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Comment by jqpabc123 | Hacker News Reader

The audits/attestations reveal this and Tether itself has confirmed it holds a large quantity of "commercial paper". They have steadily backed away from the claim that USDT is backed by dollars.

"Commercial paper" is a loan, an IOU --- not hard currency/assets.

You can't have your dollars and loan them to others too. If I give Donald Trump an unsecured loan for $1000, I can't "legally" claim to still hold the $1000 in cash.

The idea that an unsecured IOU is without risk and is worth just as much as dollars in hand is pure fantasy. Yet all the exchanges collectively peg USDT at $1.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tether-says-massive-reserves-he...

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Totally agree, however I haven't seen any sources saying that these mint operations were paid for by commerical paper given by Alameda or Cumberland.

That's what I suspect and I'll be shorting more USDT today on AAVE.

That's what I suspect and I'll be shorting more USDT today on AAVE.

Sorry, I don't see how this can work.

USDT is a fraud. Exchanges are active participants in the fraud by pegging USDT at $1.

The only way your short can pay off is if the exchanges stop the "pegging" game. When the pegging stops, the exchanges will likely fold up and disappear.

Who will you collect from for your short?

The process is:

Deposit ETH on AAVE (this is a DeFi DAPP)

Use this collateral to borrow USDT (~4% APY at current rates)

Trade that USDT for ETH.

If the peg breaks for USDT than I can get USDT for very cheap to pay back the loan and unlock my collateral.

If it doesn't break than I owe ~4% APY for the period that I shorted.

One of the really amazing things about DeFi is that it allows counter-party free financial operations.

Of course that ETH will be worth much less, but long term I am optimistic about ETH.

Actually, that got me curious. Couldn't a billionaire crush tether by shorting so much of it that it exceeded the cash reserves?

Couldn't a billionaire crush tether by shorting so much of it that it exceeded the cash reserves?

Short answer --- no. They can just print more tethers --- which exchanges and crypto-fools will readily accept as being worth $1 USD.

You're making a common mistake --- you're assuming that the crypto market is actually a "free market" similar to the regulated stock and currency markets. You're assuming it is free of the inside manipulation that keeps the price of USDT artificially pegged at $1 USD no matter what.

You can play games to short it in DeFi which might break the peg on DeFi systems, however if anyone wants to try and arbitrage the difference (e.g. buy USDT at 0.50 USD, take it to Tether and redeem it for 1 USD) then Tether may just say "here take some of our Commerical Paper instead" or even "No you have broken our ToS".

In tether's terms of service they state that they have no obligation to ever give you any money for 1 tether.

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