About the USDT

[Hueristic]

Before I started parking USD in USDT I checked into the backing and was unable to find any proof that there actually is any. I asked in a few threads and did not get an answer so I knew this was coming but do to the market cap I thought it would steady itself as any ponzie will for awhile, I didn't expect the house of cards to topple so fast.

yeah. bitfinex and transparency have always had a little problem. maybe it'll come back ok but they should've put it in the hands of a proper company with some accountability.

I'm gonna take a guess and say they are gonna fuck everyone. $40 btc increase says it all when no-one is willing to arb.

[sp_skeptic]

Has anyone actually read the Tether Terms of Service at tether.to/legal?

Tether specifically disclaims any obligation to redeem Tethers for money.

I'm not sure what "Every tether is always backed 1-to-1, by traditional currency held in our reserves" can mean in this context.

[Mrbates]

Can someone tell me if you can hold USDT in a wallet outside of poloniex?

The biggest problem with USDT is obviously the fact that it is heavily centralized within poloniex.

If you try to sell a bit of BTC into USDT to buy back in, you are trusting that poloniex does not get "hacked"

Im not willing to trust poloniex or any exchange, specially in times where bitcoin is about to go interstellar.

Yes

[ajunior1337]

can i run an usdt full node? how? 
is USDT based on a smart contract?

[CoinHoarder]

can i run an usdt full node? how?  
is USDT based on a smart contract?

You can transfer USDT to your Omni Layer wallet. USDT is an Omni asset, and there are not smart contracts. The peg staying at $1 is dependent on the Tether company buying it and selling it for such.

There are a few wallets... hosted ones where you own your private key, and also Omni Core that you can download. With the latter, you have to download the entire blockchain and it takes a long time. I'd recommend the former.

http://www.omnilayer.org/

[ulhaq]

Has anyone actually read the Tether Terms of Service at tether.to/legal?

Tether specifically disclaims any obligation to redeem Tethers for money.

I'm not sure what "Every tether is always backed 1-to-1, by traditional currency held in our reserves" can mean in this context.

There is no contractual right or other right or legal claim against us to redeem or exchange your Tethers for money. We do not guarantee any right of redemption or exchange of Tethers by us for money. There is no guarantee against losses when you buy, trade, sell, or redeem Tethers.

That is very perplexing.


What is the relationship with bitfinex and how is that affecting tether? I thought they were completely independent.

What is the right way to run a company like tether? Is all they are missing having regular third-party audits and some guarantee to exchange USDT for USD?

[CoinHoarder]

There is no contractual right or other right or legal claim against us to redeem or exchange your Tethers for money. We do not guarantee any right of redemption or exchange of Tethers by us for money. There is no guarantee against losses when you buy, trade, sell, or redeem Tethers.

That is very perplexing.

Indeed. That is pretty crazy. Effectively they could walk away with everyone's USD and stop enforcing the peg at anytime. The language in the ToS may or may not hold up in court, but it would be hard to get any money out of them... a long legal battle would drag on.

I don't see how they can enforce a ToS when no one has technically accepted it. You know, when register for a web site and have to manually check the box to accept the terms of service? I'm not sure if the ToS holds any weight since no one technically accepts it when they buy or sell it on an exchange.

[ajunior1337]

You can transfer USDT to your Omni Layer wallet. USDT is an Omni asset, and there are not smart contracts. The peg staying at $1 is dependent on the Tether company buying it and selling it for such.

There are a few wallets... hosted ones where you own your private key, and also Omni Core that you can download. With the latter, you have to download the entire blockchain and it takes a long time. I'd recommend the former.

http://www.omnilayer.org/

Is it like a OpenAssets protocol? What are the differences between OpenAssets and OmniLayer?

[CoinHoarder]

Is it like a OpenAssets protocol? What are the differences between OpenAssets and OmniLayer?

Hmm, I have never heard of the OpenAssets protocol, but after a quick Google search it looks like it is a colored coin implementation.

That is exactly how the Omni Layer works too. It is a colored coins implementation. The Omni Layer was formerly known as Mastercoin, and it started here on the forums: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265488.0

[mmortal03]

USDT's price is consistently adjusted to be equal to 1 dollar. Users at poloniex.com use this instead of dollars.

How do they make the USDT equal to 1 dollar I wonder?
Are they also used in other places than poloniex.com? Are there other platforms we can trade USDT?

Since Poloniex runs Tether, it is not traded on any other exchange. They peg the price presumably by trading in the right quantities. The reason they made it was so users could save their cryptocurrency profits in a currency which was guaranteed to be stable. (Let's say you left your profits in litecoin and the price went down, you would lose money).

Poloniex doesn't run Tether.

[Hueristic]

USDT's price is consistently adjusted to be equal to 1 dollar. Users at poloniex.com use this instead of dollars.

How do they make the USDT equal to 1 dollar I wonder?
Are they also used in other places than poloniex.com? Are there other platforms we can trade USDT?

Since Poloniex runs Tether, it is not traded on any other exchange. They peg the price presumably by trading in the right quantities. The reason they made it was so users could save their cryptocurrency profits in a currency which was guaranteed to be stable. (Let's say you left your profits in litecoin and the price went down, you would lose money).

Poloniex doesn't run Tether.

Nor do they guarantee that it won't be completely worthless ever, I've asked them.


So has anyone lately actually cashed in USDT for USD?
My trust for Btfinex is a zero and I took a loss to just get rid of usdt,
Funny thing is I decided to use etc (for the first time ever) right before it spiked. But I exchanged the etc for XMR to early and missed the spike. DOH!

[European Central Bank]

So has anyone lately actually cashed in USDT for USD?

it's stuck along with the conventional usd in bitfinex. kraken have now opened up a usd/usdt margin trading market.

[Hueristic]

So has anyone lately actually cashed in USDT for USD?

it's stuck along with the conventional usd in bitfinex. kraken have now opened up a usd/usdt margin trading market.

I just got that email, still don't trust it until we can check the backing securities ourselves.

[BorisTheBulletDodger]

https://tether.to/legal/


PURCHASE AND REDEMPTION OF TETHERS: The Site is an environment for the purchase and redemption of Tethers. Once you have Tethers, you can trade them, keep them, or use them to pay persons that will accept your Tethers. However, Tethers are not money and are not monetary instruments. They are also not stored value or currency.
There is no contractual right or other right or legal claim against us to redeem or exchange your Tethers for money. We do not guarantee any right of redemption or exchange of Tethers by us for money. There is no guarantee against losses when you buy, trade, sell, or redeem Tethers.


# REKT

[Hueristic]

https://tether.to/legal/


PURCHASE AND REDEMPTION OF TETHERS: The Site is an environment for the purchase and redemption of Tethers. Once you have Tethers, you can trade them, keep them, or use them to pay persons that will accept your Tethers. However, Tethers are not money and are not monetary instruments. They are also not stored value or currency.
There is no contractual right or other right or legal claim against us to redeem or exchange your Tethers for money. We do not guarantee any right of redemption or exchange of Tethers by us for money. There is no guarantee against losses when you buy, trade, sell, or redeem Tethers.


# REKT

@BorisTheBulletDodger, Hah love that movie. Lock stock & 2 smoking barrels is better though.

[martinbrock]

Why is the price below 1 USD?

[CoinHoarder]

Why is the price below 1 USD?

Who knows...

It looks like this is the furthest away from parity it's ever been ($0.937359). We shouldn't jump to conclusions, but hopefully the Tether company is not having economic difficulties.

It is interesting because according to the internet sleuths it supposedly has some ties to Bitfinex. I guess we'll find out just how closely they are related if Bitfinex goes bankrupt, because Tether is sure to implode as well if Bitfinex is the main operator of it. If they are the main operators of Tether, then it could explain why it has come away from the $1 peg. Bitfinex's present business issues are well documented in recent news articles.

Even more interesting... take a look at the Tether all time graph on Coin Market Cap. You will see it has only strayed away from $1 once before- it dropped down to $0.96 for a short period of time. The date is the interesting part though, because it happened on or around August 12th. Guess when Bitfinex was hacked last year for a loss of 744,408 BTC? August 2nd... just 10 days before Tether came away from $1 for the first time. This can't be a coincidence... can it?

I hope for the people who own Tether's coins' sake that that is not the case.

[ulhaq]

Why is the price below 1 USD?

If there really is 1 USD in the bank for each 1 USDT, then it should maintain parity (absent a security threat to USDT). Even though it is partially owned by Bitfinex, I don't think they would be allowed to take those USD and apply it to Bitfinex liabilities. But Tether is incorporated in the virgin islands, I'm not sure of the legal implications, if any.

The 2 main problems seem to be their disclaiming the exchange of USD and USDT, and the fact that there is no third-party audit of the bank accounts. We are only taking them at their word that they have the reserves to back up the tether. If they have the reserves but people don't know it, a loss of confidence in tether will cause USDT to fall below the price of USD.

[monsanto]

Why is the price below 1 USD?

If there really is 1 USD in the bank for each 1 USDT, then it should maintain parity (absent a security threat to USDT). Even though it is partially owned by Bitfinex, I don't think they would be allowed to take those USD and apply it to Bitfinex liabilities. But Tether is incorporated in the virgin islands, I'm not sure of the legal implications, if any.

The 2 main problems seem to be their disclaiming the exchange of USD and USDT, and the fact that there is no third-party audit of the bank accounts. We are only taking them at their word that they have the reserves to back up the tether. If they have the reserves but people don't know it, a loss of confidence in tether will cause USDT to fall below the price of USD.

Any idea why Polo seems to clearly state you are trading in USDT, while on Bitfinex platform it seems to be listed just like regular USD?

[vlom]

they say it is USDT.