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On low volume price reacts to changes in sentiment more than on high volume, this is not evidence of anything shady.

Tether has been discussed many times and for all the doom prophecies of past five years, it’s been quite anticlimactic.

Audits and bookkeeping aside, the argument “omg have you seen tether printed X amount of BTC to pump the price” laughably misses the point, that it’s exactly what stablecoin are - when somebody wants to buy large amount of BTC through tether, they send real USD which get converted into “printed” USDT which then is traded for BTC on exchange, driving the price up. That’s like literally what one should expect of how this system should work, what’s the issue?

And lastly, if your hands are shaking checking the price - you shouldn’t be trading, you’re killing yourself.

Never said it was evidence of anything shady, it just doesn’t feel right to me, it might feel super good and normal for you, that’s fine

Is just that while NA markets sleeps you see some candle of +600 USD at plain 4am with a volume of barely 80 coins on most used exchanges, its clear orderbook spoofing so when everyone wakes up, it's happy about the price again

Also, I really wonder, how its such big news that MicroStrategy buys 150millions of bitcoin, cause it's a "big amount", yet, tether it's printing the same 150million 3 or 4 times per week, woah, is there so much money coming into bitcoin, people putting 600millions weekly specially into tether so they can buy bitcoin? who are those people, if MicroStrategy hits the news for 150m purchases, why aren't those buying 600m hitting the news?

My last comment about hands shaking it's because the uncertainty it gives me, I can trade everything, I have no problems with it, problems come when I am able to see by myself all that there’s wrong with those exchanges, yet, I'm still part of it and I acknowledge those problems and I am aware of the risks however there’s people making justifications over it.

> its clear orderbook spoofing so when everyone wakes up, it's happy about the price again

sorry, you have to provide a tad more solid evidence for claims like this. when sentiment changes, exactly 0 volume is required for that to reflect on the price. buyers/sellers at price X just go away and proceed trading at price Y.

> tether it's printing the same 150million 3 or 4 times per week

that's about $25-30 billion per year while entire tether's market cap after operating for 5 years is at $19 billion. obviously you're wrong and need to crunch the numbers some more.

He's right about tether printing those amounts in recent times. Tether started printing heavily after the March crash, particularly in August there's been a significant uptick that you can see here in the blue curve: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/

Ok, so there’s correlation between tether market cap and cryptocurrencies market cap. But that’s expected. How do you demonstrate causality?

> Really wonder why HN community nowdays completely ignores tether discussion everytime a bitcoin thread comes.

Not sure why you think this, the first time I discovered the relationship and theories as to how Tether influences Bitcoin price was from previous HN discussion threads.

Yeah, I just checked some threads and definetly it's still being talked but not with the same visibility, I am afraid that it might be getting hardly downvoted by big enthusiasts, same as I am getting downvoted now

Or, downvoters could be like me, who simply believe that your assertion that Tether isn't (still) widely discussed whenever the topic of Bitcoin valuation comes up is false.

> Really wonder why HN community nowdays completely ignores tether discussion everytime a bitcoin thread comes.

Because it's not an issue? The NY AG issued the subpoena roughly 3 years ago. If tether were fraudulently unbacked, it would not take that long for a restraining order to be issued. Hell, it would be malpractice to see missing funds on their balance sheet and not file in that time.

To believe otherwise is to say that Leticia James got the results of the subpoena, looked at the lack of funds, and decided to let them continue issuance rather than take expeditious action. You'd have to be deep into tinfoil-hat territory to believe she's in on the con.

Except of course that you're missing the point that Bitfinex have been stonewalling the discovery requests for that entire period and have not yet (as far as I'm aware) actually produced the information requested.

If you've got information to show that they've complied with the subpoena, I'd be real interested to read it :)

I was talking about the initial subpoena, not discovery. (Discovery occurs during the lawsuit, which happened later on.) The initial subpoena has not been quashed afaik, and would be pretty obvious grounds to stop issuance if it had yielded info about a hole in the balance sheet.

They haven't produced the information that would allow NYAG to establish the state of their balance sheet, and they appear to be fighting pretty hard to avoid producing that evidence.

NYAG can't, at the moment, do anything as the case has not yet reached court.

Most of the discussions in the case I've seen so far resolve around iFinex trying to insist the NYAG does not have jurisdiction over them, and so they don't have to provide any information about their finances. Whilst they don't appear to be winning that argument e.g. https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docInde...

they haven't (as far as I'm aware) actually produced the information about their finances so far.

First: You understand that your comment was about discovery (from the lawsuit) and mine was about the subpoena before the lawsuit?

> They haven't produced the information that would allow NYAG to establish the state of their balance sheet,

I don't know why you think this. It's the basis of the current lawsuit from the NYAG, who questions the nature of the loans that make up a portion of the balance sheet (on the asset side).

I think this due to the filing I linked, which states they're still fighting over jurisdiction.

How can the NYAG penalize a company based in the British Virgin Islands, who is contesting that they have no jurisdiction over them?

Surely until the question of jurisdiction is settled (from subpoena or lawsuit) there can be no penalties?

You're asking a number of questions that have no bearing on whether they've produced financial information for the balance sheet. We can get to those issues, but first I want to make sure you understand the difference between lawsuit discovery and the initial subpoena.

The initial subpoena requested financial information. I inferred that the time elapsed since the subpoena to mean tether backing was demonstrated. You mentioned that tether is fighting discovery, implying that financial information has not been provided. The subpoena and discovery are two entirely different matters, and moreover the reason discovery is happening is because Tether Inc complied with the subpoena.

It is the reason that all but the tinfoil-hat people have stopped worrying about tether. Their business might go under, but it wasn't the silly printing fraud that people like Bitfinexed were claiming.

So you're inferring that iFinex provided information in response to the Subpoena, just based on it having been a while....

Do you have any evidence of iFinex having provided all the relevant financial information relating to their balance sheet to the NYAG (a court filing for example).

All the court filing's I've seen relate to their case state that they're still fighting having to provide their financial information.

Edit: you can read the latest court filing here https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docInde... . Now IANAL but that does not sound to me like the NYAG was given the information needed. And the information they did provide was enough to cause the NYAG to initiate the martin act hearing they're currently contesting.

First: Do you understand that the subpoena preceded lawsuit discovery?

Agree. Regardless whether or not Tether is fraudulently backed, it is fractionally backed. 74% last year, with the remaining lent out. But I suppose that's expected. Even if Tether hadn't lent out their cash, the bank they deposit into certainly would.

Out of curiousity what's the basis for your assertion on 74%, given that, as far as I'm aware, Tether has never completed an audit with an independent third party.

It came from an investigation by New York's AG last year:

> In fact, Tether’s reserves of cash and cash equivalents alone (without the line of credit) would cover approximately 74 percent of the outstanding amount of tether. This sort of “fractional” reserving arrangement is similar to how commercial banks work. No bank holds in liquid cash more than a small percentage of depositors’ money. The funds are invested.

https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docInde...

So an important note about that filing is that it's from iFinex and it's their opinion, it has not been established as a fact :)

It may be that once they actually get to court with the NYAG they can prove this opinion to be true, however as far as I'm aware no independent auditor has confirmed the status of Tether's reserves.

If your hands are shaking you might be doing yourself harm by being so invested. Try to imagine how you would feel if it crashed 50%. If devastated is your answer, why not scale back a bit? If you scaled back and Bitcoin came to rule the financial world you would still be in a very good position.

I know a friend who got so excited and put a large, large amount in BTC. Bought quite a few. It crashed and he sold. Probably at the bottom — didn’t ask. Later when it rebounded and he bought 1 BTC. He could have saved a lot of money if he just bought 1 from the start. What stopped him? He never sincerely considered what his reaction would be if it crashed and then rebounded. Don’t be like this guy.

> If your hands are shaking you might be doing yourself harm by being so invested.

Reading WSB and using that to direct funds is not investing. It's pure gambling based on the odds of getting out of a pump and dump before it turns the corner. The parent is not an investor, and will with certainty lose all their money.

Tether is discussed, multiple times in almost every post about Bitcoin on here.

it might be, but it's not getting the same visibility as it was getting before (i.e during the 2017 pump), while clearly the impact of it on bitcoin price its even higher than in 2017.

> everytime I check the coinbase APP when I wake up, my hands literally shake because of the fear that while I slept the price went down some insane %

That's an emotional reaction.

Emotions have no place in a profficent investor or trader. They will fuck you up, it is just a matter of time.

They are also not a signal for anyone else to change, or any system to change, or any discussions to start or stop on certain news aggregators - they are a signal for you to learn to chill with your investment decisions, become more analytical and less emotional with it, or at the very least scale back the size of investments to a comfortable for you level.

Because they dismissed it, and missed out on returns greater than ANY YCOMBINATOR angel investment in their 1000+ bets as a company.

Imagine feeling like the smartest person in class who missed out on getting rich from Internet money.

There are laws being proposed now that basically say all stablecoins are banks.

Currency pegs can only be maintained via Ponzis, there is no such thing as a Stablecoin

I would tend to agree, but I'd love to hear your actual rationale.