/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>52534435
I agree, mostly. Tether is under monthly review by the NYAG. They aren't sitting on empty books. And, as you pointed out, it's a profitable business to hold those reserves

The only certain scam is how they get the money in the first place. They send out USDT *first*, and then are slowly paid back in dollars over time. It's the only reason anyone would ever want USDT rather than USD, or their own stablecoin, or a stable coin with a better reputation and that can be redeemed with far greater ease

So you can imagine Binance applying for 1B USDT, using it to pump coins, liquidate stops, whatever, and then sending the profit from that back to Tether. Once Tether are made whole, either from reclaimed USDT, or the USD 'loan' payments, or a combination thereof, then Binance can request another batch. This also neatly explains how SBF/Alameda acquired their initial trading capital back in 2017

The neat thing about this is that we only see half the equation- the movement of USDT on-chain. So we see Binance (or formerly FTX) recieve USDT, but cannot see any movement of USD. And of course, the same applies when USDT is 'redeemed'- there's no way to check that USD is flowing out of Tether. And it isn't

Given the background and connections of Deltec Bank executives and the Tether founders, it's likely that there is another layer to this. This would be money laundering, sanctions busting, and capital flight. One can imagine an arrangement where a 'loan' of USDT comes with the stipulation that the exchange has to accept payments or withdrawals from various non-KYC'ed third parties of dubious legality. That money can then flow out from or back into Tether via the exchange- money laundering. It's telling that only a certain type of exchange recieves direct infusions of USDT. It's also telling that FTX appeared (backed by CZ and with access to a ton of USDT) as Bitfinex, Bitmex and Binance were all being pushed out of the USA. SBF was their way back in

>>52525662
This also solves the mystery of where Alameda (and then later FTX) got their initial trading capital from. It certainly wasn't from the fucking 'kimchi premium'.

SBF did the equivalent of taking a loan from the mafia. And of course, to them, it's not so much about the money you owe but the power they have over you. So when Bitfinex and Bitmex are brought to heel, Tether approaches SBF with the proposition of setting up a non-KYC exchange in the Carribean that allows insane leverage trading and runs stops on the plebs... Likely something similar happened with the bot master CZ (then at OKC) and Binance too.

Later on, SBF pulls in a fuckton of VC capital and gets too big for his boots with FTX/Alameda, starts flirting with regulators, his own stable coin, fucking with other key Tether exchanges, etc. So, post-LUNA, Tether calls in it's USDT from FTX/Alameda and CZ administers the coup-de-grace.

>>52502329
I think there's a lot of truth here.

Everyone coming into crypto wants to feel like a big-boy-cyber-wolf-of-wall-street-cum-big-short-quant-suits-savvy-dealmaker-hardass-tech-genius. It's notable how nearly all of the most profitable scams in crypto take themselves really fucking seriously. Plenty of toolbags larping around in suits talking vaguely for years on end about being busy with nebulous 'deals', 'partnerships', 'connections', mysterious 'tech' and other such buzzwords. Gilbert at Quant is world-class at this. ICO-era China hustle scams such as Waltonchain also helped write the playbook. Even SBF, much as he looked like a sack of shit, loved to parade around with important people and institutions, and everyone made an awful lot of his supposed 'quant' background (actually a BSc and 18 months as an intern) as an explanation for everything about him that made absolutely no sense. It isn't about what they're doing, or plan to do, or are able to do- whether there's any actual substance. It's about how they make people feel. Normies eat that shit for breakfast.

I knew Coinmetro wasn't a scam when Kevin was going around in a fucking tram t-shirt talking about regulatory engagement, fair and sustainable business practices, and transparency; at a time when everyone else was banging on about hyper-tech and overthrowing regulators and all existing business to become stateless techno-feudal overlords. He was saying things that were true, made perfect sense, but that almost no-one wanted to hear. The exact opposite of a fraud.

Ultimately, I think the smart money will prove itself by simply not blowing up or rugging. The crypto zeitgeist is moving towards where Coinmetro already is, not the other way around.

>>52501117
Extremely unlikely. Gemini is too boring and insignificant (>>52501137). The one slight risk they did take- offering customers access to Genesis- has blown up on them and caused significant reputational damage. They'll just continue becoming less and less relevant and probably wind down retail to become the crypto equivalent of a family office.

FTX was obviously spending insane amounts of money- adverts, donations, VC activities, sponsorships. CDC is the same. Celsius, Genesis, 3AC, BlockFi were all offering absurd yields/returns. It's not hard to see where the remaining risk in crypto institutions lies at the moment, and that isn't Gemini.

>>52501176
This is pure truth. Crypto.com has to be losing money at an absurd rate. They go down within the next six months. Coinbase either does something drastic or withers into obscurity within the next two years. They seem to be pre-Musk Twitter-tier in terms of work culture, management and output.

>>52501600
Agree. Exchanges relying on fleecing dumb newcomers- Coinbase, Crypto.com- are in trouble. Until the next bull kicks off, the exchanges that survive will be the ones that can attract the traders who choose to stick with crypto. Exchanges are now fighting over a much-smaller and more aware user base. They survive either through trustworthy reputations- Coinmetro, Kraken, etc (Gemini should have been on this list but blew it)- or through continuing to offer the casino experience to committed degens- Binance, Bitmex, etc. Obviously the latter exchanges are at risk of falling prey to their own shady practices or a potential upheaval in regulation post-FTX.

>>52495906
She is