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Comment by lmm | Hacker News Reader

> How?

People say Bitcoin is worth $100k but what they actually mean is it's worth 100,000 "USDT", because that's the thing you can actually exchange for it.

Are those 100,000 "USDT" worth $100k? Well, maybe. Tether claims every USDT is backed by a US dollar. It just can't tell you where they are or let you audit them. But they're there. Honest.

> And why isn't that being shorted?

How would you short it? Especially given that most crypto trading platforms are going to go bankrupt when it does crash.

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Tether is bad but these aren't correct arguments against it. 1. You can easily sell BTC for 100K actual USD and ACH it out on a regulated exchange like Gemini. 2. You can easily sell USDT for actual USD on (IIRC) Kraken. 3. Technically you can short USDT via various means but you won't be able to collect any profits.

> 1. You can easily sell BTC for 100K actual USD and ACH it out on a regulated exchange like Gemini. 2. You can easily sell USDT for actual USD on (IIRC) Kraken.

You can until you can't. As long as people think 1 "USDT" is worth $1, and as long as the amounts you're selling aren't too big, it stays afloat.

> 3. Technically you can short USDT via various means but you won't be able to collect any profits.

How? If my thesis is that USDT is going to collapse and bring down the whole cryptocurrency ecosystem, what can I buy to express that and profit on it?

I'm going to be deliberately vague because I really really discourage shorting Tether but you can investigate perpetual swaps and defi lending.

But those are things that only exist in the crypto ecosystem. The counterparty risk is all wrong-way. Like yes, I can sign a contract with Coinbase that says they will owe me a lot of money when Tether collapses. But when Tether collapses it's probably going to take Coinbase down with it.

That's what I'm saying. You can't collect the profits.

If I sell a bitcoin on Coinbase, Kraken, or any of the other highly regulated exchanges, I am sure as shit getting USD and not USDT, which does not exist on the bitcoin chain.

Could you please elaborate on the "actually mean" part? Why do you think it is tied to usdt? Maybe a source link? Thank you!

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