Topic: The Big Short movie, BTC edition? - page 6. (Read 1834 times)

@exstasie. I cannot agree. Tether is speculated to be carrying the whole cryptospace with the biggest volume and liquidity. It will not be whether it is a bull market or a bear market. If the American government is successful in the Tether rug pull, we should be hoping that the speculations are not true because it will certainly be the cryptospace's version of the Big Short.

BTCe is not a good comparison. It only had a small percentage of the total volume in the cryptospace on 2017. Mtgox might be a better comparison.

Maybe so. Just pointing out that it's not necessarily so simple as "US government takes down Tether, Bitcoin crashes."

A lot depends on the underlying market context too, i.e. whether it's a bull or bear market. Bad news never stops a bull market. When the US government took down BTC-e in 2017 (and they were a very important exchange at the time) there was a temporary dip but BTC went parabolic shortly after.

@exstasie. I disagree. People might also panic sell bitcoin without the liquidity provided by USDT.

You said that Tether lost its banking partner, however what happened? There was a pump on April 2017 then dumped on December 2017.

Agreed, have that popcorn ready. However, USDC in circulation has increased from $500 million on March to $3 billion st present. It might be adopted by more exchanges to save themselves and us hehehe.

Sure but the result is the same: people panic buying out of USDT and if possible Bitfinex USD, and into crypto, due to fear of underlying insolvency or imminent collapse.


How so? If people dump USDT because they are scared it might become worthless, how does that make it a pump and dump?


It's impossible to know what would happen. It partly depends how it goes down. If it's like with Bitmex (domains and servers not seized) then maybe Bitfinex and Tether's remaining assets could be unwound relatively smoothly.

What I do know is that USDT and Bitfinex markets are tightly pegged to other spot exchanges through arbitrage. Traditionally when this peg is broken due to banking or liquidity problems or FUD, Tether and Bitfinex work quickly to sort out liquidity for their very largest corporate clients, who can then arbitrage the markets back into line. Like I said, a lot may depend on whether we're talking about a full blown seizure like BTC-e in 2017, just the unsealing of indictments like with Bitmex this year, or somewhere in between.

Exchange hacks and failures also haven't been affecting the market all that much in recent years. I wouldn't necessarily expect a crash like after the Mt. Gox collapse. But Bitfinex and Tether are quite large so like I said, it's hard to know what would happen exactly.

All I know is you better have your popcorn ready.

Why shouldn't bitcoin be strong after those news? I realize that you may think some of them are related to bitcoin itself so the price should be affected but I do not see it that way at all. Think about it there are three things that are "major" in the crypto news cycles and none of them directly impacts the price right away, maybe the idea got hurt (which it didn't) but the price itself had nothing at all.

Think about it this way, bitmex ceo got jailed, and that had nothing to do with people buying or selling bitcoin at all, it is owner of a company in crypto and that's it, derivatives banned (which is great) which still doesn't stop people from buying or selling, or Johm Mcafee got jailed, which is a great news and still no buying and selling affected, NONE of these affects the price directly.

@exstasie. The American government pulling the rug on Tether is different from Tether only losing its banking partner. Also, your argument implies that it was a pump and dump.

Taking down Tether and iFinex will remove billions of USDT from the market and the reduced liquidity might not handle the panic.

Bitmex was consequential for price discovery. They have been for years. Derivatives platform or not, lots of large traders hedge their spot positions there. They might continue to be important yet if they can come to an agreement with the US government that settles the charges.


Here's the interesting thing about that: what happens if the US government comes after Tether, freezes some bank accounts, etc? BTCUSDT and ALT/USDT pairs might go to the moon as the whole market panics away from Tether. When Bitfinex and Tether lost the ability to service fiat withdrawals in March or April 2017, that's exactly what happened.

And you know what happened after that.

The 3 are not quite the units that are supporting the price. Bitmex is only a derivatives exchange, UK government does not have influence over the cryptospace and John McAfee is a joker.

This type of overconfidence should not be applauded. He might have forgotten that the largest exchanges' market makers that use USDT are the real agents that support the cryptospace market.



#bitcoin holding strong after:
- BitMEX crackdown by US govt
- Crypto derivatives banned by UK govt
- McAfee arrest by US govt

Source https://twitter.com/100trillionUSD/status/1313774401217855488

Honestly, sometimes I wonder if they're invincible. All those years operating illegally in the US, multiple government investigations, fines, etc. and still the only way the US government has ever gotten to Bitfinex's money was by happenstance, because Crypto Capital was holding their money when they went down.

They play one hell of game of cat and mouse!


Maybe because Fincen labelled them an MSB and they want to be able to engage in XRP sales without AML/KYC. Or because they're worried the SEC is going to bring the hammer down on them.

Do not worry, Bitfinex and iFinex is being targeted already because of issuing USDT hehehe. They do not appear afraid, however. They have issued the last 70% of total USDT only in the last 2 years.

@Febo. I argued about that before. However, why is Chris Larsen saying that Ripple might move overseas? Can their political connections not protect them anymore?

No one can touch ripple labs. They are bankers. They will simply pay huge fines and just continue doing whatever they are doing.


For McAfee. He total understood crypto long time ago. But still acted totally dumb. I will never understand him.

I believe that the upcoming US presidential elections will make their own adjustments in the cryptocurrency market. In my opinion, this will happen after Biden's victory. If the official policy on cryptocurrencies is positive, then we should not be afraid of the decisions of the CES in the future.

I'm surprised they stuck around this long after Fincen came after them in 2015 for illegal money transmitting, BSA violations, etc.

If they really have been illegally issuing securities all this time (the jury is still out on that and the SEC has not commented) then moving overseas now won't save them.

I'm more worried about exchanges. I don't think Bitmex is the only exchange being targeted right now. There could be other sealed indictments that haven't come down yet. I worry about platforms like Bitfinex and Binance.

We would never know who until the American government begins to act. However, we might know someone who founded a company that has been selling illegal securities tokens for 7 years speculate that he might be next hehehe.


According to Chris Larsen, co-founder and executive chairman of Ripple Labs, the company is likely to move its headquarters overseas because due to the regulatory stance of the federal government towards the crypto industry.

Source https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/80039/chris-larsen-ripple-may-leave-us

The USA has unique tax laws in that even while in another country for years you owe the US government taxes on your income.  Most famous case I think of is the UK premier who born in USA was asked by IRS to pay taxes on his London property despite being British and earning everything in uk he was dual citizen so liable apparently.  I forget the reasoning for it exactly but there isnt any other country that monitors its citizens like that, only on resident domestically earnt income tax.    There doesnt seem to be much chance he can avoid the fine exactly and lots of money to lawyers to mitigate the long jail term.   Same as Japan the citizens are the ultimate unlimited resource to bail out what would otherwise be an easily insolvent fiscal debt schedule.   I wonder how much of his personality is real or fake because if he tries to really act in resistance or defiance of the law they'll keep him inside till the day he expires basically.
   Another case I followed about a man who contested not state taxes but federal jurisdiction over his income and wrote a book, was a real true believer in this idea unfortunately died in prison after being left to go blind and without proper treatment for cancer even in his last moments he was handcuffed to a hospital bed; I guess no taxes is a capital crime.  
  Such cases do relate to BTC in that cash flows across borders is quite a large part of its competitive advantage and domestic tax law interference in what should be free flow currency is very negative for value imo with red tape overheads, etc.    The flip side to QE free money, endless fiscal stimulus is a very negative tax on everything a person can do, McAfee is ridiculous but there's a wider question that applies to all imo.

The US government is going after people left and right. Indeed, who's next?!

What the hell was he doing in Spain? You'd think he would know better than to hang out in extradition-friendly countries. Damn, I honestly thought that guy would be trolling us for years to come.

Going after ICO promoters now.......you can almost hear Crypto Twitter collectively gulping in fear.

Whenever USDT prints out more money whenever they feel like it, they cause the bitcoin price to both go up but also long term go down. The reason it goes up is the simple fact that they do not always end up giving it all for money, so they end up buying bitcoins with it, a lot more USDT equals a lot more money in the market and that makes it go up.

However USDT is not continuing the way they printed so it makes sense that volatility stopped. Bitmex deal probably won't be a big issue since now there are other places you can do this, plus people can still withdraw from bitmex, hence I believe they will just find another bitmex for themselves and that will be the end of the story for them. Only people who need to worry about this is the bitmex people who got jailed.

@SquallLeonhart. There can be an argument that a bet against Tether can also be a bet against the price of bitcoin.

Also, this news. Are we under regulation season? Who will be next?



John McAfee has been arrested and is in Spain awaiting extradition to the United States.

Today, the Department of Justice unsealed a June 15 indictment for tax evasion, which alleges that the cybersecurity software developer and ICO hype man hid cryptocurrency and other assets in bank accounts in others' names. If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison.

Shortly before the announcement, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil complaint in US District Court against  John McAfee, alleging he secretly made over $23 million from promoting seven initial coin offerings.

Source https://decrypt.co/43969/sec-sues-john-mcafee-for-shilling-crypto-icos

Honestly in a perfectly fine world I would bet against USDT in a minute, they are going to bankrupt and everyone will realize they are getting scammed very quickly, there is no doubt about that in my mind, however what we are forgetting is that when you worth billions of dollars there is always some sort of way not to get caught, they could simply just focus on spending that money to continue in operation as long as they can, which could be the fake and not real and would be illegal but when you have billions coming your way constantly doing something illegal is not really a problem.

Not that their money is in USA neither, if it was that would have been seized long ago, it is in Bahamas in a shady bank as well. So, they will be operational but bankrupted behind doors.

This appears to be the cause of the small dump on bitcoin.

However, that might not be the real problem. The real problem might be, are the executives of Bitfinex, Tether and iFinex next?

In any case, Bitmex domain has not yet been seized.

https://www.bitmex.com/



Founders And Executives Of Off-Shore Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange Charged With Violation Of The Bank Secrecy Act

Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and William F. Sweeney Jr., Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced the indictment of Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, Samuel Reed, and Gregory Dwyer, charging the four with violating the Bank Secrecy Act and conspiring to violate the Bank Secrecy Act, by willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an adequate anti-money laundering (“AML”) program at the Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange or “BitMEX.”  The case is assigned to United States District Judge John G. Koeltl.  REED was arrested in Massachusetts this morning, and will be presented in federal court there.  HAYES, DELO, and DWYER remain at large.

Source https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founders-and-executives-shore-cryptocurrency-derivatives-exchange-charged-violation