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Comment by Animats

The big question with Tether has been, if they are holding commercial paper, whose commercial paper? Traders who deal in commercial paper of real companies that do real stuff don't see Tether present in that market. The dollar amounts are too big to hide. The suspicion is that their "commercial paper" is high-interest loans to other cryptocurrency companies. With the whole crypto sector in decline, those loans are at risk.

This is how you get a 2008-type crash - loans which seem to be unrelated but are tied to a common market.

About 11% of Tether has been cashed out in the last month.

The real problem for Tether is simple. Why would anyone buy Tether at this point? There's zero upside potential, after all. And the competition, USDC and GUSD, looks better backed. So a steady outflow is to be expected. We're going to find out how strong their backing is.

Watch out for heavily promoted Tether-based "staking" schemes designed to prevent cash-out.

parent Animats 4 years ago

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