We are three-quarters of the way through the first month of the new year. We have a new president in the Whitehouse, and people are getting vaccinated—a glimmer of hope at the end of a long dark tunnel. I’m doing some volunteer work for VaccinateCA, making calls to pharmacies. (I saw @patio11 tweeting about the project and wanted to contribute.)
Maybe toward the end of 2021, we’ll see more in-person crypto conferences, but for now, it looks like Coindesk’s big money-maker Consensus will be virtual again—only $50 to register compared to $2,500 for the real thing in past years. Currently, bitcoin is trading at around $32,000 after climbing to an all-time high of nearly $42,000 earlier this month, and Tether is closing in on $25 billion worth of tethers.
A reminder that I have a Patreon account. If you find my work useful, informative, entertaining, please become a subscriber for as little as $5 a month. I could certainly use the support.
Tether needs 30 more days, restarts presses
Jan. 15, the big document deadline day for Bitfinex/Tether in the NY AG fraud investigation, came and went. On Tuesday, after a three-day weekend, Tether’s law firm requested a 30-day extension to give them more time to turn over documents. The request was on behalf of all parties, so NYAG was apparently okay with this.
We won’t get another status update until mid-February. Until then, Tether has agreed to maintain the status quo, meaning the injunction is still in effect, and Bitfinex cannot dip into Tether’s reserves. (Court filing)
For now, it’s back to business as usual. After what appeared to be a short reprieve, Tether is once again printing tethers with abandon. (On Jan. 19, Tether printed another 400 million USDT.) They literally can’t stop, won’t stop, because they are too deep into the game.
In lieu of an audit, which would put this whole matter of “Are tethers backed?” to rest, Tether continues to recruit reporters, bank execs, and other gullible parties to profess to the world that tethers are fully backed. Meet the next actor in this ongoing charade: Gregory Pepin, Deltec Bank’s deputy CEO. Deltec is an offshore bank in the Bahamas where Tether has been doing its banking since 2018
“Every tether is backed by a reserve and their reserve is more than what is in circulation,” Pepin told Laura Shin on the Unchained Podcast. “We can see it firsthand, so I can confirm that,” he said, while repeatedly dismissing the anonymous “Bit Short” article,” mentioned in my last newsletter, as FUD.
Tethers are fully backed, but backed with what? Before they were called tethers, realcoins were supported by “one-to-one fully auditable stores of dollars,” according to a July 2014 article in the Independent Investor. “The bearer of these realcoins will have the first right to redeem them for subsequent U.S. currency.”
A reasonable assumption at this juncture is that tethers are backed by loans to third parties, bitcoins, equity in an offshore bank, a pile of shit coins, and increasingly fewer real dollars.
So far, we’ve heard from Stuart Hoegner, Paulo Ardoino, and a reporter from The Block, all talking up Tether lately, while the triad—Phil Potter, J.L. van der Velde, and Giancarlo Devasini—have slid off into the hills. (Granted, Potter claims he stepped down a while back.)
Tether invests in Fleet
Tether has invested $1 million of its customer’s money into an ICO. Game publisher Exordium, the company behind Infinite Fleet—a name perhaps borrowed from a popular saline enema product—has launched a public security token offering. It is unclear if Tether invested USDT or real dollars, but public participants can put in euro, BTC, or USDT, according to a company press release. (Decrypt, Infinite Fleet)
Infinite Fleet is Samson Mow’s blockchain game. Coincidentally, Mow is the chief strategy officer at Blockstream, a company responsible for a huge chunk of Bitcoin’s source code. Bitfinex is also a Blockstream investor. These types of incestuous relationships help explain why so many Bitcoin-related company execs are so fiercely defensive of Tether.
Is Tether partnering with startup exchanges?
There is reason to suspect Tether is partnering with startup exchanges by giving them USDT. Over the past year, all kinds of smaller exchanges have been announcing sizable tether giveaways. Alex Dreyfus, CEO and founder of Chiliz, for instance, said he was preparing for a 100,000 USDT giveaway. He also admitted he is a client of Tether and Deltec Bank.
Do a search for “USDT” and “giveaway” on Twitter and plenty will come up. Kucoin is one example. (Binance, an established Tether customer, is also giving away tethers.)
GBTC’s premium melts away
Here is something that hasn’t gotten enough attention. Grayscale Investments has played a role in fueling the bitcoin bubble. By convincing institutional investors they could buy into GBTC at net asset value and sell on secondary markets at a 20% to 30% premium after a six-month lock-up, it has created a self-reinforcing market dynamic.
Accredited investors looking to take advantage of an arbitrage opportunity, bought into GBTC, pushing up GBTC assets under management, which was then used to promote the idea that institutional investors, dominated by hedge funds, were scooping up bitcoin products. All this, in turn, lured more retail suckers into the market. “Look, all the big companies are rushing in! This must be a safe bet!”
But now that premium has dried up as fewer retailers are showing an interest in bitcoin, given the price has dropped by $10,000 in recent weeks. GBTC was recently trading at just 2.8% over NAV, leaving accredited investors stuck with GBTC in an illiquid market. (Bloomberg, Trolly’s thread)
Meanwhile, it looks like Barry Silbert has left the chatroom. He stepped down as CEO two weeks ago.
Just like that, Kurson off the hook
Surprise, surprise. Former Ripple board member Ken Kurson was one of the 74 people Donald Trump pardoned at the last minute on Jan. 19. Kurson is also the co-founder of crypto rag Modern Consensus, where I worked for an intolerable six weeks. It’s just unbelievable this guy, who was criminally charged with cyberstalking, got a pardon. (Full list of pardons, NBC)
While many of Trump’s pardons went to political pals—including Steve Bannon, another pro-bitcoin guy—Kurson’s was an obvious favor to Jared Kushner, whose father, Charles, also received a pardon. Kurson’s pardon stands out, in part, because of the risk it poses to some of the women he stalked and harassed. (The Daily Beast, paywalled)
“Suffice it to say, what he was actually arrested for was part of an ongoing pattern of abuse, revenge, & sociopathy,” Deborah Copaken, a contributing writer at the Atlantic, said on Twitter. She worked for Kurson in the past, wrote about the experience, and helped the FBI with their investigation. “All jokes aside, I am worried about my own safety. @FBI – How do you protect those who helped you but who are now totally exposed because of a presidential pardon?”
Other newsworthy bits
“How can $24 billion worth of tethers move a $650 billion bitcoin market cap?” The is an insufferably dumb question, and I explain why in a recent blog post. (My Blog)
David Gerard wrote about the history of wildcat banks and early “stablecoins” with excerpts from an 1839 Michigan Bank Commissioner report. (Gerard’s blog)
Craig Wright is at it again. He is now claiming the Bitcoin white paper and Bitcoin.com are his. He is trying to force Bitcoin.org to take down the white paper, which they now refuse to do. (Coindesk)
Balaji Srinivasan outdid himself on Twitter when he compared bitcoin, one of the world’s biggest energy hogs, to a battery, setting off the “bitcoin is a battery” meme.
Stephen Diehl, a programmer, compares crypto to a “giant smoldering Chernobyl sitting at the heart of Silicon Valley which a lot of investors would prefer you remain quiet about.” His thread went viral.
Gary Gensler is officially named for SEC chair. (NYT) We can expect greater crypto oversight from him. (Bloomberg)
Meanwhile, Allison Herren Lee was sworn in as SEC acting chair until Gensler takes over. (SEC, Decrypt)
MicroStrategy bought another 314 bitcoins for $10 million cash. Saylor’s company now holds 70,784 bitcoins acquired at an aggregate $1.135 billion. (SEC Filing, Coindesk)
Circle has surpassed $5 billion worth of its USDC stablecoin. They produce regular monthly attestations. But as Frances Coppola points out, if Circle/Centre were a bank, they would have to produce actual audited accounts.
Updated on Jan 24 with more info on Kurson’s pardon and a quote from Deborah Copaken. Also added the bit about Craig Wright.
Amy Castor 