I remember when it was peaking back in 2018, a lot of people suddenly became stock brokers and experts. It was hilarious watching all of them lose their money in the subsequent crashes and the cult mentality they had towards it, especially on 4chan.
That and finding out what Tether is and how it's used to manipulate the price of BTC is all the proof you need to know that it's a scam lol.
https://coingeek.com/btc-tether-relationship-how-long-can-it-last/
:xi:
The reason the entire market exploded in 2018 was because of that Tether relationship being revealed. Can't believe it's still being used, that's nuts. Anybody who has an ounce of brain left would avoid Tether entirely, they're just asking to be fucked.
I love this article because it perfectly summarizes every. single. part. of this fuckery and hope that none of our comrades are involved in this. This part got to me the most:
"After this latest round of research, I waited anxiously. I’d sold out of my Bitcoin position, but my bank wire was still in transit — I’d still face counterparty risk until I’d fully exited a market I was now convinced was built on a fraud.
While I waited, I combined what I knew of Bob’s experiences with my other evidence, which allowed me to build up a mental picture of the fraud’s core moneymaking engine. Here’s how it would work:
Bob, a crypto investor, puts $100 of real US dollars into Coinbase.
Bob then uses those dollars to buy $100 worth of Bitcoin on Coinbase.
Bob transfers his $100 in Bitcoin to an unbanked exchange, like Bybit.
Bob begins trading crypto on Bybit, using leverage, and receiving promotional giveaways — all of which are Tether-denominated.
Tether Ltd. buys Bob’s Bitcoins from him on the exchange, almost certainly through a deniable proxy trading account. Bob gets paid in Tethers.
Tether Ltd. takes Bob’s Bitcoins and moves them onto a banked exchange like Coinbase.
Finally, Tether Ltd. sells Bob’s Bitcoins on Coinbase for dollars, and exits the crypto markets.
My guess is that Tether Ltd. (through proxy accounts) is only responsible for a small fraction of the direct buying activity on these exchanges. But with $50B in nominal value flowing through Binance every day, even a small slice of the flow represents huge amounts of revenue. And when your business involves trading fake dollars for real ones, your profit margins can get pretty high.
In the example above, Tether Ltd. bought Bitcoin from Bob at its nominal price in Tethers — but that Bitcoin was the cover charge Bob paid to get access to truly staggering levels of leverage and promotions from the exchange. And that very leverage, and those very promotions, are all denominated in Tethers — Tethers that I suspect Tether Ltd. is handing over to the exchange in huge quantities, to help it subsidize its user acquisition through more promotions.
This explains how Tether has been able to maintain its $1 USD peg on the unbanked offshore exchanges. For a given amount of Bitcoin, a crypto trader gains effective access to far more Tethers than the public exchange rate would justify. The exchanges then book those extra Tethers as “leverage” and “promotions”, allowing them to maintain the fiction that those “free” Tethers aren’t being traded for Bitcoin at all — even though they are part of the package Bob receives for the Bitcoin he sells.
Viewed from this angle, the fact that the offshore exchanges don’t support USD is a feature, not a bug: preventing USD and Tether from meeting on a transparent market is crucial for ensuring that the true price of Tether stays opaque — making it hard for an outsider to dispute its $1 peg.
Forget the activity on the offshore exchanges for a moment, and just think of a simple mental picture. Imagine you could stand at a metaphorical booth, where Coinbase’s exchange connects with the US financial system. If you could do that, you’d see two lines of people at the booth. One line would be crypto investors, putting dollars in — and the other line would be crooks, taking dollars out."
Extremely interesting read, thanks for linking it.
The last nail in the coffin was when I found out about the lack of visible reserves. If Tether Ltd. really was taking in 1 USD for each Tether it issued, then it should have as many dollars in its bank account as there are issued Tethers. And it turns out we can check if that’s true! Tether Ltd.’s bank is Deltec bank in the Bahamas, and the Bahamas discloses how much foreign currency its domestic banks hold each month.
The answer was — at least up to the end of September 2020 — not nearly enough:
From January 2020 to September 2020, the amount of all foreign currencies held by all the domestic banks in the Bahamas increases by only $600 million — going from $4.7B to $5.3B. (The table is in Bahamian dollars, but the Bahamian dollar is pegged to the US dollar, so 1 BSD = 1 USD.)
But during the same period, total issued Tethers increased by almost $5.4 billion — going from $4.6B to $10B!
The implication was shocking: there weren’t nearly enough dollars in all the domestic banks in the Bahamas to back the Tethers that were floating around in the crypto market.
So this was crypto’s big short: Tether Ltd. was short of US dollars — to the tune of about $25 billion.
This is pretty wild, I'm interested to see what comes out of that court case against tether.
I like this though:
but allowing a USD-equivalent pseudo-currency to be minted without backing or restriction puts the nation’s ability to regulate its own currency flows in jeopardy.
To be clear, US authorities should be extremely concerned about this. To a good approximation, there is currently an unregulated, foreign entity printing dollars with impunity. There’s a case to be made that this constitutes a direct, adversarial attack on the USD — and the longer it goes on, the more it risks impugning the integrity of the entire US financial system.
I will definitely read this! I'm still unconvinced that 100% of bitcoin's "value" is fake, since money holds value if people believe it has value, and I think bitcoin has fulfilled that criteria. That said, its price is definitely getting inflated by this nefarious shit and the trading patterns are nuts and the whole market is a giant bubble that inflates every few years and explodes and then repeat forever. It's beautiful, really.
I remember when it was peaking back in 2018, a lot of people suddenly became stock brokers and experts. It was hilarious watching all of them lose their money in the subsequent crashes and the cult mentality they had towards it, especially on 4chan.
That and finding out what Tether is and how it's used to manipulate the price of BTC is all the proof you need to know that it's a scam lol. https://coingeek.com/btc-tether-relationship-how-long-can-it-last/ :xi:
The reason the entire market exploded in 2018 was because of that Tether relationship being revealed. Can't believe it's still being used, that's nuts. Anybody who has an ounce of brain left would avoid Tether entirely, they're just asking to be fucked.
https://crypto-anonymous-2021.medium.com/the-bit-short-inside-cryptos-doomsday-machine-f8dcf78a64d3
I love this article because it perfectly summarizes every. single. part. of this fuckery and hope that none of our comrades are involved in this. This part got to me the most:
"After this latest round of research, I waited anxiously. I’d sold out of my Bitcoin position, but my bank wire was still in transit — I’d still face counterparty risk until I’d fully exited a market I was now convinced was built on a fraud.
While I waited, I combined what I knew of Bob’s experiences with my other evidence, which allowed me to build up a mental picture of the fraud’s core moneymaking engine. Here’s how it would work:
Bob, a crypto investor, puts $100 of real US dollars into Coinbase.
Bob then uses those dollars to buy $100 worth of Bitcoin on Coinbase.
Bob transfers his $100 in Bitcoin to an unbanked exchange, like Bybit.
Bob begins trading crypto on Bybit, using leverage, and receiving promotional giveaways — all of which are Tether-denominated.
Tether Ltd. buys Bob’s Bitcoins from him on the exchange, almost certainly through a deniable proxy trading account. Bob gets paid in Tethers.
Tether Ltd. takes Bob’s Bitcoins and moves them onto a banked exchange like Coinbase. Finally, Tether Ltd. sells Bob’s Bitcoins on Coinbase for dollars, and exits the crypto markets.
My guess is that Tether Ltd. (through proxy accounts) is only responsible for a small fraction of the direct buying activity on these exchanges. But with $50B in nominal value flowing through Binance every day, even a small slice of the flow represents huge amounts of revenue. And when your business involves trading fake dollars for real ones, your profit margins can get pretty high. In the example above, Tether Ltd. bought Bitcoin from Bob at its nominal price in Tethers — but that Bitcoin was the cover charge Bob paid to get access to truly staggering levels of leverage and promotions from the exchange. And that very leverage, and those very promotions, are all denominated in Tethers — Tethers that I suspect Tether Ltd. is handing over to the exchange in huge quantities, to help it subsidize its user acquisition through more promotions.
This explains how Tether has been able to maintain its $1 USD peg on the unbanked offshore exchanges. For a given amount of Bitcoin, a crypto trader gains effective access to far more Tethers than the public exchange rate would justify. The exchanges then book those extra Tethers as “leverage” and “promotions”, allowing them to maintain the fiction that those “free” Tethers aren’t being traded for Bitcoin at all — even though they are part of the package Bob receives for the Bitcoin he sells.
Viewed from this angle, the fact that the offshore exchanges don’t support USD is a feature, not a bug: preventing USD and Tether from meeting on a transparent market is crucial for ensuring that the true price of Tether stays opaque — making it hard for an outsider to dispute its $1 peg. Forget the activity on the offshore exchanges for a moment, and just think of a simple mental picture. Imagine you could stand at a metaphorical booth, where Coinbase’s exchange connects with the US financial system. If you could do that, you’d see two lines of people at the booth. One line would be crypto investors, putting dollars in — and the other line would be crooks, taking dollars out."
It's a reeeeally good read promise
Extremely interesting read, thanks for linking it.
This is pretty wild, I'm interested to see what comes out of that court case against tether.
I like this though:
:sicko-yes:
I will definitely read this! I'm still unconvinced that 100% of bitcoin's "value" is fake, since money holds value if people believe it has value, and I think bitcoin has fulfilled that criteria. That said, its price is definitely getting inflated by this nefarious shit and the trading patterns are nuts and the whole market is a giant bubble that inflates every few years and explodes and then repeat forever. It's beautiful, really.