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

[realr0ach]

~>"Be Your Own Bank"<~

By buying silver or gold because bitcoin has built-in middlemen and doesn't remove counterparty risk.  Since transactions aren't blinded and transaction validators are designed to centralize, it's a permissioned ledger in practice.  The G20 then labels whoever they want "terrorists" and instructs the centralized pools to not process any transactions for them so your money is essentially deleted and you no longer exist, just like the system Aaron Russo warned about.

[1713878018]

1713878018

[Ludwig Von]

Tether is over and out. Now what will be the consequences?

.. Won't believe it until it happens.

The question for me is : how to prepare for it to happen? Not just sit and wait.

[realr0ach]

The question for me is : how to prepare for it to happen? Not just sit and wait.

Yes, that's the hilarious part.  The last time there was a Bitfinex scare and everyone KNEW they were a fraud, Bitfinex DOUBLED DOWN on fraud.  They knew everyone would convert everything to BTC to try and withdraw, so what do they do?  They pumped BTC on their own exchange right beforehand to make sure everyone is forced to buy the bitcoins at TOP DOLLAR HAHA.  That's how big of crooks everyone affiliated with that exchange is.

[fabiorem]

The difference between Mt.Gox and Bitfinex is that, at that time, bitcoin had few use cases, and few exchanges, whereas now, is much more widespread, with lots of use cases and exchanges (there are even people using it to buy cars and houses).

So a Bitfinex scandal would not affect the price as much as Mt.Gox did.

[Lopumbo]

The difference between Mt.Gox and Bitfinex is that, at that time, bitcoin had few use cases, and few exchanges, whereas now, is much more widespread, with lots of use cases and exchanges (there are even people using it to buy cars and houses).

So a Bitfinex scandal would not affect the price as much as Mt.Gox did.

Its not about bitfinex, its about tether. Count the number of exchanges with real! USD support - Coinbase, Bitstamp, Gemini and Kraken - thats it.
Now imagine "the market" realizes that there are 2.2Billion worthless "USD" in the system, which where used to pump up the price from 1k$ to 20k$.
Somebody will be the bagholder for those 2.2Billion.

[AlexGR]

Personally I don't see much of a difference between tethers and "real" dollars displayed on an exchange after you sell btc or a shitcoin. I mean they are both virtual until you get the money on your hand. Many insolvent exchanges showed dollar balances that weren't reflecting the reality of the USD holdings of the exchange, whether it was MtGox or more recent ones.

So no matter if it says "USD balance" / "EUR balance" / "CNY balance", "USDT balance" or even "BTC balance", it always has a risk when you are dealing with an exchange.

Having said that, I think one of the best applications of lightning-type channels would be the ability to instantly remove BTC funds which aren't actively traded, through the use of the channel. Since exchanges represent a big source of on-chain transactions, it would quickly make transactions cheaper, while also reducing the dangers involved with  keeping bitcoins on exchanges. Want to go off for a weekend? Withdraw the money to the channel. Want to trade on Monday? Resend the money back to the exchange - through the channel... do I want to get the btc right now? I just close the channel... etc etc... It should also theoretically reduce the exposure of exchange hot wallets to hackers - which should move less funds in and out, on-chain.

edit for something irrelevant: I did a <20sat/byte tx earlier in the day to consolidate some funds, it cleared within a couple of hours... don't even remember when I went *that* low...

[fabiorem]

Its not about bitfinex, its about tether. Count the number of exchanges with real! USD support - Coinbase, Bitstamp, Gemini and Kraken - thats it.
Now imagine "the market" realizes that there are 2.2Billion worthless "USD" in the system, which where used to pump up the price from 1k$ to 20k$.
Somebody will be the bagholder for those 2.2Billion.

The bagholders would be the ones holding tether, not bitcoin.

In relation to bitcoin, this looks like a orchestrated FUD. It already happened before, when price was starting to rise.

[Ludwig Von]

The difference between Mt.Gox and Bitfinex is that, at that time, bitcoin had few use cases, and few exchanges, whereas now, is much more widespread, with lots of use cases and exchanges (there are even people using it to buy cars and houses).

So a Bitfinex scandal would not affect the price as much as Mt.Gox did.

Its not about bitfinex, its about tether. Count the number of exchanges with real! USD support - Coinbase, Bitstamp, Gemini and Kraken - thats it.
Now imagine "the market" realizes that there are 2.2Billion worthless "USD" in the system, which where used to pump up the price from 1k$ to 20k$.
Somebody will be the bagholder for those 2.2Billion.

Isn 't the majority of Tethers not sitting on Finex? On Kraken, there is very little volume with it.

[Ludwig Von]

Its not about bitfinex, its about tether. Count the number of exchanges with real! USD support - Coinbase, Bitstamp, Gemini and Kraken - thats it.
Now imagine "the market" realizes that there are 2.2Billion worthless "USD" in the system, which where used to pump up the price from 1k$ to 20k$.
Somebody will be the bagholder for those 2.2Billion.

The bagholders would be the ones holding tether, not bitcoin.

In relation to bitcoin, this looks like a orchestrated FUD. It already happened before, when price was starting to rise.

We should not mistake between smoke from the BBQ and smoke from a starting fire... .

[Samarkand]

...
Isn 't the majority of Tethers not sitting on Finex? On Kraken, there is very little volume with it.

You can verify where most Tethers are located using the Tether rich list:
https://wallet.tether.to/richlist

Usually, the USDT/USD trading pair on Kraken roughly had a trading volume
of 1M $ per day. Today the trading volume has already crossed 4.5 M $.

[d_eddie]

Having said that, I think one of the best applications of lightning-type channels would be the ability to instantly remove funds which aren't actively traded,

This could be an effective motive for the exchanges not to adopt LN.

edit for something irrelevant: I did a <20sat/byte tx earlier in the day to consolidate some funds, it cleared within a couple of hours... don't even remember when I went *that* low...

Yet a number of exchanges or other online accounts still have a default fee of 0.0008 BTC for a standard 1in+2out tx, and users are not allowed to set it to a different value  

I think the two points made by AlexGR show how we'll really have to lobby the exchanges into servicing user needs. Much more competition is what we need.

[AlexGR]

Its not about bitfinex, its about tether. Count the number of exchanges with real! USD support - Coinbase, Bitstamp, Gemini and Kraken - thats it.
Now imagine "the market" realizes that there are 2.2Billion worthless "USD" in the system, which where used to pump up the price from 1k$ to 20k$.
Somebody will be the bagholder for those 2.2Billion.

Even in the worst case scenario, where bitfinex was printing money out of thin air and giving this vapor tokens to btc sellers, bitfinex still has the btc - which obviously cost more right now.

I mean if you sold btc at 2000$ for 2000 USDT "bitfinex-vapor-tokens", bitfinex still has these btc and it has given them 6x in profits @12k.

Same for those selling at 3000, 4000, 5000, 7000, 9000, etc - always giving bitfinex serious profits, while people were exchanging their btcs for vapor-tokens, and these BTC now can cover multiple times the USDT balance. Right?

[bitebits]

Personally I don't see much of a difference between tethers and "real" dollars displayed on an exchange after you sell btc or a shitcoin. I mean they are both virtual until you get the money on your hand. Many insolvent exchanges showed dollar balances that weren't reflecting the reality of the USD holdings of the exchange, whether it was MtGox or more recent ones.

So no matter if it says "USD balance" / "EUR balance" / "CNY balance", "USDT balance" or even "BTC balance", it always has a risk when you are dealing with an exchange.

Having said that, I think one of the best applications of lightning-type channels would be the ability to instantly remove BTC funds which aren't actively traded, through the use of the channel. Since exchanges represent a big source of on-chain transactions, it would quickly make transactions cheaper, while also reducing the dangers involved with  keeping bitcoins on exchanges. Want to go off for a weekend? Withdraw the money to the channel. Want to trade on Monday? Resend the money back to the exchange - through the channel... do I want to get the btc right now? I just close the channel... etc etc... It should also theoretically reduce the exposure of exchange hot wallets to hackers - which should move less funds in and out, on-chain.

edit for something irrelevant: I did a <20sat/byte tx earlier in the day to consolidate some funds, it cleared within a couple of hours... don't even remember when I went *that* low...

Interesting thoughts, thanks. Two questions though:

- Wouldn't it mean that if every trader has a channel with for example GDAX, GDAX basically needs to keep all those bitcoins in some kind of a hot wallet? This is how I understand Lightning works, to be able to setup a node you need to have access to the private keys.

- According to Andreas in 'Let's Talk Bitcoin! #352', Coinbase would never setup a Lightning node (don't have the timestamp). This because Lightning by default uses Tor, so Coinbase can't track where the transactions they are passing through their node are going to. Andreas thinks Coinbase/banks have the legal obligation to track where the money is going to.

[mike4001]

The difference between Mt.Gox and Bitfinex is that, at that time, bitcoin had few use cases, and few exchanges, whereas now, is much more widespread, with lots of use cases and exchanges (there are even people using it to buy cars and houses).

So a Bitfinex scandal would not affect the price as much as Mt.Gox did.

Its not about bitfinex, its about tether. Count the number of exchanges with real! USD support - Coinbase, Bitstamp, Gemini and Kraken - thats it.
Now imagine "the market" realizes that there are 2.2Billion worthless "USD" in the system, which where used to pump up the price from 1k$ to 20k$.
Somebody will be the bagholder for those 2.2Billion.

Hmm, wouldn't everyone want to sell their Tethers and buy every coin they can with it and pump prices up even more?

[rezurect007]

Its not about bitfinex, its about tether. Count the number of exchanges with real! USD support - Coinbase, Bitstamp, Gemini and Kraken - thats it.
Now imagine "the market" realizes that there are 2.2Billion worthless "USD" in the system, which where used to pump up the price from 1k$ to 20k$.
Somebody will be the bagholder for those 2.2Billion.

Even in the worst case scenario, where bitfinex was printing money out of thin air and giving this vapor tokens to btc sellers, bitfinex still has the btc - which obviously cost more right now.

I mean if you sold btc at 2000$ for 2000 USDT "bitfinex-vapor-tokens", bitfinex still has these btc and it has given them 6x in profits @12k.

Same for those selling at 3000, 4000, 5000, 7000, 9000, etc - always giving bitfinex serious profits, while people were exchanging their btcs for vapor-tokens, and these BTC now can cover multiple times the USDT balance. Right?

Basically an audit would prove the current solvency in the above case, but would also prove the vapour token theory, not very helpful.. loss of trust.
I believe this is the reason the audit hasn't happened.

[Samarkand]

...
Same for those selling at 3000, 4000, 5000, 7000, 9000, etc - always giving bitfinex serious profits, while people were exchanging their btcs for vapor-tokens, and these BTC now can cover multiple times the USDT balance. Right?

If I understand your post correctly, you are making a mistake.

1. Total Tether issuance (USDT on OMNI + USDT on ETH) = ~2.3 billion $
2. Total BTC in Bitfinex cold-wallet = 140,443 BTC = ~1.63 billion $

Even if all these Bitcoin would belong to Bitfinex, which they do not, they would
not be enough to cover all the outstanding Tether at the current Bitcoin price.
You also assume that all these Bitcoin belong to Bitfinex, which is obviously not true, because
these are mainly user funds. If people sold Bitcoin at 3000,5000 and so on the profits
may not have gone to Bitfinex, but to other users of the Bitfinex exchange.

Of course it is possible that I misunderstood your post or that Bitfinex
has substantial cryptocurrency holdings in other currencies than Bitcoin (e.g. big holdings of
ETH or some of the tokens that they list).

Random speculation:
Personally, I suspect that they obviously
acccumulate tokens like RLC or RCN before they list them on their exchange.
It is simply too easy to make money by buying up a random token and then making
profit after you list it on your exchange (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUT-ULkWsAA9Pxt.jpg:large).

Bitfinex main income should theoretically be coming from trading fees and not from selling
Bitcoins directly.

...

Hmm, wouldn't everyone want to sell their Tethers and buy every coin they can with it and pump prices up even more?

This is exactly what many people including me predict what will happen in the case of a Tether collapse.
The prices of all cryptocurrencies on these exchanges will go completely parabolic, because of people
that desperately try to exchange their worthless USDT for another cryptocurrency.

[OWZ1337]

...
Isn 't the majority of Tethers not sitting on Finex? On Kraken, there is very little volume with it.

You can verify where most Tethers are located using the Tether rich list:
https://wallet.tether.to/richlist

Usually, the USDT/USD trading pair on Kraken roughly had a trading volume
of 1M $ per day. Today the trading volume has already crossed 4.5 M $.

wow #1 is bittrex scammers!!   #flamingredflag

[julian071]

The difference between Mt.Gox and Bitfinex is that, at that time, bitcoin had few use cases, and few exchanges, whereas now, is much more widespread, with lots of use cases and exchanges (there are even people using it to buy cars and houses).

So a Bitfinex scandal would not affect the price as much as Mt.Gox did.

Furthermore, a 500 million theft from a Japanese exchange last week curiously isn't even a talking point now. Are we just being ethno- and bitcoincentric or is this kind of shit just not so important anymore because of the larger ecosystem?

[mike4001]

...
Same for those selling at 3000, 4000, 5000, 7000, 9000, etc - always giving bitfinex serious profits, while people were exchanging their btcs for vapor-tokens, and these BTC now can cover multiple times the USDT balance. Right?

If I understand your post correctly, you are making a mistake.

1. Total Tether issuance (USDT on OMNI + USDT on ETH) = ~2.3 billion $
2. Total BTC in Bitfinex cold-wallet = 140,443 BTC = ~1.63 billion $

I think this assumption is false because

1) Tether is not only used by Bitfinex but spread through multiple exchanges. You you would have to count every cold storage (or see how much Tether is at Bitfinex vs. BTC at Bitfinex)
2) You are assuming every Cent of Tether is fraudulent.

[MarquiseMuseum]

...
Same for those selling at 3000, 4000, 5000, 7000, 9000, etc - always giving bitfinex serious profits, while people were exchanging their btcs for vapor-tokens, and these BTC now can cover multiple times the USDT balance. Right?

If I understand your post correctly, you are making a mistake.

1. Total Tether issuance (USDT on OMNI + USDT on ETH) = ~2.3 billion $
2. Total BTC in Bitfinex cold-wallet = 140,443 BTC = ~1.63 billion $

Even if all these Bitcoin would belong to Bitfinex, which they do not, they would
not be enough to cover all the outstanding Tether at the current Bitcoin price.
You also assume that all these Bitcoin belong to Bitfinex, which is obviously not true, because
these are mainly user funds. If people sold Bitcoin at 3000,5000 and so on the profits
may not have gone to Bitfinex, but to other users of the Bitfinex exchange.

Of course it is possible that I misunderstood your post or that Bitfinex
has substantial cryptocurrency holdings in other currencies than Bitcoin (e.g. big holdings of
ETH or some of the tokens that they list).

Random speculation:
Personally, I suspect that they obviously
acccumulate tokens like RLC or RCN before they list them on their exchange.
It is simply too easy to make money by buying up a random token and then making
profit after you list it on your exchange (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUT-ULkWsAA9Pxt.jpg:large).

Bitfinex main income should theoretically be coming from trading fees and not from selling
Bitcoins directly.

...

Hmm, wouldn't everyone want to sell their Tethers and buy every coin they can with it and pump prices up even more?

This is exactly what many people including me predict what will happen in the case of a Tether collapse.
The prices of all cryptocurrencies on these exchanges will go completely parabolic, because of people
that desperately try to exchange their worthless USDT for another cryptocurrency.

Interpol asset freeze would prevent this scenario, tether is already under investigation by us law enforcement since a long time. People would not have access to their USDT funds which would be "disabled" on exchanges before the news of fraud became public. Regulators have a strange hold on all major us based exchanges such as bittrex, they snap their fingers and have demands met instantly. Possibly a few tethers here and there would make it intoother exchanges but its negligible sums, wouldn't affect global prices.