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Comment by itodd | Hacker News Reader

Plot tether market cap against BTC price. They appear to print USDT with no oversight. I fail to see how this is sustainable.

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Tether is backed 1:1 with USD in traditional bank accounts. Some of it may still be seized and held by the US government, not sure if that's been resolved yet.

USDT also trades freely on open markets against USD. If USDT was being printed without USD backing then those markets would decouple.

[Citation needed]

It doesn't take much effort to verify these claims.

But it's not worth my time digging it up for you.

If you don't want to believe it, then don't. Doesn't make a difference to me.

> It doesn't take much effort to verify these claims.

Please verify your first claim and I'll admit I was wrong.

can you explain me the link between USDT and BTC ?

The short version [0] and the long one [1]

[0] https://kenkarlo.com/articles/the-scamming-of-tether-on-bitf...

[1] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2019/10/28/tether-and-bitfinex/

USDT is another "cryptocurrency". I put that in quotes as they can print it at their leisure. They claim to be backed by USD but have never been audited. The market cap grows by billions a month.

BTC and USDT is a common trading pair on crypto exchanges.

As a result, those behind USDT can print it and buy BTC to manipulate the price.

Don't get me started on exchanges allowing you to trade with yourself. This field is tainted with shady practices.

How hard?

People are buying and selling tons of BTC with USDT and if it ends up being a fractional reserve and has been printing billions with nothing backing it up, how much of the BTC price might've come out of thin air?

Exactly! It's not sustainable at all and the downfall of Bitfinex/Tether will be a very big one for the cryptocurrency space.

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