Bitcoin Forum

Trying to figure out if all this news about tether being a scam/ticking time bomb is a black swan event threat to bitcoin or if it's FUD. Would love to hear your thoughts.

There is an article by NotATether created on this forum, it will help you know how tether is shady.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5274931.msg55170530#msg55170530

I think it will not affect the value of bitcoin, because tether also has its own market and is not interrelated between bitcoin and tether.

Thether does not collerate with bitcoin's price, though. It collerates with USD (fiat) and always maintain it's 1:1 ratio. In short, even if USDT disappears, BTC will still maintain its value since it has a comparative value in USD (fiat) and other altcoins (e.g. ETH, BNB, XRP, XLM, etc). However, I do think that any stories about USDT being a threat to BTC are just mere speculations and theories that might be created by BTC non-believers and those who are pissed off of themselves for not buying BTC when it's still 0.01USD. Those people will always be a laughing stock of the crpyto-world (e.g. the man who bought pizzas for few BTCs). There's a lot of conspiracy theories that appeared about BTC, but none of those have stopped BTC in reaching the $40k mark.

S*hit its crazy even only speculation


it is not affected the price of bitcoin but if the speculation was right and usdt scam its affected bitcoin price but i still hope is just speculation

If Tethers are actually 1:1 backed, then it's just as dangerous as the typical fiat USD.

If Tether's aren't actually 1:1 backed, then it's definitely a problem.

There's seems to be a lot more confidence towards Tether in the past year though, compared to the peak of the negative press Tether has been getting. Their CEO himself claimed that Tether is actually really 1:1 backed on Twitter last month if I remember correctly. While I'm not sure if we should simply take his word for it, it makes me sliiightly feel better.

1. Well, where there's smoke, there's fire.
2. If you are referring to him, a word from Mr. Van Der Velde doesn't count. He'd be saying no negative against his very own company.
3. Sans a fully independent, objective, and transparent audit, mere words cannot hold water.

Anyway, OP, it is a threat to Bitcoin in a way because it is the largest trading pair with BTC. If worst comes to worst, that's more than $137 billion in volume removed from the market. That's gonna be more than just a little problem.

Currently, you can issue endless Tether stablecoins and then buy Bitcoins effortlessly. In fact, apart from the company itself, the Tether stablecoin has nothing to endorse, which is like an extra money printing machine for the central bank.

Perhaps someone can confirm but I read that Tether purchases account for a very miniscule (~3%) of total bitcoin market purchases?

Sure, like I said I don't necessarily think we should take his word for it. It's just that if Tether was actually not 1:1 backed, he shouldn't be making unnecessary claims(unless he's a total idiot) on Twitter because making such public claims is going to give him/them a far bigger repercussion if they actually end up being sued over insolvency. Him making such public claims under his name just gives out a very very slight confidence.


Not sure if the exact number, but it's definitely not THAT low. BTC/USDT being the top BTC trading pair(Binance, 5.94%) says a lot already.

Risks are come from centralization or decentralization. Now let's see bitcoin and Tether USD has centralization or decentralization.

Bitcoin is decentralized by their globally proof-of-work confirmations for bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin is not own by a single person, company, institute, government.

Tether USD is centralized and it is created by a single company. It can be shut down by government, can be delisted on exchanges under lawsuits from government. Like that drama on privacy coins: DASH, ZEN, XMR in the past weeks.

I see Tether USD is a more risky asset than Bitcoin. Tether USD can be frozen and maybe is minting from computational algorithm without any fiat backs behind.

If you want a stable coin, you would use DAI (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/multi-collateral-dai/) that is decentralized. It is worthy to give you a note that DAI is supported by Maker that is the biggest DeFi platform (https://defipulse.com/maker) now.

It is pure FUD when they try to convince you that bitcoin relies on Tether to survive or go up in price! USDT is just another centralized shitcoin that has offered some utility to the cryptocurrency traders (mostly altcoin focused) that needed a way to both transfer funds between exchanges and an escape tool when bitcoin price (and consequently altcoin prices) drop. Which is why the most amount of Tether is always printed during bitcoin bear markets. So it has stayed alive this long.

When Tether is shut down some day in the future (it is not even a matter of "if" with centralized altcoins, it is a matter of "when") it will definitely cause a lot of panic in the cryptocurrency market as a whole and will create a lot of panic sells that crashes bitcoin price (and consequently altcoin prices). But in the long run nothing will change about bitcoin since as I said in the beginning bitcoin doesn't care about centralized altcoins and what they do.

Probably tether is shady but in others tether is a good stable crypto that can be use to store your funds in a stable crypto after you will going to sell your btc. Instead of converting btc to fiat currency then it will be good if btc will be converted to a stable crypto and to be used to buy back again of bitcoin whenever a bitcoiner wanted to happen.

I heard something strange about it but I don't really mind it for now since maybe this is another fud scatters, we know how the fuds shared by manipulators since and they want people to get panic. But there's nothing wrong if you want to be safe from tether so the best thing for you to do right now is to cash out your earnings and put it on your bank account since this way you can lessen the damage is tether became scam.

Tether
- Centralized
- Can be frozen/freeze your funds
- Can be burn and print the token

Bitcoin
- Decentralized
- Can't be frozen/freeze unless you forgot the seed phrase (can't access)
- Limited supply (only 21 Million)

From those comparison above, there's no effect between Tether and Bitcoin since they're contradicting yourself. If Tether have issued then another centralized stable coin will cause a problem too.

Tether is not a threat to Bitcoin.
Tether is a threat to Bitcoin price.

Since Tether is not properly backed, its demise will have the effect of a powerful earthquake over the whole crypto markets.
And the analogy with earthquake is not over: this will allow crypto markets rebuild stronger. So it's fine. Crypto markets rebuild fast and there are plenty of better stablecoins.

And like with any such natural phenomenon, you should not ask yourself if this will happen, you should ask when will it happen.  ;)

Before now, there have been news of how less trustworthy Tether is, but the surprising thing is that, despite all the news, fud etc Tether is still growing, having more users and more volume, which then makes people to wonder how true the news is, but who knows. Also recently, another fud have started and it is gradually getting momentum because of SEC and XRP case, thus people are of the opinion that if SEC can sue XRP, that Tether might the next, nevertheless let's keep watching as there is little we can do, or rather there are other stablecoins that one can hold if he wants. Furthermore, If the fud turns out to be true, it will shake the whole market but since Bitcoin is not dependent on Tether, it won't be affected that much, and what people would actually do is to sell off their Tether for other stablecoins and move on.

Tether is really shady and that's a fact.
You can listen the podcast Paolo Ardoino was in and basically an hour after the podcast Bitcoin started dropping. Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_Uq5QCHcU0 .

They say they are backed by an "asset mix" including BTC. Answers they give about more serious questions don't really answer anything.
They have never had any audits by any trustable company. The only thing that is saying they have some money is a piece of paper from Deltec Bank (https://static.cryptoglobe.com/filer_public_thumbnails/filer_public/bf/a0/bfa004d4-52af-451b-97d8-25a4de6f1ebb/deltec_letter.png__800x806_q85_crop_subsampling-2_upscale.png (https://static.cryptoglobe.com/filer_public_thumbnails/filer_public/bf/a0/bfa004d4-52af-451b-97d8-25a4de6f1ebb/deltec_letter.png__800x806_q85_crop_subsampling-2_upscale.png) . Deltec has been accused of money laundering https://www.dfid.org/news/deltec-bank-rumoured-to-be-connected-with-odebrecht-money-laundering
They will give 2.5mil (yes, 2.5 million) papers to investigators, seems like a delay tactics (same thing in the Wolf of Wall Street where FBI was going through the papers in the room, when AC was pulled down to low.).
And the bank statement that there hasn't been any money coming in but Tether has printed billions https://i.4cdn.org/biz/1610310413780.png .

It's a huge risk to the space of the cryptocurrency. A lot of people don't realize how exposed they are, because in tethers there are so many transactions. It would lead to a significant crash in cryptocurrency prices if you removed those tethers. It could cut through various exchanges.

Exactly, and if we look at what has happened to XRP it is really only a matter of time for a tether showdown. The problem is that USDT is too widely spread across all major markets. In the crypto world, it surely represents one dollar and many consider it to be a true USD equivalent. Few know that there's a company behind it and there are lots of doubts about the fact that it's completely backed, or not, by real USD deposited in banks.
I don't buy the too big too fail certainty found almost everywhere when thinking of tether. It's big, yes and it can fail.

Tether is good to me, though. But nothing last forever, especially when there are too many shady activities related to tether. As you see, Bitfinex is responsible for this currency because they claim that each tether is backed by a dollar. However, up to now, there is not much evidence about this. Moreover, it is centralized by an exchange. And this exchange can go bankrupt or collapse in a month or even a day.

It is always risky to hold on to something. Right now, most of the people use tether as a main currency of many popular pair. I hope they can continue to support tether so as it wont turn into ashes.

Tether is also having a RICO charge and a missing funds accusation thrown at them.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.524076/gov.uscourts.nysd.524076.154.0.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjA84Ty75PuAhUG_CoKHZG-Ay0QFjANegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw0v_A9CdhZrtYaDNF3xMeNO

Tether has to provide documentation to NYAG on 15.01.2021

If anything this will be used as a tool to drop bitcoin price so the wealthy can get a deal at the expense of retail...

Is the fear that Bitcoin is only being propped up by USDT?  If that's true, and USDT explodes, why would BTC price necessarily go down with it? The theory is that USDT has propped up Bitcoin enough for it to be the new equilibrium price.

Who do you think are selling?
Institutions got in between 5-10k and when it gets too risky then they are the first to sell. That's just how it is.The price would fall because several exchanges and Tether bought Bitcoin for free. People would get scared and sell - liquidity will take a heavy hit (Tether provides a really high percentage of liquidity). High buy orders would get bought up/cancelled fast, people who hold Tether cannot exchange it to anything anymore.

your name is spelled LongTimeAgo and yet you didnt know that this news wasnt new ? how come .

tether is always being accused as a scam like every other stable coins for ex. ripple  but that was a clear fud because if that was true stable coins like tether and ripple are now long gone on this world of crypto but sadly no they still exist happily on this space  .

 imho tether is not risky because once you swap your btc to tether you will have acquired a the power of stability  . tether is safe if i were to ask

Tether is an alternative storage for traders and users who want to stock their asset without thinking of big loss and big gain. All the crypto currencies have a risk and you should be aware of that, not only Tether and bitcoin as they can just explode anytime like they will get a no value at all if in case all the governments will decide to banned the usage of crypto currencies.

And Tether will not be a threat to bitcoin and to all crypto that are not stable currencies because the investors will surely to look for a way in order to profit and stablecoin is not an option for them therefore they need to buy a crypto that are not stable in order to achieve their goal which to profit. That is a very simple way to eliminate the threat of stable currencies.

Tether is the most popular stablecoin is crytocurrency and also one of top 3 coins in coinmarketcap rank. It is backed by Gold and USD value with 1:1 ratio. It is the most trusted stablecoin although it has some issues but still it is fair enough. So i don't find any problem to use USDT when you think market is volatile. Stable coins like USDT is very essential in volatile market like few days ago, who have perked their assets in USDT or stablecoins, now already saved almost 20% of their assets in USD value in the small correction period.

Everyone should read this article and know more about Tether. Everyone's lack of research and knowledge is showing and it is quite upsetting. In any case, this is an introduction on the history of Tether, the controversy behind it and the questions that we should be asking.

https://bennettftomlin.com/2020/12/08/an-introduction-to-the-tether-bitfinex-controversy/

Seems the people behind Tether certainly know nearly all the tricks.
Looks like this is how they've bought themselves considerable time.

I guess if big exchanges can't sell tether for usd, then they'll be forced to sell their btc instead.
Question is how hard and how long for?
Optimistic in me says that Mt Gox went down without causing catastrophe (okay it was pretty bad), but Mt Gox weren't in a position to have to sell btc to keep cover costs were they?

Are there any legitimate decentralised usd stablecoins?
How can they hold usd but be decentralised at the same time?

It's an immense danger to the space of the cryptocurrency. Many individuals don't understand how uncovered they are, on the grounds that in ties there are such countless exchanges. It would prompt a huge accident in cryptocurrency costs in the event that you eliminated those ties. It could slice through different trades.

Actually, it is not only ether which other's thought that may be a threat to bitcoin. Thus still, that doesn't affect bitcoin's progress. Though the history of tether where it came from and how it became popular stable coin was controversial, at some point it can also affect bitcoin's price when tether is being manipulated by some whales or agencies.

Yeah since it's value was honored by all traders and exchange as an equivalent in fiat. All crypto will be heavily affected once tether become a scam because its the stable that gives the majority of the value of all crypto currency since there is no/few crypto to fiat pair in all exchange.

They cannot be compared exactly. Tether is the most recognized cryptocurrency in the stablecoin family. It is known for having less volatility compared to Bitcoin. Therefore, it is chosen by risk-averse investors.

people often repeat this but what's the problem, exactly?

not the philosophical problem of fractional reserve---that applies to the whole banking system and probably a bunch of crypto exchanges too. but how/why is this one exchange's USD balances such a problem for bitcoin?

worst case scenario, people holding USD balances with tether get screwed over---the same risk at literally any custodial exchange.

the amount of bitcoins held by coinbase (~1 million or 5-6% of the entire bitcoin supply) is much scarier to me. that could equate to massive political influence over bitcoin, especially as their coffers grow even larger.

@figmentofmyass. I assume you are talking about Bitfinex? The people behind this one exchange is being investigated by the NYAG for fraud. Their stablecoin USDT is more than 50% of the volume of the whole cryptospace. Much of it is underpinned by USDT. There is systemic risk.

Are you referring to trading volumes on exchanges? Because some of the exchanges with the highest reported USDT trading volumes are accused of reporting fake data (https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-nysearca-2019-01/srnysearca201901-5164833-183434.pdf).

Is it possible that Tether's share of the overall market is being overstated?

@squatter. Are you referring to wash trading? I would argue that because of wash trading and with this, price and volume manipulation, I reckon the cryptospace market capitalization should be smaller than what it presently is.

It's a huge risk for the cryptocurrency space. A lot of people don't realize how exposed they are, because so many transactions occur in tethers. If you removed those tethers, it would lead to a significant crash in cryptocurrency prices. It could cut across multiple exchanges.

What your intentions are? Risks - The potential cryptocurrency environment has no limit on value, but it also carries certain risks. Compared to the level of risk, Tether and altcoin are always more risky than bitcoin. However, Tether helps with market confidence and a favor for bitcoin value is certain. Stablecoin - It's impossible to break a trend for bitcoin. Although Tether started and dragged many stablecoins in tandem. But it cannot pose a threat to bitcoin, but on the contrary, bitcoin could be most valued because of that liquidity.