last one was in 2021 IIRC.

scotty79 1y ago

Yeah, the commotion is a bit silly. "The crash" basically brought the price of BTC to the level it was comfortably at two weeks ago. I think disproportional media interest in last two weeks of appreciation and "the crash" is a failed attempt to finally kickstart this BTC bull or bear market. Somebody is getting impatient with last two years of steady growth.

factorialboy 1y ago

For long-term holders, this hardly matters. The real story here is insider trading and corruption by people close to President Trump, who knew, down to the exact minute, when to short BTC and ETH. BTC, meanwhile, being a scarce asset, will recover as fiat supply increases with time.

thehappypm 1y ago
Is insider trading even illegal with bitcoin?
- wmf 1y ago
  Insider trading of Bitcoin is illegal under CFTC regulations. It won't be enforced because crime is legal though.
- factorialboy 1y ago
  This President, too, will pardon his son and the rest of their family. So, it doesn't really matter if it's a crime or not.
crowbahr 1y ago
Yeah insider traders opening new accounts just over 1 day before, putting tens of millions into those accounts as shorts and stopping right before the president's announcement (to the second in some cases) meaning they walked away with hundreds of millions... It's obvious, it's out in the open, and nobody will prosecute it.

smcleod 1y ago

It's not really bitcoin but the huge alt coin market much of which dropped 60%+ in just two hours.

kkfx 1y ago

Nowadays many like 100-1000× leverage, with no real stoploss strategy and with significant portion of their capitals. The pump of ZCash also prove some like to clean their history (nowadays that Monero was attacked to crash Houthis international trades). It's business as usual for those who know the business, many are newcomers.