Tether: dollar reserve holdings may not be there

[DooMAD]

From the point of view of any market speculator, it is alarming, since a stable currency was a guarantee to take refuge and think it was equivalent to USD, when being backed by other currencies does not fully guarantee the value that is believed to protect.

I think people generally interpret the word "guarantee" in the wrong way when it comes to stuff like this.  Even prior to this latest twist in the story, people should never have seen it as a guarantee in terms of absolute certainty, but rather as an assurance based on trust.  Insolvency has always been a possibility.  Regulatory shutdown has always been a possibility.  Saying that it's guaranteed does not negate these possibilities.  Tether are a company who have made a promise to their customers.  That's it.  Promises can be broken, as appears to be the case now that it seemingly isn't backed 1:1 by USD.

[kryptqnick]

https://cryptonomist.ch/en/2019/03/14/tether-dollar-reserve-holdings/

Tether’s website has been updated and the stablecoin’s Terms and Conditions have been “silently” changed
While previously every USDT corresponded to one US dollar in the company’s reserve holdings, now it is stated that “every tether is always 100% backed by our reserves, which include traditional currency and cash equivalents and, from time to time, may include other assets and receivables from loans made by Tether to third parties, which may include affiliated entities (collectively, “reserves”)”.

Like avikz said, scepticism about every USDT being backed up by one dollar has been around for a long time and IMO has been the main reason of not trusting it. It's interesting though that now they are saying that Tether can be backed up by other things at some point of time. The trading volume and marketcap of Tether is crazy, I am afraid when the bubble bursts it can cause serious negative impact on the world economy.
At the same time, I am not sure that Dollar is even a good guarantee, since it's fiat and USA's debt problem is very serious which could get out of control and cause hyperinflation.

[Reid]

And they want it to end with just a statement?

No audits? No proofs? No real facts to back it up?
I hate to say it but since day 1 Tether had been smelling with a bad odor or should I say "fishy".

To those who support this kind of currency be really careful. I am not saying it is at high risk but being careful is also not bad right?
An end could come anytime and even with other currencies. These might just go faster than them.

[coolcoinz]

I don't use USDT and used to be skeptical about this project for a very long time, mainly since they refused an audit and instead did an audit themselves. A self made audit is the opposite of a real audit. You do it only to decrease criticism and appease the crowd. It obviously worked for a time because there were 2 or 3 months where USDT disappeared from the media. Now it's back there again claiming they aren't backed 100%, which is a joke because they were literally claiming to be backed by USD 1:1 when they first launched.

[Indamuck]

Most people already suspect that they don't have enough USD in reserve to back up the number of tether.  We already see how much people lost confidence when USDT went under .95cents when its supposed to be pegged to the dollar.  Tether is still doing huge volume and if there comes a day when it implodes prices will crash greatly as investors lose even more confidence. 

[Beerwizzard]

The entire concept of stablecoins seems sucpicious.
Thy would any private investor just store in a bank billions of dollars in order just to back this stablecoin? And users don't even have to use it and may HODL this stablecoin without paying any fees or send transaction outside the issuer service so he won't get any revenue from fees. In this case it will be more reasonable for example to buy some obligations, stocks or use any other traditional and safe way of investment and get some revenue instead of just freezing your money.

[BitHodler]

Now it's back there again claiming they aren't backed 100%, which is a joke because they were literally claiming to be backed by USD 1:1 when they first launched.

If we look at how much shit Tether has gone through in the last 12 months, and the fact that it gained more market share instead of lose market share, it's safe to say that people don't seem to care.

We've gone so far that just the idea of this being worth $1 is enough for people to continue using it. It's quite similar to fiat actually--people use it without thinking about the potential negative consequences in case it implodes.

Look at the volumes Tether generates. Some times it's near $10 billion on a daily basis, while its own market cap is just $2 billion. Say about it what you want, but this is the only coin with actual use as currency.

[Ucy]

I won't doubt anything coming from the stablecoin. It is centralized stablecoin and not very transparent.  So anything is possible with the company.

Loan to third-party sounds like fractional reserve banking on cryptocurrency world.

[daarul50]

That's why Tether's market capitalization can never match other altcoins even though Tether has very good potential to be a valuable digital asset.

[Kakmakr]

I think they might guarantee a large chuck of the dollar reserves, but not the total amount. It is a daunting idea that say $2 Billion is kept in reserves and that a centralized authority are making promises that it is 1:1 against the Tether on their books. 

It was a ambitious project from the start and a supposedly safer way for people to invest in Crypto currencies with a Dollar backing. Most people seem to think that the previous ATH of Bitcoin was linked to Tether.   

[1Referee]

No one is surprised about this anymore. The way they took almost 700-800 million USDT out of circulation in quite a short period of time was very suspicious. They probably had to take them out of circulation to have the total number of USDT be closer to what they actually hold in their reserves (whatever their reserves consisted of at that time).

It still surprises me that we haven't seen regulators actively try to raid the crap out of TetherTO. They're either patiently waiting for their moment to strike, or it's not of much importance to them.

[Upgrade00]

Suspicion such as these is the reason for most of the skepticism around stable currencies. They are backed by actual currencies or assets, this defeats part of the purpose for digital assets, which is decentralization, as the developers try to achieve stability in an otherwise volatile field. But with back or transparency, comes huge risks.

[Ilya001]

Tether is partnering with Tron, so more obvious ToS changes were made in terms of it. And like usdt is not interested in quitting that collaboration. ToS is fine, people not trading tether just being too dramatic and spread fud with NO proofs

[magneto]

Tether is essentially a bank that runs on a blockchain, without a storefront.

I've warned people about this all the way along. Stablecoins, no matter how trustworthy they may seem, eventually are not trustless the way bitcoin and other decentralised cryptos are. You are relying on the legitimacy of their audits, their reports, and their full reserve promises at the end of the day.

And what they are doing right now with shifting the goalpost on their full reserve target imo is just confirming that. They want to make profit, and they know that they can't do this through operating at full reserve, which is why they very subtly changed to basically a fractional reserve system. Using them makes no sense at this point to me.

[blockchaincroatia23]

No one is surprised about this anymore. The way they took almost 700-800 million USDT out of circulation in quite a short period of time was very suspicious. They probably had to take them out of circulation to have the total number of USDT be closer to what they actually hold in their reserves (whatever their reserves consisted of at that time).

It still surprises me that we haven't seen regulators actively try to raid the crap out of TetherTO. They're either patiently waiting for their moment to strike, or it's not of much importance to them.

Market works like that sometimes they took coins out of  circulation sometimes bring them back. It should be clear for the person who familiar with economy.
Actually I was patiently looking for that information about tether in different sources and have not found any proofs. Better learn something than stay gossip gather

[BitBustah]

I haven't touched tether once while being in the crypto market.  I do not trust it and I don't want to get unlucky and be caught holding it while the whole thing gets exposed.  This just may be all fud and they may really have enough USD to back up their usdt but I'm not willing to take the risk.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Tether is partnering with Tron

I had to look that up cause I thought you were joking. Wow. Just wow. Tron's whitepaper is plagiarized and their code is plagiarized. It has a long history of scamming, running fake competitions and announcing fake partnerships just to pump the price. Justin Sun is great at marketing to gullible people, but totally useless at developing a cryptocurrency. If there was one coin they could have paired with to make themselves look even more untrustworthy, it was TRON.

Actually, now that I typed that out, it makes perfect sense. A scam cryptocurrency pairs up with a scam stable coin. They are perfect for each other.

[el kaka22]

It is still a marvel how they managed to market themselves as the stablecoin of dollar fiat currency in many places.
Look at the exchanges, many of them still use it to this day, after all that has been said and done about it, they are still used everywhere.
I mean I don't even know how we could get it back you know? Like I understand it was distributed to the public at one point and purchased a bunch of coins with it thanks to their "trust me I have it backed in real currency" but who really believed them ?

Like they gave away their fake currency to people and bought bunch of stuff and people were like "alright if you say it is 1to1 then I will accept this" and they moved on with their way. That is crazy to think about, how do you really trust a person that say "yeah I have the money, I just don't want to give you the money but I will give you a paper that says I have money", that logic is incomprehensive at best. Hopefully, we will one day see them collapse but I doubt it will be anytime soon.

[Ucy]

Tether is partnering with Tron

I had to look that up cause I thought you were joking. Wow. Just wow. Tron's whitepaper is plagiarized and their code is plagiarized. It has a long history of scamming, running fake competitions and announcing fake partnerships just to pump the price. Justin Sun is great at marketing to gullible people, but totally useless at developing a cryptocurrency. If there was one coin they could have paired with to make themselves look even more untrustworthy, it was TRON.

Actually, now that I typed that out, it makes perfect sense. A scam cryptocurrency pairs up with a scam stable coin. They are perfect for each other.

What project/whitepaper did tron copied from? Need to know this so that I can keep tabs on the information and other tron related stuff.

The blockchain already sounds compromised with the CEO tag on an open and decentralized blockchain.

[o_e_l_e_o]

What project/whitepaper did tron copied from? Need to know this so that I can keep tabs on the information and other tron related stuff.

https://zycrypto.com/tron-whitepaper-plagiarised-ipfs-filecoin/

https://coincentral.com/community-accuses-tron-plagiarizing-whitepaper/

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7q7alk/summarizing_the_recent_tron_mess/

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7qfjef/tron_gets_caught_again_plagiarised_white_paper/

https://medium.com/digitalassetresearch/trx-we-found-new-instances-of-code-copy-without-attribution-but-these-pale-in-comparison-to-the-305aff860f8b

Bonus twitter hilarity: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/8a8kav/vitalik_buterin_just_burned_justin_sun_on_twitter/