Tether (USDT) - Backed by Air and Words

[tk808]

Ask yourself this, where's the proof of any backing? Where are the journalists questioning USDT's holdings? The true state of obliviousness in crypto is still baffling. Despite billions of dollars and repeated offenses by countless wolves over the past 10 years in all of crypto, no one bats an eyelash at the lack of any tangible* evidence from the largest stablecoin.  

USDT will become the biggest scam in crypto history, bigger than XRP by 5-fold. The day of reckoning will arrive soon enough. Maybe a few more years before this speculative prophecy comes to fruition.




From user Yogee

There was a report last year about Tether's reserves but the problem was it's conducted by an audit firm called Cayman. Tether opened their books to them as part of their compliance but you cannot really rely on reports released by another shady company can you? Why did they not seek the expertise of top audit companies like Ernst and Young or the PwC?

Here's their reserve breakdown as reported by Coindesk,
- Cash & Cash Equivalents & Short-term deposits & Commercial paper: 75.85%
- Secured Loans: 12.55%
- Corporate Bonds, Funds & Precious metals: 9.96%
- Other investments: 1.64%

From CNBC about the NYC Lawsuit - Ryan Browne - Feb 21st, 2021 - *Note that their investigation was highly limited in scope.*

The state’s top law enforcement official had been investigating the firms over allegations that they moved hundreds of millions of dollars to cover up the apparent loss of $850 million of commingled client and corporate funds. Tether and Bitfinex — a popular digital currency exchange — are owned by the same company, Bitfinex.

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office says it found that Tether sometimes held no reserves to back its cryptocurrency’s dollar peg. It said that, from mid-2017, the company had no access to banking and misled clients about liquidity issues.

In a 2019 filing, the attorney general’s office said that Bitfinex handed $850 million to a Panama entity called Crypto Capital without disclosing it to investors. Executives at Bitfinex and Tether then allegedly engaged in a series of transactions that opened up Tether’s cash reserves to Bitfinex.

“Bitfinex and Tether recklessly and unlawfully covered-up massive financial losses to keep their scheme going and protect their bottom lines,” James said in a statement Tuesday.

“Tether’s claims that its virtual currency was fully backed by U.S. dollars at all times was a lie,” she added.

“These companies obscured the true risk investors faced and were operated by unlicensed and unregulated individuals and entities dealing in the darkest corners of the financial system.”

Accounting Firm Report Card - Coindesk by: Helene Braun - March 30, 2021

To be clear, an attestation is not the same thing as an audit. The latter is designed to look for potential risks, while an attestation only evaluates whether the data being examined by the auditor is accurate. However, no stablecoin issuer has been able to secure an audit, including companies regulated by U.S. entities like the New York Department of Financial Services. In other words, the attestation puts Tether on par with stablecoin issuers such as USDC’s Centre, GUSD’s Gemini or PAX’s Paxos, at least when it comes to financial clarity.

Coindesk Report about Moore Cayman (Auditor) - now known as MHA Cayman - Jan 26th, 2022

FRC is looking at MHA's audits of the financial statements of MRG Finance UK for 2018 and 2019, ahead of a planned shakeup of the nation's audit market, according to the FT. MHA is a subsidiary of Baker Tilly International, the 11th-largest auditor of London-listed companies by market value, according to the FT, quoting Adviser Rankings.

[Jim1X]

Ask yourself this, where's the proof of any backing? Where are the journalists questioning USDT's holdings? The true state of obliviousness in crypto is still baffling. Despite billions of dollars and repeated offenses by countless wolves over the past 10 years in all of crypto, no one bats an eyelash at the lack of any evidence from the largest stablecoin.  

USDT will become the biggest scam in crypto history, bigger than XRP by 5-fold. The day of reckoning will arrive soon enough. Maybe a few more years before this speculative prophecy comes to fruition.

USDT is everything crypto is supposed to be not. Tether's basically got all the fiat issues of the dollar it's notionally pegged to, but then with additional dimension of them being allowed to print tether that doesn't even correspond to a dollar. Even more worrying is htf they managed to become unpegged from the dollar and be forced to rely on (mystery) paper. If you've printed ~ $75 billion worth and can manage to locate a backed investment that pays 0.1% on your saved dollars - that's still $75 million a year to run your company and buy everyone a lambo with, each year, forever.

You get the impression that they thought "not good enough" and overlooked their entire purpose.

[dansus021]

there is bunch of conspiracy theories out there some people believe it some people dont and offcourse that Tether team always said that they are legit

to be honest and in my opinion what usdt right now have is insanley crazy amount of money 70 billion dollar from where they got thoose and not just stop there there is EUR CNY and dont forget about the XAUT

what i fear is what happen on terra luna ust happen on usdt  but please dont

[BitKongy]

I am at peace with USDT (Tether ) because they have once faced the law and now things have gotten better for the project to keep functioning, if USDT was fraud it won't be running today, the project is really pegged with dollars that's all I can say, asking for the proof of backing isn't possible, put yourself in their shoe first.

[Davian144]

Ask yourself this, where's the proof of any backing? Where are the journalists questioning USDT's holdings? The true state of obliviousness in crypto is still baffling. Despite billions of dollars and repeated offenses by countless wolves over the past 10 years in all of crypto, no one bats an eyelash at the lack of any evidence from the largest stablecoin.  

A little impressed by what you wrote because it's true that I personally also never realized this for the last 10 years where I very often use USDT in terms of storing the amount of assets that already exist and also very often use it when buying on the exchange I want. So for now who knows about the lack of evidence of the biggest stablecoin?

USDT will become the biggest scam in crypto history, bigger than XRP by 5-fold. The day of reckoning will arrive soon enough. Maybe a few more years before this speculative prophecy comes to fruition.

If these speculative forecasts come to fruition it will certainly be catastrophic for those who like to hold and use USDT in everything they need.
Although at the moment I still like USDT, but in the future maybe I will switch it to another stablecoin if the evidence you are referring to has not been found.

[Sayeds56]

there is bunch of conspiracy theories out there some people believe it some people dont and offcourse that Tether team always said that they are legit

to be honest and in my opinion what usdt right now have is insanley crazy amount of money 70 billion dollar from where they got thoose and not just stop there there is EUR CNY and dont forget about the XAUT

what i fear is what happen on terra luna ust happen on usdt   but please dont

Your concern is genuine and we all have the same feeling about stability of these stable coins. Honestly speaking nobody is sure whether these stable coins will not collapse like ust in case crypto market goes through another Teraa Luna like crash. The USDT has huge market cap of 70 Billion dollars if it is not backed by real dollars then it is certainly vulnerable and we should diversify our funds in different stable coins like BUSD & USDC,

[shinratensei_]

USDT will become the biggest scam in crypto history, bigger than XRP by 5-fold. The day of reckoning will arrive soon enough. Maybe a few more years before this speculative prophecy comes to fruition.

This is why i were leaving USDT for BUSD. I don't know why people are still using this non transparent stable token. Even UST that was being transparent can be destroyed easilly but in my opinion when people realized about the truth and massive sell will be happening like UST even USDT was not a algorithmic stable token. Last week i have seen the price of USDT was also dropping. This stable token was not viable anymore to be used for the daily interaction with the market.
The worst thing may come when public will know about the truth of USDT reserve

[bittraffic]

Basically its just the word "trust me" and it worked for the company to have $73,207,418,561 market cap (3rd in CMC) without having anyone auditing. Bitfinex are still up and running which nobody even know where they are actually located. The last time AFAIK was that they are based in British Island and which they guarantee its the safest place.

When LUNA and its UST crumbles, the paranoia is spreading and its possible to happen on all stablecoin especially USDT.

[livingfree]

It is actually concerning with these stable coins and you can't remove your worry with the other ones even if they've been proven to have a real backing just like BUSD, USDC and GUSD.

I still have no whole idea about their legitimacy and auditing if they've been on the line with those critics but the worry about USDT is known. If there's worrying about these stable coins, the centralized ones to be specific.

I'll just choose the decentralized ones, so aside from DAI, what are the other decentralized stable coins you think are firm and strong?

[JangoUnchained]

It's more concerning right now after what happened to Luna and it's UST  but USDT is much more better, they have passed all the rights to keep functioning as a stable coin past year's ago, I like the fact that USDT team are well known and have once tackle with the Law, it's just another example of why old projects are better than new one

[JeffBrad12]

I remember when USDT has been facing so many problem with regulators and auditors but it can still pass it. It has become a way for people to keep their value unlike UST which has been facing a difficult situation and it's dead instantly. USDT may not so transparent and we didn't know so well the real reserved funds to backed its USDT but im sure it has not enough dollars to back whole of tokens. I do agree with what you said above but calling USDT as a scam will not make people realized about that.

Im still using this stable token. 

[RussianEnglishTranslation]

I don't trust Tether at all but people wont stop using it until it disappears because it has so much market penetration. Most exchanges use USDT trading pairs instead of USDC, which is regulated and backed. Personally, I don't understand why people even bother with stablecoins when you could be staking cryptos like Celo, CNDL, and NEAR. That way you make money even in a down market.

[markko7]

Tether made good stress test during LUNA attack. Take a look at trading volume in that day on tether. It was 185 BILIONS! 3x higher then usual day trade! It went down to 98 cents for a while but attackers wasn`t able to crash it.

[inanilujimi]

I can't imagine if usdt ends up like ust, which is my question why all exchanges support this stable coin??
I hope that there will be no more disasters in the future like the one experienced by ust. I hope your speculation is wrong and the disaster never happened.

[Jackl87]

Ask yourself this, where's the proof of any backing? Where are the journalists questioning USDT's holdings? The true state of obliviousness in crypto is still baffling. Despite billions of dollars and repeated offenses by countless wolves over the past 10 years in all of crypto, no one bats an eyelash at the lack of any evidence from the largest stablecoin.  
USDT will become the biggest scam in crypto history, bigger than XRP by 5-fold. The day of reckoning will arrive soon enough. Maybe a few more years before this speculative prophecy comes to fruition.

I am well aware of all the controversies that are surrounding USDT for a few years now. As far as i know this all started back in 2019 or so, when the company behind USDT changed it's wording regarding the backing of all the USDT that are minted. Before it was always stated that they have enough USD to cover every USDT minted 1 to 1 but then they changed it to "we have enough reserves to cover every USDT minted" but the big problem is no one can really check what kind of reserves that are and if those reserves even exist.
If we would see the same thing happen to USDT then to UST a few weeks ago then the impact on the crypto market would be extremely devastating in my opinion and the current bear market caused by the Terra collapse will look like nothing in comparison to that.

[Silberman]

Ask yourself this, where's the proof of any backing? Where are the journalists questioning USDT's holdings? The true state of obliviousness in crypto is still baffling. Despite billions of dollars and repeated offenses by countless wolves over the past 10 years in all of crypto, no one bats an eyelash at the lack of any evidence from the largest stablecoin.  

USDT will become the biggest scam in crypto history, bigger than XRP by 5-fold. The day of reckoning will arrive soon enough. Maybe a few more years before this speculative prophecy comes to fruition.

Without a doubt you are right, at some point USDT will collapse as we know it is not truly backed one to one with dollars, however taking into account what happened with luna and ust I think there are not many people that will want to ask questions about tether either, after all if that happened and tether collapsed tomorrow it is difficult to imagine how low the price of bitcoin could fall, even if bitcoin is not directly affiliated with it the fall of tether will without a doubt affect bitcoin.

[jrrsparkles]

Ad you said there is no actual evidence for their claim of assets which backs all the tokens they are printing but they will start having issues if government comes with more regulations and starts to audit the cryptocurrency projects. I too expect USDT will become on of the biggest regret of cryptocurrency holders, but we don't know when it will happen so never hold your stable coins for too long just use it for very short term trading purpose.

[MidNite36]

I want to correct many comments on here, even if USDT was backed by real assets there is never going to be any proof like people are hoping for, such things need to be kept in secret, I know this might sound somehow but you will only understand if you are part of USDT team.

[btc_angela]

Ask yourself this, where's the proof of any backing? Where are the journalists questioning USDT's holdings? The true state of obliviousness in crypto is still baffling. Despite billions of dollars and repeated offenses by countless wolves over the past 10 years in all of crypto, no one bats an eyelash at the lack of any evidence from the largest stablecoin.  

USDT will become the biggest scam in crypto history, bigger than XRP by 5-fold. The day of reckoning will arrive soon enough. Maybe a few more years before this speculative prophecy comes to fruition.

I think this has been what others have been saying against Tether: they run on fractional reserves.

Remember that New York attorney general has been investigating Bitfinex and Tether as there are concerns about them that they don't have cash reserves, and so a coverup. So we will see, although this case has been settled as far as I know, and as what we witnessed recently, even these so called stable coins can collapse anytime.

[dvj33]

Do governments support Tether? Is Tether centralized?