Tether and Bitcoin

Brendan Burgess

Founder
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54,802
This is getting increasingly complex.

There are suggestions in this great article referred to by azerogo that Tether has issued Tether coins, without their supposed one for one $ backing, and used the proceeds to buy BTC.

Everything you need to know about Tether, the cryptocurrency that people worry could crash bitcoin and that regulators are investigating

This helps explain the increase in the price of BTC and its recent fall.

The report claims that the printing of Tethers tends to coincide with a dip in the price of bitcoin, suggesting it may be being used to buy up cheap bitcoin. "Tether printing moves the market appreciably; 48.8% of BTC’s price rise in the period studied occurred in the two-hour periods following the arrival of 91 different Tether grants to the Bitfinex wallet," the analysis said.


$850 million worth of new Tethers have been printed in January alone and many market participants are worried about the pace at which new Tethers are being minted without proper documentation showing their backing.
 
In fairness, given the allegations of price manipulation and bitcoins current price trajectory, methinks it is time to sell up some more. Another 40% of my holding gone today. I'm down to 20% of what I held at most, which now stands at a whopping 0.132250 of 1 BTC.
As a said before, if the circumstances change I will act in my own interest. I think it is fair to say circumstances have (are) changing. Albeit, always open to buying back in once the price settles.
 

Gets worse. Check out their relationship with Bitfinex in detail.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
But that is still an awful lot of Satoshis.

And it's still worth €1,000

Do you mind telling us what price did you bought in at?

Brendan
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I started buying in when BTC price was @€2,350 back in June '17. I bought mostly in sums of €500 a go over a couple of months. I stopped buying when prices starting rocketing but did buy another small amount when prices were around €11,000. My total outlay was €2,975. I've recouped that with a small profit on first 40% offload.

I'm not dismissing the last amount of my bitcoin or its value, but I consider that there is still scope to hold and perhaps buy-in at a future point.
 
Interesting stats from IG. The much more balanced recent activity probably explains why the funding incentive for going short has been reduced from 25% p.a. to c.10% p.a.

Whilst we are in the mood for full disclosure the Duke followed the advice on this forum and shorted .15 bitcoin at 14,500. He is now up over €1,000 which is an awful lot of dosh to a duke And come next January I can look forward to my maximum bet with PaddyPower at 7/5 that bitcoin will be below 15,000, again thanks to AAM.
 
One of ye has made money on the way up, the other on the way down. Niiice.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
But have you cashed out?

It's not real money until you close your position.

Brendan
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I think that is a bit illusory. It is not real money for sure. But it is real wealth, just as an unrealised position in shares represents wealth. I can always realise the position release the money and go back in. That would be real money but my economic position would be unchanged.
 
I view selling Bitcoin short differently from buying shares.

My shares will rise and fall in value.

Bitcoin is far more volatile.

I have made unrealised profits from selling Bitcoin but if the price bubbles up again, I will have losses.

I have unrealised profits on Ryanair shares. They are unlikely to disappear completely overnight.

Brendan
 
But what if I realise and rebuy (resell?). Then I have a real 1K in the bank but there is no change to my economic position. If you say I can't really count that 1K until I escape bitcoin altogether then, to be consistent, someone just shorting .15 bitcoin today for the first time should see herself as immediately 1K down. Maybe that is the prudent way for her to see it but why should she pluck 1K out of the air, why doesn't she immediatey regard herself as 3K down, say?

I'm playing word games with you I suppose but it does illustrate the psychological aspects of investing. Two people in identical economic positions could have radically different views of the situation depending on how they got there (not really a bitcoin point, just a general observation).
 
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You can of course take it one step further and say that the 1k euro is not value realised until you spend it on something tangible that add value to your life, after all there is no guarantee on its future worth in real terms.
 
fpalb said:
You can of course take it one step further and say that the 1k euro is not value realised until you spend it on something tangible that add value to your life, after all there is no guarantee on its future worth in real terms.
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fair point
 
And as for tether, I wouldn't like to hold any. It's the first significant example of a pegged crytpocurrency and might be the first good demonstration of why that's a bad idea. I wouldn't touch Bitfinex with a barge poll either. If tether is fraudulent it will probably be bad for Bitfinex, it will be another 'bad news event' for crypto and take some liquidity from some exchanges. Beyond that the real consequences are for those holding tethers more so than those holding any other crypto(s). In fact you might even get a rally on cryptos if people holding tethers flee for the exits of those exchanges and have no other avenue out.
 
People have been talking about Tether printing for a long while now, in bitcoin terms.
Only just now coming into public awareness.
It started was around the time of Bitfinex'ed (twitter user) was whistle-blowing about Bitfinex the exchange.



I got in a lot earlier at $500 and will HODL until the end of days.
Looking for the next buying opportunity now, but have not determined at what price.
 
jman0war said:
Looking for the next buying opportunity now, but have not determined at what price.
Click to expand...

Same as that, hard to determine what that will be though. Certainly the bitcoin bears have a hold of things at the moment. Im in no position to take them on hence my (80%) evacuation. It will be interesting to see how much of all these regulatory/manipulation/pollution/ponzi/money laundering stories will effect the price long-term.

My sentiment is that most of the bitcoin negative stories are mostly noise, currently playing a decibel levels due to its rapid price rise. Reading between the lines its easy to spot where some reports contain elements of scare-mongering. When the dust settles a bit I would expect to buy back in again.
 
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