Tether: not even a scam

[leea-1334]

Just want to share this in case someone missed it:

http://www.tetherreport.com/

It argues that Tether printing is what is driving the BTC market through fake demand. Seems pretty sound to me.

Please debate, I want it to be wrong.

There is a LOT of evidence being gathered (sadly only by individuals, though to me they are more of experts and reliable analysts than the ones people usually see as more reputable) to show that a lot of ways exist that look suspiciously like manipulation, with Tether right in the center of these claims.

Of course, the printing itself of Tether does not necessarily mean this is the only thing driving prices but when you have exchanges behind Tether, you must be able to be skeptical of how it is used as a tool to move prices easily.

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[onionpealer]

Not so good news, Tether Confirms Its Relationship With Auditor Has 'Dissolved'.
Tether, the issuer of the dollar-pegged cryptocurrency USDT, said its relationship with audit firm Friedman LLP has ended.

https://www.coindesk.com/tether-confirms-relationship-auditor-dissolved/

[European Central Bank]

"We confirm that the relationship with Friedman is dissolved.  Given the excruciatingly detailed procedures Friedman was undertaking for the relatively simple balance sheet of Tether, it became clear that an audit would be unattainable in a reasonable time frame. As Tether is the first company in the space to undergo this process and pursue this level of transparency, there is no precedent set to guide the process nor any benchmark against which to measure its success."

i know nothing about auditing but it don't sound too hard to me. look up some bank accounts and do some sums.

i wonder who dumped who.

[reynier]

I apologized for the comment, but USDT since hacking the people stopped trusting them.

[elexadi]

Interesting read for many people. After reading felt it like  we all r being looted by institutional players.

https://medium.com/@justindanneman/bitcoin-value-surges-past-11k-heres-why-it-s-happening-9dc7a08ba67a

[andor.gellenhidi]

There is no evidence that Teather (USDT) is a scam or not a scam. And there will be no such evidence until people conduct an external audit of this project. Already a lot of people are trying to conduct this external audit. It's pretty simple. You just need to transfer your Teather (USDT) back to the crypto currency. And then it will be clear if they have enough tokens for repurchase. That's all.

[ulhaq]

There is no evidence that Teather (USDT) is a scam or not a scam. And there will be no such evidence until people conduct an external audit of this project. Already a lot of people are trying to conduct this external audit. It's pretty simple. You just need to transfer your Teather (USDT) back to the crypto currency. And then it will be clear if they have enough tokens for repurchase. That's all.

You can't exchange USDT for USD. That means it is a scam.

Another article on it:
https://tonyarcieri.com/the-tether-conundrum

This is really damaging. Shows that $450 million in new tether was issued during the big price decline in bitcoin in mid-January. Who is going to be depositing that amount of money DURING a big decline? And how is it that the market cap of tether has only increased since inception? When people are cashing out USDT for USD, the market cap has to go down. Are we to believe that this has never occurred?

It's pretty clear that tether is propping up the cryptocurrency market. The question is, how much of a decline in bitcoin will there be? The total daily trading volume of tether is 2.3 billion (almost its entire market cap). The daily volume in bitcoin is only $7 billion. So we could see a precipitous drop in bitcoin prices. Perhaps now is a good time to sell. 

[qwizzie]

Report: CFTC Sends Subpoenas to Bitfinex, Tether

https://www.coindesk.com/report-cftc-sends-subpoenas-bitfinex-tether/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-01-30/crypto-exchange-bitfinex-tether-said-subpoenaed-video

[FIN_BTC]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-30/crypto-exchange-bitfinex-tether-said-to-get-subpoenaed-by-cftc

[penig]

There is no evidence that Teather (USDT) is a scam or not a scam. And there will be no such evidence until people conduct an external audit of this project. Already a lot of people are trying to conduct this external audit. It's pretty simple. You just need to transfer your Teather (USDT) back to the crypto currency. And then it will be clear if they have enough tokens for repurchase. That's all.

You can't exchange USDT for USD. That means it is a scam.

Another article on it:
https://tonyarcieri.com/the-tether-conundrum

This is really damaging. Shows that $450 million in new tether was issued during the big price decline in bitcoin in mid-January. Who is going to be depositing that amount of money DURING a big decline? And how is it that the market cap of tether has only increased since inception? When people are cashing out USDT for USD, the market cap has to go down. Are we to believe that this has never occurred?

It's pretty clear that tether is propping up the cryptocurrency market. The question is, how much of a decline in bitcoin will there be? The total daily trading volume of tether is 2.3 billion (almost its entire market cap). The daily volume in bitcoin is only $7 billion. So we could see a precipitous drop in bitcoin prices. Perhaps now is a good time to sell.  

My take is that this is interesting, may have a point, but doesn't explain a couple of things.  Before i get to that, the point you make in bold does not necessarily follow, as people could be selling BTC to USDT and not selling USDT.  Isn't that the purpose of it?  So i would expect an increase demand for USDT in a falling market.

But the main thing it misses is the entire rest of the market.  Not only the massive volumes into and out of every other coin, but most significantly, the massive trade manipulation going on in the Korean exchanges.  As they were in BTC/KRW pairs and often a multiple of BTC/USD trades, I think they have a major impact on price that this Tether printing theory ignores.

[Sartrute]

I can not understand why against the backdrop of so many really negative news, quotes of this currency do not fall down?
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/

[byteminr]

Very interesting events occur around Tether and Bitfinex and for a long time already. As far as I know, the organizers of these companies are connected Tether has long been accused of printing USDT unjustifiably, some checks are being carried out which reveal this, but this does not affect the company or the USDT exchange rate. All this is very strange

[onionpealer]

Some seriously bad news, not only for Tether but Bitfinex both have received subpoenas from US regulators, the witting is on the wall.

Major cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and token issuer Tether have received subpoenas from US regulators as questions continue to arise about the latter’s ‘true’ value.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitfinex-tether-get-subpoenas-from-us-regulators

[Apekool]

People don't read into things that are quoted in the OP. They accept terms and go buy. What is happening now is real nasty. The question rises if Tether actually does hold the money in a safe box somewhere.

very unlikely ...

Why whould they? Better just buy BTC and ETH as soon as the dollars arrive, because by reinvesting in other crypto currency the Tether company can generate revenue/income. Their token price is after all static / linked to the USD. How else would they generate an income if they trade USD for USDT at a 1:1 ratio and don't invest that dollar?

And then the price of ETH and BTC drops, just at the moment there's inspection at the door. Greed got a hold of so many.

[Apekool]

Btw I'm in progress of making the tRUBL. Presale minimum buy is 1500000 RUB. I will send you the tokens after payment is confirmed on a 1:1 ratio. Your rubles are safe with me.

[sp_skeptic]

Interestingly, there are now million-dollar buy walls on Kraken at 0.986, 0.985, 0.975, 0.97, and 0.965. Normally the buy side on Kraken is very thin. A few days ago, to sell $250K on Kraken you would have had to sell the last one at $0.50. Kraken is the only exchange I know of where it is possible to exchange Tethers directly for USD. Someone is defending Tether.

$5 million isn't much compared to Tether's market cap but this might have something to do with why the Tether price is still levitating within a cent or so of par.

[plavirudar]

Some seriously bad news, not only for Tether but Bitfinex both have received subpoenas from US regulators, the witting is on the wall.

Major cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and token issuer Tether have received subpoenas from US regulators as questions continue to arise about the latter’s ‘true’ value.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitfinex-tether-get-subpoenas-from-us-regulators

The subpoena mentioned was all the way back in December, and it was only written about yesterday.

[Jashhh]

If Tether falls, wouldn't Bitcoin skyrocket? Considering that Tether is widely used on exchanges as a buying tool. Would people not go back to using the BTC markets for buying altcoins again?

[Apekool]

If Tether falls, wouldn't Bitcoin skyrocket? Considering that Tether is widely used on exchanges as a buying tool. Would people not go back to using the BTC markets for buying altcoins again?

Might have to do with the amount of trust people have in the blockchain technology in general.

I just woke up and actually hoped that CND went up a ct or more so that I could loose some.. but might be a good moment to buy in with USD/EUR as well now.

edit: seems people did BTC > USD(T) on a massive scale, USDT is still keeping up at the same rate as before

[vv181]

The problem for tether is lack of transparency. We all know Tether is completely centralized, and Bitfinex said it's backed by the real USD value but we didn't know how the way it's exactly works. I love to hear more about the scheme of it. But personally, I'm will stay away from Tether.