Post: #26

(11-19-2017 05:07 PM)Bill Brasky Wrote:  Bitmex. You can short BTC or any other crypto on Bitfinex but given that they will be the source of any possible crash via Tether, it's possible that tether would go to zero as well.

The only way that I know of is to short with actual fiat USD on GDAX (owned by coinbase) but you need an institutional account to do this.

Is it the same for other crypto currencies and tokens?

For example, what if i think that OMG is overhyped and want to short it with USD? Can I do it as an individual?

Post: #27

(11-19-2017 05:31 PM)Brodiaga Wrote:  

(11-19-2017 05:07 PM)Bill Brasky Wrote:  Bitmex. You can short BTC or any other crypto on Bitfinex but given that they will be the source of any possible crash via Tether, it's possible that tether would go to zero as well.

The only way that I know of is to short with actual fiat USD on GDAX (owned by coinbase) but you need an institutional account to do this.

Is it the same for other crypto currencies and tokens?

For example, what if i think that OMG is overhyped and want to short it with USD? Can I do it as an individual?

GDAX only trades LTC, ETH, and BTC with GBP, EUR, USD.

You can margin trade OMG on bitfinex but again, this is the exchange that could get blown out if shit hits the fan. This means that it's possible that all trading, withdrawals get shut down. So even if you had a short position on OMG that turns in your favor it wouldn't matter.

I think poloniex allows margin trading as does hitbtc and some others. I've only margin traded on bitfinex.

I'm watching everything with extreme care. I don't hold any hope that coinbase is going to reactivate my account any time soon so my only hope at the moment is to sell my BTC on localbitcoins.com for actual hard cash.

I'll end with this, be very very careful with your margin trades and on which exchange you are margin trading because if the whole thing does blow up, it doesn't matter if you have a good position as the tethers will be worthless and BTC would drop significantly.

Post: #28

Just to add a data point, I haven't had any issues with Coinbase, however I haven't ventured outside the country and tried to log in. I verified my account back in 2013 and have been with them ever since. Any sort of buy/sell/sending/withdraw has been relatively expedient.

The customer service response does take a long time that's very true and a downside.

Coinbase even has a report feature where you can see what your short and long term gains are for tax reporting purposes.

Post: #29

I emailed coinbase once, and they wrote back five weeks later. All you can do is hope nothing goes wrong with the account.

Post: #30

(11-19-2017 02:05 PM)h3ltrsk3ltr Wrote:  However, bitcoin and coinbase just don't work like that. It's not like Bill Braskey lost his money, it's still there. He is having trouble accessing it which is a concern but that's all part of living in the territory.

Which is very similar to my Mexican bank example. So let's say tomorrow you need to sell, and you cant access your funds because of a 'technical glitch'. Or next week for that matter. Your money is guaranteed to still be there? And your account is insured, or governed by.. who?

Post: #31

bitfinexed is a conspiracy theorist. While Tether/Bitfinex might be scammy, the same can be said about any other exchange including Coinbase and Gemini.

1. Tether has increased because of the crypto bubble, not the other way around. the crypto market is almost $250bn. That's a quarter trillion dollar. Yes, you read that right. Tether only holds $600m in assets.

2. It seems that Tether/Bitfinex are using bigger on-ramps ($50k+ deposits/withdrawals) to avoid getting flagged by the banking systems. Imagine having millions of small txs vs a few thousands of bigger ones.

3. Bitfinex is not using Tether extensively.

4. Tether biggest users are poloniex and bittrex. It is a red flag but I doubt it'll explode in an unlikable manner.

5. Bitfinex is loaded. Their btc cold wallet is worth $1.4bn. At some days they handled over $1bn in volume. You bet your ass the big banks and players are trading there (ie: goldman sachs). And I'm not going to prove that particular one.

Post: #32

The key question as always: is there a reason why this looks set to blow open imminently? If not, we could be talking months or years.

Post: #33

Quote:bitfinexed is a conspiracy theorist.

This is just ad hominem. Either he's right or he's wrong.

Quote:1. Tether has increased because of the crypto bubble, not the other way around. the crypto market is almost $250bn. That's a quarter trillion dollar. Yes, you read that right. Tether only holds $600m in assets.

The concept of "market cap" in Crypto is a goofy one. I addressed this in my initial post. To recap: the number of actual coins that are trading at any one time is minuscule compared to the number of coins in the "circulating supply". It only took 27 million $ in buys to pump Bitcoin's market cap up by several billion. Tether is almost unique in that every tether is actually being put on the market.

Quote:2. It seems that Tether/Bitfinex are using bigger on-ramps ($50k+ deposits/withdrawals) to avoid getting flagged by the banking systems. Imagine having millions of small txs vs a few thousands of bigger ones.

This can't possibly be right. If Tether is really backed, they're moving around 600 million in assets. The idea that they can avoid "getting flagged" with that kind of money in their account is just silly.

Quote:3. Bitfinex is not using Tether extensively.

Bitfinex IS tether. Same people, basically, or at least, very incestuous relationships. Phil Potter, for instance, is a director at Tether and an executive at Bitfinex.

Quote:4. Tether biggest users are poloniex and bittrex. It is a red flag but I doubt it'll explode in an unlikable manner.

So it's likely that both major US altcoin exchanges will suffer hugely in the event tether is taken offline. Wonderful.

Quote:5. Bitfinex is loaded. Their btc cold wallet is worth $1.4bn. At some days they handled over $1bn in volume. You bet your ass the big banks and players are trading there (ie: goldman sachs). And I'm not going to prove that particular one.

You're not going to prove it because you CAN'T prove that goldman sachs is trading on Bitfinex. Bitfinex allows wash trading which means that the "volume" numbers for the exchange are meaningless. Anyone can buy and sell to themselves, paying only a tiny amount of exchange fees, (And if it's Bitfinex themselves wash trading, obviously it costs them nothing since they're paying the fees to themselves) and thus pump up the volume numbers.

Quote:The key question as always: is there a reason why this looks set to blow open imminently? If not, we could be talking months or years.

Hugely increased attention. At the start this was one lone guy crying in the wilderness, now the news is everywhere.

Post: #34

Tethers are altcoins on the BTC and ETH block chain. The question is, is there really a 1 USD deposit for every issued 1 Tether. That they can only answer themselves. It may be backed by USD, or internally they may rely on ETH/BTC like an ICO would when collecting funds.
https://support.bitfinex.com/hc/en-us/ar...-Protocols

Balance sheet from 19.11., could be also faked of course.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s...clnk&gl=de

OK, so now we are discussing if they issue Tethers for themselves for free or not. If we talk about that, how many (alt) coins have been created without the backing of a ETH or BTC deposit, just by algorithmic mining? Is this the inflation in the coin market, creating more demand for BTC by the alt coin flood?

Post: #35

(11-19-2017 07:20 PM)Vaun Wrote:  

(11-19-2017 02:05 PM)h3ltrsk3ltr Wrote:  However, bitcoin and coinbase just don't work like that. It's not like Bill Braskey lost his money, it's still there. He is having trouble accessing it which is a concern but that's all part of living in the territory.

Which is very similar to my Mexican bank example. So let's say tomorrow you need to sell, and you cant access your funds because of a 'technical glitch'. Or next week for that matter. Your money is guaranteed to still be there? And your account is insured, or governed by.. who?

There's better answers I'm sure. And probably a better thread for this discussion so all I'll say is you should read about how blockchain works before bringing in examples with traditional currency. Pm me if you want to jump this to another thread.

Post: #36

https://tether.to/announcement-transparency-update/
At least according to this "Accounting investigation" they do have dollar reserves for their issued Tokens.
https://tether.to/wp-content/uploads/201...dacted.pdf

I don't know what accounting information and balance sheets they have to make public annually because of taxes, as they sit in Hong Kong. If someone can get a hold of a document like this, they would be legit.

If somebody wants to be investigative, check out the official Hong Kong registers.
https://www.icris.cr.gov.hk/csci/

Post: #37

https://tether.to/tether-critical-announcement/

Tether got hacked. Just caused the market to collectively take a huge dump. Wonder if this is the beginning of Tether unraveling or what.

Post: #38

$30 Million stolen by a hacker:

https://www.coindesk.com/tether-claims-3...-attacker/

Post: #39

Well, I saw something coming, but I didn't see THAT coming.

Post: #40

The really weird thing to me is that some of the people pushing the Bitfinexed and Tethers meme on reddit feel like they're pushing coordinated FUD.

Example:

[–]karljt 6 points an hour ago
This bitfinex/tether house of cards is gonna make Mtgox look like a picnic. But you guys don't care because you are too busy drooling over the current dollar value.
permalinkembedsavereportgive goldreply
[–]Zinclepto> 3 years account age. < 35 comment karma. 1 point 18 minutes ago
This is the comment that everyone should be paying attention to! This is the real story! Bitfinex/Tether is a MONSTER Tsunami thats getting closer to shore by the minute! When this Tsunami hits land, its going to wreack HAVOC on crypto! Havoc to the point where Jamie Dimon might just be able to say I told you so!
permalinkembedsaveparentreportgive goldreply


What the HELL is going on?

Post: #41

(11-19-2017 05:07 PM)Bill Brasky Wrote:  I'm watching everything with extreme care. I don't hold any hope that coinbase is going to reactivate my account any time soon so my only hope at the moment is to sell my BTC on localbitcoins.com for actual hard cash.

Have you looked into Gemini? They allow selling BTC for USD and transferring to US accounts.

Post: #42

I have seen and follow bitfinexed on twitter. I have been trying to wrap my head around the entire tethers situation and decide if bitfinexed is a raging conspiracy theorist or Paul Revere, I just havn't had the time to dive into it. It all adds up (as many conspiracy theories do, minus important facts).

I'm glad to be out of Bitfinex with them closing to U.S customers. I was starting to get a little worried waiting until monday to withdraw my funds due to having open margin lending. Though if this whole thing blows up it could take down a lot more that Bitfinex. Might be looking at getting out of cryptos completely til the dust clears. Any one still on Bitfinex currently? U.S. citizen or not?

I find it extremely coincidental that Bitfinex and Tether are taking all this heat and magically there is a 30 million "hack".

Post: #43

(11-21-2017 02:00 PM)white22 Wrote:  I find it extremely coincidental that Bitfinex and Tether are taking all this heat and magically there is a 30 million "hack".

Right? But if it's not a real hack, how the hell does Bitfinex benefit from this? It doesn't take the heat off them, it makes it a billion times worse. The NYT wrote about this today. It's top story on slashdot.

So what's the move?

Post: #44

Does anyone know if Bitstamp uses actual USD or does it use USDT? It never specifically states USDT only USD.

Is Bitstamp safe for selling Bitcoins in USD in case something were to happen with Tether?

Post: #45

I've been keeping up with @Bitfinexed on twitter. He always seems to think a major shitshow is imminent but nothing ends up happening. I'm interested in what he has to say but I'm starting to think that he may not have all of the facts regarding the Tether situation.

Post: #46

Charlie Lee (Litecoin creator) had this to say about the Tether situation.

https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/9...0383695872

Post: #47

I'm surprised how dead this thread is given the gravity of problems that will come to pass in the entire cryptosphere if what is alleged about Tether is true.

The Bitfinexed twitter account seems to have done a lot of his homework. But like I mentioned, why hasn't anything happened yet?

I honestly have no idea what to think about it at the moment. The only people I have heard even mention anything about it has been Sam and the Bitfinexed guy and now Charlie Lee which does seem to give it some more credibility.

I'm sure that both Tether and Bitfinex saw Charlie's tweet. It would be stupid of them not to respond.

Post: #48

>The Bitfinexed twitter account seems to have done a lot of his homework. But like I mentioned, why hasn't anything happened yet?

Because the only thing that would matter is regulators taking action, and regulators move slowly, it would appear.

Post: #49

SamuelBroberts,

What do you recommend? Short? Wait, hodl?

What effect if any will this have on mining?

Post: #50

Shorting knowing an entity has an infinite capacity to spike the price is suicide. Go spend your money on prostitutes and cocaine, you'll at least have some fun before it all disappears.

Just treat it as an additional risk factor to be aware of, and keep an eye on it.