Topic: [2019-04-26] CNBC: Bitcoin price falls on NY AG Bitfinex probe - page 2. (Read 521 times)

This is what I could never understand completely. If most altcoins have fake market caps (some people are saying that you can assign just any market cap to your shitcoin), then why the coins from top 20, such as BTC, ETH, BCH, LTC, XRP, DASH and XMR, constitute over 80% of the total crypto market cap, while all the others, 2,100+ alts, add up to less than 20%?

I'm not trying to say, you are wrong. It's just the whole thing seems pretty strange to me.

maybe but honestly, i don't think it's a conspiracy. i think they just see the writing on the wall and plan to swoop in on tether's market share when the feds eventually take them down. it's only a matter of time. they're mixed up with drug cartels and hide everything they do behind shell companies with zero transparency.

i'm not sure the NYAG can do much, but the launch of CFTC-regulated futures markets put bitfinex/tether in the sights of the CFTC and DOJ, who are investigating them as we speak.

@gentlemand. Bitfinex had no choice, however. Their banking partners of the past always relieved themselves and stopped further dealings with Bitfinex to avoid being the target of regulators.

@1Referee. Would you say that a direct attack on Tether is an indirect attack on bitcoin and the cryptospace market?

https://decryptmedia.com/6759/crypto-capital-quadrigacx-bitfinex

This is an interesting read about Crypto Capital. Their MO has basically consisted of opening bank accounts and not telling the banks they're dealing with crypto-related funds. Not exactly sustainable and the type of thing I might risk a few thousand dollars on, not hundreds of millions.

Tether is by far the most dominant stablecoin in the market. The few other stablecoins don't have the economical mass and adoption needed to support the market.

From the 2.8 billion tokens it has in circulation, more than half of that is being used to rotate through Bitcoin exchanges providing a lot of buy support. It's also money that will not be cashed out because of how distributed it is amongst traders world wide. The only way to cash out is to suck off Bitfinex, and who's going to do that nowadays? They probably don't even have the fiat left to actually allow you to withdraw fiat.

In other words, people just sit on their USDT hoping for a dump to buy Bitcoin, and this is basically a never ending cycle.

The total crypto market cap is fake and extremely leveraged. Fake as in the far majority of the altcoins having huge market caps due to their billions of circulating units, and leveraged because of how a little amount of money can pump this market to the moon, because it's super illiquid.

Bitfinex in the past has shown that a 50-100 million USDT injection is enough to pump the price with 10% and that was when the price hovered above $6000. What it meant for Bitcoin was that 50-100 million USDT was enough to increase its market cap with +$10 billion. And as you know, Bitcoin up = altcoins up, so that inflates the global market cap even further.

Can you, or maybe someone else, please, explain in more detail how the disappearance of Tether can affect the current Bitcoin price in a negative way? I mean, traders can use other stable coins if they like them so much, right?

Also, considering the current total market cap, $170 billion, how disappearance of $3 billion worth of tokens can affect the market significantly?

What am I missing here?

Exactly this. The whole idea of crypto is to alleviate ourselves of banks & their stranglehold on our funds. Crypto goes against everything banks stand for, so when a bank gets involved you know it is for nefarious reasons - greed, control or both. Anything that has bank backing should be considered untrusted, especially exchanges & these so called BS "stablecoins".

We were crucified many years ago, when we spoke out against these so-called StableCoins and now it is coming back to bite people in the ass. Yes, the US regulators might be over reacting and Bitfinex might not be doing half of the things that is rumoured, but the downfall of these StableCoins was predicted from the start.

You cannot trust Banks with large amounts of Fiat currencies that are linked to their competition. and if you look deeper into this, you will see that the Banks are behind this whole thing.  

@figmentofmyass. How about Goldman Sachs, which has an investment in Circle, which also owns Poloniex and has issued its own stablecoin USDC?

There is also JPMorgan that will be releasing its own coin which might be another stablecoin. I reckon the 2 of them have the political influence in New York to use to attack Tether.

judging by their unsuccessful attempts at getting an ETF approved, they have no influence. their competitors (in the regulated exchange, stablecoin, and institutional spaces) are wall street players so i don't see them getting very far.


it's certainly possible the money was seized. if so then the NYAG already knows about it. this may have been related to the bank seizure in poland last year. 400m euros were seized from an account believed to be connected to crypto capital and bitfinex: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.34115786

Reading between the lines, I reckon that this fud had the real purpose of trying to damage Tether and USDT. How politically influencial are the Winklevoss brothers in New York? They might want the whole Tether stablecoin market conquered by their own Gemini stablecoin.

Also, why is no one mentioning of the fraud that Cryptocapital did to Bitfinex? Will the New York attorney general also investigate that?

phil potter left bitfinex in june of last year, which was an ominous sign to me. after all they've been through over the years, if phil is jumping ship, there's probably real cause for concern. the feds very well may be closing in on bitfinex as we speak.


that seems plausible, especially when we consider their TOS change earlier this year which specified USDT is fully backed but not necessarily by fiat reserves. this bit looks especially bad for bitfinex/tether. it means the money was gone and tether issued a loan to bitfinex secured only by shares in ifinex:

Getting the original sum back is 100% out of their hands by the sounds of it. If their money got caught up with cartel laundering it could take forever to untangle.

Either way Bitfinex are a throwback and they should've buggered off a long time ago. They're like a fart from 2012/13 that refuses to dissipate.

If I were them I would completely abandon fiat and go full alt which is what they should've done many years ago, and that includes Tether. The way they choose to operate is fundamentally incompatible with the conventional finance system and mingling with it is a one way trip to doom.

Wonder how they even came to know about it. Must have been a whistleblower because the way everything was done they were more than prepared, and the response less than. I'm not sure where I stand on this, lacking more information. I remember Coinbase talking about fighting injustice and declaring partial victory when the IRA asked them to give up customer information.

On one hand, dislike this meddling and demands, on the other, these big corporates shouldn't feel like they can do anything with impunity. Anything Tether-related's always been shady to me too.

@gentlemand. However, what is your assessment of this new Bitfinex issue? Will they get out of it or is this finally their time?

My hope is they get out of it to show everyone that regulators cannot and will not have any way to enforce any type of regulations in the cryptospace effectively hehehe.

The thing that many people worry about is that Bitcoin's dollar value has largely been created by Tether - quasi dollars created out of thin air. That will cause everyone to wonder about the valuations they've taken for granted. Tether absolutely dominates trading volume, though of course most of that trading volume is fake so it's kind of moot.

Tether has always had more power in the market because of its nature as well. Every time they issue more of it it's new money entering, not the same old money sloshing around.

These revealments at least point to Tether having the backing they always to claimed to have, until Bitfinex helped themselves to it of course.

I am bewildered on how Bitfinex's executives are good in problem solving. The exchange has been in the middle of bad controversies but appears to get out of them without anyone of their executives going to prison. That is impressive hehehe!

As far as I can understand from all the articles that I have read, the funds aren't lost but seized by the authorities of different countries. The positive aspect here is that the funds aren't lost.

It's very interesting to see how Tether updated its reserve policy recently, where with the current developments it's clear why they did that. Tether's loan (the debt) to Bitfinex is considered valid backing according to their terms.

It means that if every owner of USDT wants to cash out right now, it's not possible. No one is going to agree to owning Bitfinex's debt. If Bitfinex implodes tomorrow, they can't pay back the loan. Bye bye backing.

I don't know all the story about the couple Bitfinex & Tether, but where are the funds currently???
There is one party who claims that the funds are lost and the other party who says in defense that no it's "seized and safeguarded". What is the truth in that? It's playing with words you might think, but it makes all the difference. From a neutral point of view, I do not see where this insolvency is. And as proof, the funds seized.

Absolutely the truth. +1