Recently Bloomberg reported that several Tether executives ( archive) have gotten ‘target letters’ for bank fraud from the Department of Justice. There is reason to believe that Tether and Bitfinex may have participated in bank fraud.
We have several reasons to believe that Tether may have committed bank fraud starting by this video that was saved by Bitfinex’ed.
We’ve had banking hiccups in the past, we’ve just always been able to route around it or deal with it, open up new accounts, or what have you… shift to a new corporate entity, lots of cat and mouse tricks.
Sometimes…
Amidst all the confusion surrounding Tether and Bitfinex it can be difficult to keep track of what they have actually provided in terms of audits, attestations, and other documents to support their contentions. Here I will summarize, but the important note that needs to be included at the top is that both Bitfinex and Tether once hired an auditor, but neither ever completed the audit.
There are still some who claim that Tether has always been fully backed. I have already shown that is not true:In this post I will summarize the periods where we have sufficient evidence to know for certain that they were unbacked.
Thanks to the NYAG settlement we know that there were unbacked Tethers from March of 2017 until September 15th 2017. In March of 2017 Tether lost access to their US correspondent banking through Wells Fargo, and it would not be until September 15th 2017 when Tether would regain banking with an account at Noble. They held approximately 60 million…
This is a living document that I intend to continue to update as I continue to research Bitfinex and Tether. I hope it will serve as a useful reference material for anyone who needs to try to keep in mind their many inappropriate behaviors. If you find any I missed, feel free to leave a comment. If you believe I made a mistake then feel free to leave a comment. It is not an introduction or summary. For that you can look here.
Bitfinex was founded by an active participant in and defender of ponzi schemes…
Mostly the reason I have zero faith in crypto venture capitalists as an institution is that their primary value add is marketing, their due diligence is a joke, and they are functionally equivalent to the shills we all mock.
I have been following Tether for about three and a half years and still I struggle to really grasp how large it is. It is so absurdly large that it has started warping my perception of other huge amounts of money. I hear a million dollar fraud now and my first thought is “that’s it”, and so I am writing this to help provide some comparisons so I can help keep the scale of Tether in mind.
So let’s start with the basics.
Currently on June 10th 2021 Tether has just about $63 billion Tethers. There are also a negligible…
Elon Musk is considered by fools to be among the smartest people alive. He will be discussed as though he has the intellect of Nikola Tesla, combined with the ability to create products of Thomas Edison. This towering intellect is a facade built on the willingness of others to continue to propagate the myth, and nothing makes that clearer than Elon’s relationship with Bitcoin.
Early in February of 2021 it was announced to great fanfare that Tesla had purchased about $1.5 billion in Bitcoin and would now also be accepting Bitcoin for their cars. …
Protos reported that Coinbase was aggressively looking for a ‘top media editor’. It clearly seems intended for Coinbase to build up a content marketing team that will help them manage their own image.
Now I can hear your objections already, that perhaps I am being too harsh on Coinbase. Perhaps they truly intend to build out a world class newsroom and act responsibly as a journalistic entity. Then you read a little bit further and realize that this ‘top media editor’ is going to answer directly to the marketing team.
Coinbase has no desire to participate in anything resembling…
I have recently been asked several times why would Coinbase list Tether. Especially among the revelations of the NYAG and the general controversy surrounding Tether. Fundamentally, what I believe it comes down to is money and knowledge.
It can be difficult to talk about Tether and Bitfinex, not because there is disagreement on the essential facts, but due to the lens through which these facts are viewed.
The skeptics and critics find it unacceptable that these businesses would give over $1 billion to money launderers and NEVER SIGN A CONTRACT. The traders find that to be acceptable behavior.
The skeptics and critics it find it unacceptable that a business that promises to be backed 1:1 by cash always only is backed by 3% cash. The traders find that to be acceptable behavior.
