CNBC TechCheck+ chats with Tether's CTO and general counsel — 7/21/21

That doesn't mean USD wasn't up to the task, that means Tether is used to evade regulation and oversight. Exchanges could've held US treasuries in institutional accounts if the fiat was actually there, but you can't easily fake holding UST or similar instruments. From Matt Levine's Money Stuff article yesterday (Tether heading): > Here is the website [1] for the JPMorgan Prime Money Market Fund. If you click on the tab labeled “portfolio,” you can see what the fund owns. The first item alphabetically is $50 million face amount of asset-backed commercial paper issued by Alpine Securitization Corp. and maturing on Oct. 12. Its CUSIP — its official security identifier — is 02089XMG9. There are certificates of deposit at big banks, repurchase agreements, even a little bit of non-financial commercial paper. The fund lends some money to LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Toyota Motor Finance (Netherlands) BV. You can see exactly how much (both face amount and market value), and when it matures, and the CUSIP for each holding. > JPMorgan is not on the bleeding edge of transparency here or anything; this is just how money market funds work. You disclose your holdings. > Here is an incredible interview [2] that the chief technology officer and general counsel of Tether did yesterday with CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa. Tether is a stablecoin that we have talked about around here because it was sued by the New York attorney general for lying about its reserves, and because it subsequently discl

Any rational person can see that Tether poses an existential risk to the crypto economy - but the market is highly irrational. There was an interview with tether's CTO and GC the other day that was an absolute car crash[0] and should be sounding deafening warning bells for anyone invested in crypto, but instead we see the BTC price shoot up by 15% in the days since it aired. It is utter madness. [0] this video

They are under scrutiny, and here are some facts: - they lied about the reserves and weren't backed at 100% - they did fraudulent attestations wiring money for the 'snapshot' of accounts for the attestation then moving it back to owners (from Bitfinex exchange if I remember - which is the same people - see a pattern here ?) - held money in their personal accounts the above were proven without doubt by the NY AG. - promised an audit for several years (it's always just a few months away) - publish attestations that are obviously false. some red flags - in the first one, they claimed to have so much money in commercial paper that would put them in top 10 players - yet, among desks trading those papers, nobody ever heard of them ! In the last 2, if what they published was true, they would already be under water, given the decline of all coins - yet, somehow they are all okay. - each time an exchange / scam goes down - they publish those papers saying they have 0 exposure to them (recently FTX, Genesis) - this despite findings that Alameda (FTX affiliated hedge found) was on the recepient of >30% of all Tethers - last I checked, their CEO wasn't seen publicly for several years. Most of their financial 'communication' is done by their AG and 'the IT guy' There are many more. In case of doubt, watch this interview and judge yourself if this feels like guys legitimately managing 70B real dollars: this video It's all scam - it's so obvious that it's amazing. It will collapse - we just do

Tether claims they have completely exited their position in commercial paper and are currently over 70% in US T-Bills. link Disclaimer that I'm a bit of a Tether skeptic, but if I'm wrong and they either were in, or have been able to get to, a fully-collateralized position of mostly treasuries and are earning 5% interest while paying 0% on USDT, good for them and good for regular people who won't be left holding bags. I'll always consider Tether in the context of their July 2021 CNBC interview with Deirdre Bosa. Timestamps are relative to the copy at this video I don't think they've said who the commercial paper counterparties were and claim it was an important trade secret. Traders in the US commercial paper market say they had never heard of the Tether folks which was odd given their attestations would have given them a top 10 global holding (17:20). Explanation, they use intermediaries. Will they give names or details on the intermediaries? Can't, trade secret. Did they hold Chinese commercial paper? Dodged the question twice (6:30 and re-ask 7:35). Where are the CEO and CFO of this company that holds $60B of assets? Why don't they talk to media? (24:40) But hopefully we'll get assurance regarding the reserves soon. They were excited to promise a formal audit in "months not years" during that interview (27:42)... looking forward to this spring so the audit can be released before we hit two years. (edit: trying to shorten)