Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[ivomm]

I just received this from kraken:
Kraken
Hi ....,

Did you notice the gift in your account? Your balance has been credited with lumens (XLM), the currency of the Stellar network. The credit was done on January 15 and shows in your account ledger as a “transfer.”


..............

Well, this amount kinda compensates the losses because of the exchange errors in the last months. Thank you for the gesture and cheers!!!  

[TERA2]

All it takes for Tether to become completely worthless is one guy decides to seize the account at TetherBank

Do they even really have bank accounts? I'm really confused on how the Bitfinex/Tether thing even works. Don't understand why Tethers are never destroyed. Aren't there some days when the fiat withdrawals at Bitfinex exceeds the deposits? Very perplexing. Surely people haven't been depositing $100 million per day this week at Finex, with the recent correction. There can't be that many bargain hunters. Especially when none of their customers are supposed to be from the US. Is it a pain to deposit USD into Bitfinex if I am from Norway? I'm clueless.

It's not just bitfinex anymore that uses tether. There is poloniex, bittrex, and maybe more. I have a polo account and am all bitcoin in it, unless I see a quick trade.

[HairyMaclairy]

All it takes for Tether to become completely worthless is one guy decides to seize the account for TetherBank which has been illegally printing a dollar pegged currency

Assuming for the moment Tether is a fractional reserve currency on a 10:1 scale it would still represent hundreds millions of dollars on deposit.  

Bitfinex is clearly going out of its way to avoid US citizens even if it has not caught them all.  So we need to ask what would the catalyst be for seizure of the Tether account.  I know people love to make a big fuss about Tether’s conditions saying it is not redeemable for USD but Tether has to include that so they don’t get smashed by the US authorities.  If they said it was redeemable, they would be strung up from the ceiling.

So if the US authorities aren’t going to come after Tether, why would an account worth at least hundreds of millions of US dollars be seized?  The bank isn’t going to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.  So what is the Black Swan trigger?  

And we don’t actually know Tether is a fractional reserve.  It probably is - the lack of a proper audit is damming.  But it operates as a reserve currency.  And reserve currencies get away with all sorts of bullshit as demonstrated by the excesses of the US dollar.  

So while Tether popping would be an unimaginable firestorm for crypto, there is good reason to think it won’t pop anytime soon because there is no effective trigger.  

[bones261]

All it takes for Tether to become completely worthless is one guy decides to seize the account at TetherBank

Do they even really have bank accounts? I'm really confused on how the Bitfinex/Tether thing even works. Don't understand why Tethers are never destroyed. Aren't there some days when the fiat withdrawals at Bitfinex exceeds the deposits? Very perplexing. Surely people haven't been depositing $100 million per day this week at Finex, with the recent correction. There can't be that many bargain hunters. Especially when none of their customers are supposed to be from the US. Is it a pain to deposit USD into Bitfinex if I am from Norway? I'm clueless.

It's not just bitfinex anymore that uses tether. There is poloniex, bittrex, and maybe more. I have a polo account and am all bitcoin in it, unless I see a quick trade.

Yes, but you cannot deposit fiat into Polo or Bittrex that I am aware of. Could be mistaken. So the Tethers that they have there originated from a different source. I don't think the $100 Million tethers being created daily are going to any other exchange except Bitfinex. Kraken also uses Tethers and lets you deposit fiat. However, I don't think the freshly minted Tethers are going their either.

[TERA2]

All I'm saying is there are single points of failure and it is much easier for Tether to become worthless than it is for bitcoin which is backed by a global economy and the laws of thermodynamics or whatever.

[HairyMaclairy]

All it takes for Tether to become completely worthless is one guy decides to seize the account at TetherBank

Do they even really have bank accounts? I'm really confused on how the Bitfinex/Tether thing even works. Don't understand why Tethers are never destroyed. Aren't there some days when the fiat withdrawals at Bitfinex exceeds the deposits? Very perplexing. Surely people haven't been depositing $100 million per day this week at Finex, with the recent correction. There can't be that many bargain hunters. Especially when none of their customers are supposed to be from the US. would it be a pain to deposit USD into Bitfinex if I were from Norway or Australia? I'm clueless.

As a non-US citizen it is just as easy for me to deposit to Bitfinex as Bitstamp.  It’s just a different SWIFT address.  And it’s cheaper than Bitstamp so very attractive.  The only difference is that BFX has a US$10,000 minimum to keep out the noobs.

[HairyMaclairy]

All it takes for Tether to become completely worthless is one guy decides to seize the account at TetherBank

Do they even really have bank accounts? I'm really confused on how the Bitfinex/Tether thing even works. Don't understand why Tethers are never destroyed. Aren't there some days when the fiat withdrawals at Bitfinex exceeds the deposits? Very perplexing. Surely people haven't been depositing $100 million per day this week at Finex, with the recent correction. There can't be that many bargain hunters. Especially when none of their customers are supposed to be from the US. Is it a pain to deposit USD into Bitfinex if I am from Norway? I'm clueless.

It's not just bitfinex anymore that uses tether. There is poloniex, bittrex, and maybe more. I have a polo account and am all bitcoin in it, unless I see a quick trade.

Yes, but you cannot deposit fiat into Polo or Bittrex that I am aware of. Could be mistaken. So the Tethers that they have there originated from a different source. I don't think the $100 Million tethers being created daily are going to any other exchange except Bitfinex. Kraken also uses Tethers and lets you deposit fiat. However, I don't think the freshly minted Tethers are going their either.

I have personally moved Tether from Bitfinex to other exchanges.  It’s useful during a market panic. 

[HairyMaclairy]

All I'm saying is there are single points of failure and it is much easier for Tether to become worthless than it is for bitcoin which is backed by a global economy and the laws of thermodynamics or whatever.

I agree with this.  But I don’t see the catalyst for Tether failure.  Saying it is a fractional reserve currency isn’t enough to bring it down without some loss of confidence in its ability to act as a reserve currency imho. 

[FractalUniverse]

...
 The only difference is that BFX has a US$10,000 minimum to keep out the noobs.

I would really like to know how many new funded accounts they got after last week's opening. that could give some clues

[thrax]

All it takes for Tether to become completely worthless is one guy decides to seize the account at TetherBank

Do they even really have bank accounts? I'm really confused on how the Bitfinex/Tether thing even works. Don't understand why Tethers are never destroyed. Aren't there some days when the fiat withdrawals at Bitfinex exceeds the deposits? Very perplexing. Surely people haven't been depositing $100 million per day this week at Finex, with the recent correction. There can't be that many bargain hunters. Especially when none of their customers are supposed to be from the US. Is it a pain to deposit USD into Bitfinex if I am from Norway? I'm clueless.

It's not just bitfinex anymore that uses tether. There is poloniex, bittrex, and maybe more. I have a polo account and am all bitcoin in it, unless I see a quick trade.

Yes, but you cannot deposit fiat into Polo or Bittrex that I am aware of. Could be mistaken. So the Tethers that they have there originated from a different source. I don't think the $100 Million tethers being created daily are going to any other exchange except Bitfinex. Kraken also uses Tethers and lets you deposit fiat. However, I don't think the freshly minted Tethers are going their either.

I have personally moved Tether from Bitfinex to other exchanges.  It’s useful during a market panic. 

How fast are transfers?

[conspirosphere.tk]

The only difference is that BFX has a US$10,000 minimum to keep out the noobs.

Another difference is that Stamp won't tokenize the theft of your funds, but may actually refund you.

[bones261]

...
 The only difference is that BFX has a US$10,000 minimum to keep out the noobs.

I would really like to know how many new funded accounts they got after last week's opening. that could give some clues

I really wish BFX/Tether would give us a clue on how the accounting works at all. Is there any useful information anywhere? It all looks like magical monopoly money. It appears that someone can just create Tethers without proof of anything, except having the right Omni private key?

[HairyMaclairy]

All it takes for Tether to become completely worthless is one guy decides to seize the account at TetherBank

Do they even really have bank accounts? I'm really confused on how the Bitfinex/Tether thing even works. Don't understand why Tethers are never destroyed. Aren't there some days when the fiat withdrawals at Bitfinex exceeds the deposits? Very perplexing. Surely people haven't been depositing $100 million per day this week at Finex, with the recent correction. There can't be that many bargain hunters. Especially when none of their customers are supposed to be from the US. Is it a pain to deposit USD into Bitfinex if I am from Norway? I'm clueless.

It's not just bitfinex anymore that uses tether. There is poloniex, bittrex, and maybe more. I have a polo account and am all bitcoin in it, unless I see a quick trade.

Yes, but you cannot deposit fiat into Polo or Bittrex that I am aware of. Could be mistaken. So the Tethers that they have there originated from a different source. I don't think the $100 Million tethers being created daily are going to any other exchange except Bitfinex. Kraken also uses Tethers and lets you deposit fiat. However, I don't think the freshly minted Tethers are going their either.

I have personally moved Tether from Bitfinex to other exchanges.  It’s useful during a market panic. 

How fast are transfers?

It’s Omni protocol which is built on Bitcoin. So I think it’s just a well funded Bitcoin transfer.  Speed is consistent with that. Costs US$25 each time.  

[HairyMaclairy]

I bet if you added up the order books of all the crypto exchanges, you would get more than 21 million bitcoins.

Edit:   BFX USD/BTC pair has 10,350 BTC in order book.   Which is a single pair on a single exchange (although it is probably aggregating with Bitstamp through their arbitrage bot). 

[jojo69]

...
 The only difference is that BFX has a US$10,000 minimum to keep out the noobs.

I would really like to know how many new funded accounts they got after last week's opening. that could give some clues

I really wish BFX/Tether would give us a clue on how the accounting works at all. Is there any useful information anywhere? It all looks like magical monopoly money. It appears that someone can just create Tethers without proof of anything, except having the right Omni private key?

The opacity with regards to an audit is the most troubling thing about the whole tether phenomenon.  I got into cripto to get away from this fedlike bullshit.

[HairyMaclairy]

An audit would be extremely easy and take about 10 minutes.  

So two possibilities:  

1.  A proper audit would attract the attention of the US authorities again and cause problems so they can’t do it.

2.  It’s a fractional reserve.

I think 2 is more likely.

They was supposed to be an audit this month. Has anyone seen it?  

Edit:  I have reread the September audit report here:  https://tether.to/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Final-Tether-Consulting-Report-9-15-17_Redacted.pdf

Based on a quick skim, it looks legit to me.  Which suggests that Tether is real and is USD backed.  So maybe we should all relax.

[babanana]

I have also moved sizable amount tether from POLO to Bittrex and to other exchanges. I see no problem there.

[HairyMaclairy]

Hmmm

Just found something that says they are going to put Tether on lighting.

A US dollar denominated crypto on Lightning.   That’s extremely powerful.  Arguably that destroys Ripple and Litecoin.

[thrax]

Hmmm

Just found something that says they are going to put Tether on lighting.

A US dollar denominated crypto on Lightning.   That’s extremely powerful.  Arguably that destroys Ripple and Litecoin.

Is lighting instant, or does it require confirmations?

[HairyMaclairy]

It takes 1 - 2 seconds and it is irrevocable. 

So no waiting for blocks and as good as instant.