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Comment by chollida1 | Hacker News Reader

Makes sense, an asset that has had multiple 30% dips this year alone and 5 dips of 60% in the past 10 years should probably treated as if its some what volatile:)

The good news is that the people in power are treating it as an asset class and not trying to suppress it.

https://twitter.com/staffordphilip/status/140291323539792281...

And with the news that Tether is holding alot of US commercial paper, crypto is starting to really cement itself into the existing financial community.

Though if the report that Tether is holding as much commercial paper as claimed is true they've really put themselves on the US regulators radar.

As people here are fond of pointing out, regulators jobs isn't to protect everyone, but rather to make sure markets working an orderly fashion. Anyone holding that much paper is going to be scrutinized pretty thoroughly and come done on pretty hard.

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Tether is holding US commercial paper, yes, but they won't reveal WHO they've loaned to, or under what terms. Most likely, they have created new shell corporations, made sweetheart loans to them from the Tether bank account, and then had them pay out distributions to the owners. In other words, they've replaced the cash that should be backing the Tether with likely worthless IOUs. Tether is a bomb waiting to explode the crypto space.

Tether seems like a time bomb: https://crypto-anonymous-2021.medium.com/the-bit-short-insid...

It’s even worse. Tether only might be holding commercial paper. They’ve lied about everything before, no one has verified their assets, and no one in the commercial paper market has heard of them, so it’s even possible the commercial paper claim is a straight up fabrication.

https://www.ft.com/content/342966af-98dc-4b48-b997-38c008042...

I've outlined a scenario where they could be telling the truth about holding commercial paper but still have stolen all the money.

It’s certainly possible. I think it’s more likely there never was any cash and they printed Tether from thin air.

They surely got something for that Tether, and despite their denials I expect they have commercial paper form crypto exchanges if they have any at all. But they may simply be lying about even having commercial paper at all.

> "no one has verified their assets"

It's worse than that - they were audited by Friedman LLP in 2017, but chose to suppress the full outcome: https://www.coindesk.com/tether-confirms-relationship-audito...

Haha and I thought I was peak pessimist. Thanks forgot that detail.

Brings this Dilbert comic to mind: https://dilbert.com/strip/1995-03-14

> regulators jobs isn't to protect everyone, but rather to make sure markets working an orderly fashion

That's not true. As just two examples: The SEC's job is to protect investors. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's job is to make "banks, lenders, and other financial companies treat you fairly".[0]

Some people may claim to prefer a libertarian marketplace, but that's not what the U.S. has decided upon.

[0] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/

30% dips in relation to what? 1bitcoin in 2018 == 1 bitcoin in 2020.

also, there is nobody forcing banks to hold crypto as an asset. nobody.

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