Hacker News Reader

Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

Funny, right after 1100 crypto money launderers in China were arrested, nobody wanted any more Tethers. [1] Now my statements are entirely circumstantial, but I strongly suggest you watch this space.

> The public security ministry said that by Wednesday afternoon police had busted more than 170 criminal groups involved in using cryptocurrencies to launder money.

> China’s Payment & Clearing Association said on Wednesday that the number of crimes involving the use of virtual currencies is on the rise.

> Because cryptocurrencies are anonymous, convenient and global in nature, “they have increasingly become an important channel for cross-border money laundering,” the association said in a statement.

Sounds right to me.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/10/china-arrests-over-1100-susp...

View on HN

> nobody wanted any more Tethers

Can you provide a source on that? I certainly don’t want any Tethers but I know plenty of people that do.

The market is the source. Just look at the market cap chart here, you can see that it's been flat for the past few weeks (after a long period of exponential growth): https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/

Tether market cap tends to grow during bull runs, and crypto's been pretty flat. I'm skeptical of this argument given that Tether is still trading 1:1 with dollars, and at an extremely high volume..

Volumes on USDT:USD pairs should be taken with extreme skepticism, after all, exchanges have a massive vested interest in the peg remaining fixed and are more than likely just arbitraging/wash trading to keep it there. It's hard to know with any sort of certainty how much actual volume is going back and forth across that pair. It also doesn't represent a redemption in any way vis-a-vis the backing assets so can at best be treated as (with a massive lump of salt) some connection to faith that someone else will accept it at 1:1.

Remember only entities Tether deems as customers are permitted to redeem in the first place, and more than likely only the exchanges are deemed customers. They know they can't redeem anyways so they don't bother even trying. That's my read on it anyways.

Even the volume on a more trusted, US exchange like Kraken is pretty high. The fact remains that you could exchange tens of millions of USDT for USD per day with no issues.

Again, the volumes there mean nothing for all the reasons I said - it's not about trusted or untrusted. Binance has 17,000,000,000 USDT. [1] It is in their interests to support the peg, even if they have to go to Kraken to do it. And arbitrage bots participate, too.

Remember, the most trusted crypto exchange, Coinbase, wash traded 99% of all global Litecoin volume for a few months in 2016/2017. [2] And again, "exchanging" means nothing, because it's not a redemption. And the volume likely means nothing because it's probably just arb trades and wash trades.

95% of all crypto trading volume is fake. [3]

Nothing here is regulated. Take everything you see in crypto with a giant lump of salt.

Tether is a criminal enterprise [4], the fact that USDT is trading at 1:1 is an indication the market is completely untrustworthy, irrational or both - not that Tether is trustworthy. Be careful out there!

[1] https://wallet.tether.to/richlist

[2] https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8369-21

[3] https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/03/26/1206/nearly-all-...

[4] https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.02.17_-_settlemen...

I think it's a pretty bold stance that one of the largest US exchanges would be wash trading millions a day in Tether. Need evidence for that. Binance and Bitfinex are a whole different animal.

I'm fully aware (and agree with) all your criticisms of Tether, my point is that if I had tens of millions in USDT (as many real people who aren't affiliated with Tether do) I could easily exchange it for USD.

FWIW I didn't mean to say that Kraken was wash trading USDT per se, but that likely other actors are 'holding the peg' at Kraken too by trading back and forth. Maybe aggressive arbitrage would be a better definition?

I agree you could probably clear 10s of millions via USDT:USD pair, but I'm almost 100% confident you could not actually redeem them.

Sorry if I came across harsh btw, I appreciate your thoughts! Tone doesn't always carry well online and I'm actually a pretty positive person haha.

That would be extremely expensive no? They not only have to buy Tether (using currency they can't print at will) to keep the price up, but also pay significant transaction fees.

Totally agree you wouldn't be able to redeem it, I'm just saying the market seems to think 1 USDT = 1 USD. I honestly can't imagine they could keep that peg through manipulation..it would be astronomically expensive.

A flat price certainly does not mean no more people want to buy it, or even that a significant number of people no longer want to buy it

I think parent was referring to a flat market cap, not a flat price, and given the price is $1 a flat market cap does in this case indicate a lack of demand for further issuance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com