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Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

> What if the value of those assets is already below 1:1 because of recent market events?

My long-term treasuries are down well over 10% this YTD, in case anyone wants to know. So if Tether had say, $50-billion in 10-to-30Y treasuries at the start of the year, they only have $45-billion of that now.

There are serious market risks when you buy/sell Treasuries. Yes, they're among the safest instruments on the market, but rising interest rates and inflation are huge issues and absolutely wreck the value of long-term treasuries.

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> So if Tether had say, $50-billion in 10-to-30Y treasuries at the start of the year, they only have $45-billion of that now.

They don't. As stated at the link:

> U.S. treasury bills comprises U.S. treasury bills with a maturity of less than 120 days.

Except USDT doesn't have any audits or proof of their reserves.

My overall point is that USDT could very well be buying up dollar-backed securities, such as 30-year treasuries, and yet still lose a ton of money if the market moves under them. Unless Tether allows 3rd party audits of their reserves, I don't think its necessarily safe to assume that they actually hold those reserves.

If you assume that the attestation is fabricated, there's really no reason to talk about treasuries - might as well assume they embezzled 50-70B. Personally, I think it's mostly accurate, with discrepancies being around things like marking securities to market. (Just look at VC practices there, for example.) The explicit statements of "X amount of treasuries under Y maturity" are likely to be true, a vague catchall like "other investments" not so much, which puts an upper bound of ~ 15B short.

Lastly: a temporary liquidity crisis that drives USDT down far below the peg is something that would be incredibly profitable for the operators. With perfect information, it would be a situation of trading 50 cents for dollars, and could be used to erase a partial deficit overnight.

>> So if Tether had say, $50-billion in 10-to-30Y treasuries at the start of the year, they only have $45-billion of that now.

This is nuts - they dont and it wouldnt make any sense. You cant have a short term cash-equivalent backed with long-duration bonds. It would be a total asset-liability mismatch.

For reference:

T-bonds mature in 20 or 30 years and offer the highest interest payments bi-annually.

T-notes mature anywhere between two and 10 years, with bi-annual interest payments, but lower yields.

T-bills have the shortest maturity terms—from four weeks to one year.

This (more yield with longer duration) is true most of the time, but sometimes the yield curve inverts. Especially in recent months, the yield curve has flattened quite a bit.

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