[2018-06-25] Controversial Tether Releases $250 Millions in USDT

[Thadeous]

Controversial Tether Releases $250 Mln in USDT, Twitter Awaits Bitcoin Price Jump

Stablecoin Tether (USDT), which is allegedly backed 1:1 by the US dollar, has issued 250 million more tokens today, June 25, according to data from Omni Explorer.

At the end of March, Tether had released 300 million tokens, leading to a small price increase for Bitcoin (BTC). The move also was met with backlash from critics on Twitter about the controversy surrounding the stablecoin’s lack of an official public audit to confirm the legitimacy of its claims to be backed by fiat.

More recently, Tether had made the news when a new study compiled by the University of Texas suggested that the coin had been behind Bitcoin price manipulation in 2017, a claim that Tether’s CEO has denied.

Tether’s public break with its auditor in January of this year — before an official audit was released —  had furthered the critics’ fire, but an unofficial statement from a law firm last week claimed that Tether in fact had roughly the appropriate amount of dollar holdings to back its coins, as of June 1.

Litecoin (LTC) founder Charlie Lee tweeted today that the 250 million USDT issuance can be compared to said sum in dollars being deposited to a cryptocurrency exchange – meaning that it does not necessarily preclude an immediate price jump that would occur when it is used to buy crypto:

"Generally, this has been a precursor of price going up. Tether gets printed when people deposit USD and get USDT back. This USDT will then be used to buy crypto. This is similar to someone depositing $250MM to exchanges. Of course, that doesn't mean they will buy right away. DYOR"

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/controversial-tether-releases-250-mln-in-usdt-twitter-awaits-bitcoin-price-jump

[jjacob]

The price has indeed rebounded since yesterday. Unfortunately, the tether dark clouds continue to hang over Bitcoin's recovery. It would be best if this tether bubble gets pricked once and for all. If tether crashes in value for even some time, it will go into a spiral it cannot recover from.

[squatter]

"Generally, this has been a precursor of price going up. Tether gets printed when people deposit USD and get USDT back. This USDT will then be used to buy crypto. This is similar to someone depositing $250MM to exchanges. Of course, that doesn't mean they will buy right away. DYOR"

Exactly. Wiring funds to Tether is no different from wiring funds to Bitfinex. The latter treats them as interchangeable. Why would you wire large sums to Tether if not to buy large sums of BTC? (Ok, I suppose you could use it as collateral to short the market as well.)

The only thing that bothers me is that $250MM is quite a lot of counterparty risk, and too much liquidity to immediately buy and withdraw. It's not impossible, but that certainly seems reckless on the part of the depositor, if all is legitimate.

[DooMAD]

Ah, I was curious about the timing of their June 1st "proof" that Tether is fully backed.  This explains things nicely.  They want to generate the impression that all is well before digging an even deeper trap for people to blindly fall into.  Tether is a centralised company, not a decentralised cryptocurrency.  It requires far greater quantities of trust.  Companies can also become insolvent.  See how much Tether is worth if that happens.

[darkangel11]

It's not that controversial as it passed an audit, so they actually have the money they were claiming to have and that professor who claimed otherwise is wrong. Maybe he had something to gain from publishing that article. Whatever that was it certainly wasn't fame because his failed research has just kicked him in the butt.
The only positive thing was that it forced the audit.
As far as the release is concerned, we don't know what cryptocurrencies will people invest in. Maybe they are simply waiting for a BTC reversal which may happen a year from now.

[DooMAD]

It's not that controversial as it passed an audit

Sadly not.  The report was published by a law-firm, but that's not the same thing as an audit.  An audit would give a full history of how much money there was at any given time over a set period.  All the notarised documents show is where the money was on June 1st.

For example, someone who was in debt for most of the year might still be able to convince you they don't have an issue if they can show you a bank statement of the one day in the year when they had some money spare.  It doesn't rule out the possibility of having some serious financial difficulties in future if the money is invested poorly.

I'd like to see evidence the money sits there 365 days a year and they aren't gambling with it.  To me, it just looks like they're trying to make people believe it's fully backed because they wanted to issue more tokens.  The timing is way too suspicious for my liking.

[squatter]

It's not that controversial as it passed an audit

Sadly not.  The report was published by a law-firm, but that's not the same thing as an audit.  An audit would give a full history of how much money there was at any given time over a set period.  All the notarised documents show is where the money was on June 1st.

For example, someone who was in debt for most of the year might still be able to convince you they don't have an issue if they can show you a bank statement of the one day in the year when they had some money spare.  It doesn't rule out the possibility of having some serious financial difficulties in future if the money is invested poorly.

Friedman LLP did a similar "balance check" last year before their relationship with Tether was dissolved. Since no real audit is taking place, one major problem with these statements is that the firms have no way to verify outstanding claims or liabilities on the deposited money. They can only verify that assets and liabilities roughly matched at one time, based on the information Tether provides them. That should give discerning people little comfort.

Anyway, I'm not too concerned. This whole spectacle is no different than any exchange being accused of insolvency. Other exchanges just don't announce publicly when bank wires are received...

[Schirer]

Everyone talking about potential price manipulation again and again but this time I think the reason could be much simpler.
Market is going down heavy and people are selling their crypto for tether, thus they need more tether to do good by demand.

[Thadeous]

The price has indeed rebounded since yesterday. Unfortunately, the tether dark clouds continue to hang over Bitcoin's recovery. It would be best if this tether bubble gets pricked once and for all. If tether crashes in value for even some time, it will go into a spiral it cannot recover from.

Honestly hope that Tether is not a bubble, otherwise it will become the biggest disaster in crypto history.
Probably more horrible than MTGox or Bitconnect cases.

[Slow death]

every time I read tether news I've laughed a lot, they always put titles like these: "Controversial Tether". I even created a thread asking questions about tether and I realized that while there is no one who can investigate this story and when I say investigate I'm referring to someone go to the bank where tether has a bank account and find out if they have it such amount of money, then we stay for the said not told

The price has indeed rebounded since yesterday. Unfortunately, the tether dark clouds continue to hang over Bitcoin's recovery. It would be best if this tether bubble gets pricked once and for all. If tether crashes in value for even some time, it will go into a spiral it cannot recover from.

Honestly hope that Tether is not a bubble, otherwise it will become the biggest disaster in crypto history.
Probably more horrible than MTGox or Bitconnect cases.

relax that tether will not be the biggest disaster in crypto history. even if it's controversial

[Thadeous]

Recently Found Double Spending Vulnerability Is Not Tether’s Own, SlowMist Confirms

I wonder is it just a Tether related FUD or there is real vulnerability that allows to send USDT to a crypto exchange without correct field values on the transaction? Hope it won't lead to a long freezing of USDT on most popular exchanges...