Ever wonder if today's hottest Shitcoin, Bitcoin, can keep going up despite technical inferiority to almost every single other cryptocurrency, and fees that have touched $20 in November more than once?
It can, at least for now.
TLDR: It is impossible to verify that any Tether are backed, and in fact, it is starting to look like they are not. This could lead to a price washout on Bitcoin to three digits, and given its status as shitcoin-figurehead extraordinaire, such a drop could even lead to chain-death. (See possible follow-up article - BTC Thanksgiving Chain Death Conspiracy)
See the link dump at the bottom to do your own due diligence, but leaving your coins at exchanges throughout this holiday weekend may be poor judgement.
I would prefer to be more thorough on this topic, but I am short on posting time due to working on some behind the scenes projects for Steemit. This information is too important to hold until I have proper article writing time.
Bitfinex lost their banking services in April, which means they have no public, official channel for handling deposits and withdrawals. This also prevents them from actually backing any Tether they have been creating, unless they are taking in wheelbarrows of cash and burying them in the back yard.
If most tether are unbacked, then it is nothing more than a fiat-shit coin being used to allow the matching of depositors and withdrawals without banking. In other words, it is the token allowing a literal ponzi scheme, where new deposits are the only way to fund withdrawals. Tether is closing that gap.
Every single time Tether prints, price goes up.
How strong is the correlation?
I wonder if the Bitfinex CEO has a poster that says "Correleation =/ Causation"...
If you think I'm full of shit, ask yourself, why would this topic be such common knowledge (and immune to accusations of libel/slander), that Kraken's own Twitter acknowledges it?
Why are over 57% of Bitcoin addresses fee-locked (contain less BTC than the fees required to move it?)
Does this look like success to you?
The smart money has already been quietly heading for the doors the past month. Didn't you wonder how my Bitcoin Cash call managed to more than octuple from $300 (temporarily)?
It is truly remarkable that people who value cryptocurrency could be stupid enough to trust an unbacked, un-audited token less legitimate than Federal Reserve Toilet paper.
There's always a greater fool...
PS - What am I doing? I'm hiding out in Bitcoin Cash, for now, although nowhere will be safe in this type of event but maybe fiat. Plenty of room for you all to come join us...
When most holders of Bitcoin BS Core get absolutely destroyed, I will be here, with a soft whisper of "I Told You So" (again) and an an already functional, technically superior replacement...
http://www.ofnumbers.com/2017/11/09/a-note-from-bob-on-the-transparency-of-tether/
https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7ddy48/tether_just_printed_another_20_million_usdt_out/
If you have any additions or errata for this post, please let me know! I will see that they are voted to the top of the comments, and will make the appropriate edits (if possible).
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Sources: Reddit, Kraken, Twitter, Bitfinex, Bittrex
Copyright: Reddit