How risky is Tether to Bitcoin?

[LongTimeAgo]

Trying to figure out if all this news about tether being a scam/ticking time bomb is a black swan event threat to bitcoin or if it's FUD. Would love to hear your thoughts.

[1715437251]

1715437251

[Charles-Tim]

There is an article by NotATether created on this forum, it will help you know how tether is shady.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5274931.msg55170530#msg55170530

[maculeth]

I think it will not affect the value of bitcoin, because tether also has its own market and is not interrelated between bitcoin and tether.

[SoryuMaiden]

Trying to figure out if all this news about tether being a scam/ticking time bomb is a black swan event threat to bitcoin or if it's FUD. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Thether does not collerate with bitcoin's price, though. It collerates with USD (fiat) and always maintain it's 1:1 ratio. In short, even if USDT disappears, BTC will still maintain its value since it has a comparative value in USD (fiat) and other altcoins (e.g. ETH, BNB, XRP, XLM, etc). However, I do think that any stories about USDT being a threat to BTC are just mere speculations and theories that might be created by BTC non-believers and those who are pissed off of themselves for not buying BTC when it's still 0.01USD. Those people will always be a laughing stock of the crpyto-world (e.g. the man who bought pizzas for few BTCs). There's a lot of conspiracy theories that appeared about BTC, but none of those have stopped BTC in reaching the $40k mark.

[dansus021]

There is an article by NotATether created on this forum, it will help you know how tether is shady.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5274931.msg55170530#msg55170530

S*hit its crazy even only speculation

I think it will not affect the value of bitcoin, because tether also has its own market and is not interrelated between bitcoin and tether.

Thether does not collerate with bitcoin's price, though. It collerates with USD (fiat) and always maintain it's 1:1 ratio. In short, even if USDT disappears, BTC will still maintain its value since it has a comparative value in USD (fiat) and other altcoins (e.g. ETH, BNB, XRP, XLM, etc). However, I do think that any stories about USDT being a threat to BTC are just mere speculations and theories that might be created by BTC non-believers and those who are pissed off of themselves for not buying BTC when it's still 0.01USD. Those people will always be a laughing stock of the crpyto-world (e.g. the man who bought pizzas for few BTCs). There's a lot of conspiracy theories that appeared about BTC, but none of those have stopped BTC in reaching the $40k mark.

it is not affected the price of bitcoin but if the speculation was right and usdt scam its affected bitcoin price but i still hope is just speculation

[mk4]

If Tethers are actually 1:1 backed, then it's just as dangerous as the typical fiat USD.

If Tether's aren't actually 1:1 backed, then it's definitely a problem.

There's seems to be a lot more confidence towards Tether in the past year though, compared to the peak of the negative press Tether has been getting. Their CEO himself claimed that Tether is actually really 1:1 backed on Twitter last month if I remember correctly. While I'm not sure if we should simply take his word for it, it makes me sliiightly feel better.

[Darker45]

There's seems to be a lot more confidence towards Tether in the past year though, compared to the peak of the negative press Tether has been getting. Their CEO himself claimed that Tether is actually really 1:1 backed on Twitter last month if I remember correctly. While I'm not sure if we should simply take his word for it, it makes me sliiightly feel better.

1. Well, where there's smoke, there's fire.
2. If you are referring to him, a word from Mr. Van Der Velde doesn't count. He'd be saying no negative against his very own company.
3. Sans a fully independent, objective, and transparent audit, mere words cannot hold water.

Anyway, OP, it is a threat to Bitcoin in a way because it is the largest trading pair with BTC. If worst comes to worst, that's more than $137 billion in volume removed from the market. That's gonna be more than just a little problem.

[Aliceooo78]

Currently, you can issue endless Tether stablecoins and then buy Bitcoins effortlessly. In fact, apart from the company itself, the Tether stablecoin has nothing to endorse, which is like an extra money printing machine for the central bank.

[bitadelco]

Perhaps someone can confirm but I read that Tether purchases account for a very miniscule (~3%) of total bitcoin market purchases?

[mk4]

2. If you are referring to him, a word from Mr. Van Der Velde doesn't count. He'd be saying no negative against his very own company.
3. Sans a fully independent, objective, and transparent audit, mere words cannot hold water.

Sure, like I said I don't necessarily think we should take his word for it. It's just that if Tether was actually not 1:1 backed, he shouldn't be making unnecessary claims(unless he's a total idiot) on Twitter because making such public claims is going to give him/them a far bigger repercussion if they actually end up being sued over insolvency. Him making such public claims under his name just gives out a very very slight confidence.

Perhaps someone can confirm but I read that Tether purchases account for a very miniscule (~3%) of total bitcoin market purchases?

Not sure if the exact number, but it's definitely not THAT low. BTC/USDT being the top BTC trading pair(Binance, 5.94%) says a lot already.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

Risks are come from centralization or decentralization. Now let's see bitcoin and Tether USD has centralization or decentralization.

Bitcoin is decentralized by their globally proof-of-work confirmations for bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin is not own by a single person, company, institute, government.

Tether USD is centralized and it is created by a single company. It can be shut down by government, can be delisted on exchanges under lawsuits from government. Like that drama on privacy coins: DASH, ZEN, XMR in the past weeks.

I see Tether USD is a more risky asset than Bitcoin. Tether USD can be frozen and maybe is minting from computational algorithm without any fiat backs behind.

If you want a stable coin, you would use DAI that is decentralized. It is worthy to give you a note that DAI is supported by Maker that is the biggest DeFi platform now.

[pooya87]

It is pure FUD when they try to convince you that bitcoin relies on Tether to survive or go up in price! USDT is just another centralized shitcoin that has offered some utility to the cryptocurrency traders (mostly altcoin focused) that needed a way to both transfer funds between exchanges and an escape tool when bitcoin price (and consequently altcoin prices) drop. Which is why the most amount of Tether is always printed during bitcoin bear markets. So it has stayed alive this long.

When Tether is shut down some day in the future (it is not even a matter of "if" with centralized altcoins, it is a matter of "when") it will definitely cause a lot of panic in the cryptocurrency market as a whole and will create a lot of panic sells that crashes bitcoin price (and consequently altcoin prices). But in the long run nothing will change about bitcoin since as I said in the beginning bitcoin doesn't care about centralized altcoins and what they do.

[jademaxxiss012]

Probably tether is shady but in others tether is a good stable crypto that can be use to store your funds in a stable crypto after you will going to sell your btc. Instead of converting btc to fiat currency then it will be good if btc will be converted to a stable crypto and to be used to buy back again of bitcoin whenever a bitcoiner wanted to happen.

[ultrloa]

Trying to figure out if all this news about tether being a scam/ticking time bomb is a black swan event threat to bitcoin or if it's FUD. Would love to hear your thoughts.

I heard something strange about it but I don't really mind it for now since maybe this is another fud scatters, we know how the fuds shared by manipulators since and they want people to get panic. But there's nothing wrong if you want to be safe from tether so the best thing for you to do right now is to cash out your earnings and put it on your bank account since this way you can lessen the damage is tether became scam.

[Jawhead999]

Tether
- Centralized
- Can be frozen/freeze your funds
- Can be burn and print the token

Bitcoin
- Decentralized
- Can't be frozen/freeze unless you forgot the seed phrase (can't access)
- Limited supply (only 21 Million)

From those comparison above, there's no effect between Tether and Bitcoin since they're contradicting yourself. If Tether have issued then another centralized stable coin will cause a problem too.

[NeuroticFish]

threat to bitcoin or if it's FUD. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Tether is not a threat to Bitcoin.
Tether is a threat to Bitcoin price.

Since Tether is not properly backed, its demise will have the effect of a powerful earthquake over the whole crypto markets.
And the analogy with earthquake is not over: this will allow crypto markets rebuild stronger. So it's fine. Crypto markets rebuild fast and there are plenty of better stablecoins.

And like with any such natural phenomenon, you should not ask yourself if this will happen, you should ask when will it happen. 

[irixo10]

Before now, there have been news of how less trustworthy Tether is, but the surprising thing is that, despite all the news, fud etc Tether is still growing, having more users and more volume, which then makes people to wonder how true the news is, but who knows. Also recently, another fud have started and it is gradually getting momentum because of SEC and XRP case, thus people are of the opinion that if SEC can sue XRP, that Tether might the next, nevertheless let's keep watching as there is little we can do, or rather there are other stablecoins that one can hold if he wants. Furthermore, If the fud turns out to be true, it will shake the whole market but since Bitcoin is not dependent on Tether, it won't be affected that much, and what people would actually do is to sell off their Tether for other stablecoins and move on.

[GoodOnegg]

Tether is really shady and that's a fact.
You can listen the podcast Paolo Ardoino was in and basically an hour after the podcast Bitcoin started dropping. Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_Uq5QCHcU0 .

They say they are backed by an "asset mix" including BTC. Answers they give about more serious questions don't really answer anything.
They have never had any audits by any trustable company. The only thing that is saying they have some money is a piece of paper from Deltec Bank (https://static.cryptoglobe.com/filer_public_thumbnails/filer_public/bf/a0/bfa004d4-52af-451b-97d8-25a4de6f1ebb/deltec_letter.png__800x806_q85_crop_subsampling-2_upscale.png . Deltec has been accused of money laundering https://www.dfid.org/news/deltec-bank-rumoured-to-be-connected-with-odebrecht-money-laundering
They will give 2.5mil (yes, 2.5 million) papers to investigators, seems like a delay tactics (same thing in the Wolf of Wall Street where FBI was going through the papers in the room, when AC was pulled down to low.).
And the bank statement that there hasn't been any money coming in but Tether has printed billions https://i.4cdn.org/biz/1610310413780.png .

[jaresmerel001]

It's a huge risk to the space of the cryptocurrency. A lot of people don't realize how exposed they are, because in tethers there are so many transactions. It would lead to a significant crash in cryptocurrency prices if you removed those tethers. It could cut through various exchanges.

[Karartma1]

It is pure FUD when they try to convince you that bitcoin relies on Tether to survive or go up in price! USDT is just another centralized shitcoin that has offered some utility to the cryptocurrency traders (mostly altcoin focused) that needed a way to both transfer funds between exchanges and an escape tool when bitcoin price (and consequently altcoin prices) drop. Which is why the most amount of Tether is always printed during bitcoin bear markets. So it has stayed alive this long.

When Tether is shut down some day in the future (it is not even a matter of "if" with centralized altcoins, it is a matter of "when") it will definitely cause a lot of panic in the cryptocurrency market as a whole and will create a lot of panic sells that crashes bitcoin price (and consequently altcoin prices). But in the long run nothing will change about bitcoin since as I said in the beginning bitcoin doesn't care about centralized altcoins and what they do.

Exactly, and if we look at what has happened to XRP it is really only a matter of time for a tether showdown. The problem is that USDT is too widely spread across all major markets. In the crypto world, it surely represents one dollar and many consider it to be a true USD equivalent. Few know that there's a company behind it and there are lots of doubts about the fact that it's completely backed, or not, by real USD deposited in banks.
I don't buy the too big too fail certainty found almost everywhere when thinking of tether. It's big, yes and it can fail.