Everyone knows USDT is a problem. The issue is that exchanges refuse to stop accepting it.
Still waiting for the evangelists of unregulated free markets to explain why it doesn't trade at ninety-nine cents or less.
USDT _IS_ a useful tool to facilitate quick movement of funds between exchanges without the delays and expense of the conventional financial system, though.
I'm not an accountant, and I'm not your accountant. Not financial advice.
As long as people can redeem, then there's no major concern.
It is too big to fail because a lot of BTC would lose value over night, the entire plug would be pulled out of the industry due to the loss of confidence. Predatory and uninformed legislation would happen while the price and negotiating power is low, and in this time, that is when you really see the blood hit the floor with regard to scams, theft, crime, etc.
Regardless of your position on USDT, you should pray this never happens.
Edit: For the critics of cryptocurrencies responding below, allow me to make this response -- I didn't have anything to do with subprime mortgages, along with most of USA, however we all paid dearly for that mistake. As the comingling of cryptocurrency and traditional markets become increasingly intertwined, what makes you think that the ancillary effects of a crypto crash wouldn't effect you in some way?
[1] https://www.insider.com/faze-clan-save-the-kids-cryptocurren...
How do guys like you keep a straight face saying things like this? This is an utterly insane amount of power. And putting into context the utility these crypto services are providing to most people (very little), it's even more insane. How much power would we be using if everyone actually started using PoW crypto for useful transactions regularly?
And it's not just electricity, it's high-end silicon too.
Cryptocurrencies is the first example of an algorithmic cancer IMO. (I cell that's tricking its host into thinking it's useful, but which mainly replicates and takes over resources as much as it can regardless of the utility the cells have to the host.)
But sure, let's give them all 111TWh hydroelectric dams.
I'll copy an old comment by me, and the 2 parents comments for context. It was posted in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28420667 (8 months ago)
>>> So let's use the article's figure of 140 TWh of power used per year. Let's compare that to domestic energy usage by country https://yearbook.enerdata.net/electricity/electricity-domest.... That's more than Argentina and about half of what the UK uses.
>> From https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/ .
>> Bitcoin would be the 27th most energy using country: ahead of Argentina (30), Sweden (29), and Ukraine (28); just below and about to overtake Malaysia (26), and below Egypt (25) and Poland (24).
> A big chunk of our economy in Argentina is transforming sunlight into soybeans. So we should add it. Just imagine that we covered all the Pampa with solar panels and then use that energy to ... illuminate hydroponic soy.
> From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Argentina#Produ... the cultivated area is 250.000km^2 . Let's assume 1000W/m^2 and a 10% of efficiency, 12 hours of sun per day, and 1/3 of the year of grow of the plants. Then I get 36.5TWh https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=250.000km%5E2+*1000W%2... (I had to guess a lot of things. I'd love to see a more accurate calculation.)
> So with an additional energy of 36.5TWh, we jump from 132.7TWh to 169.2TWh that is more than the value of Poland 168.8TWh. (But other countries may want to add their solar->plants power too.)
Compare the real-world value of economies powered by the energy consumption of crypto and let me know if you think that crypto is creating more value for humanity than these countries, I'd love to hear your arguments on that.
Edit: Looks like the "single hydroelectric plant" is the Three Gorges. Hot dam, that really puts Hoover to shame.
> The Three Gorges Dam has been the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW) since 2012 (10% of China's electricity).
It's also inevitable eventually, all alternatives are just artificially prolonging the pain
Very harsh.
I can see no ethical way that they can keep their shirts (unethical is sell to greater fool). I do not think this is a "...great outcome". Wonderful or otrherwise
It is yet another repeat of the age old lesson: There is no magic.
Thinking that they solved a problem that anyone has ever had is what's absurd.
In fact, your possession of the deed doesn't really entitle you to anything. While you assume that law enforcement would accept it as proof, they do not have to, and ultimately judges and the county registration system decides who owns what. And it's not even all that straightforward in some cases.
So sure, your deed to your house. Okay.
> plug would be pulled out of the industry due to the loss of confidence.
Sounds great!
> Predatory and uninformed legislation would happen while the price and negotiating power is low, and in this time, that is when you really see the blood hit the floor with regard to scams, theft, crime, etc.
I don't wish scams on anyone, but perhaps it's time we got this all over with, yeah? Seems like it's going to hurt more people in the long run.
That it's not that intertwined yet. And such a crash would likely prevent a lot of such going forward, which is arguably very good news for the longer term.
Like your analogy to subprime mortgages, this crisis will precipitate serious regulation that probably won't quite go far enough, which is the final stage of institutionalization cryptocurrency has been missing. From that crater, it can only improve in terms of mass adoption. I'll be a holder again in the year 1, post-USDT.