It’s Feb. 7, a year since the pandemic entered the US, and bored people with lots of stimulus money are gambling it all on crypto casinos and stocks. And to get things extra frothy, Tether spit out more than $1.8 billion in tethers last week—enough to push its market cap over $28 billion.
Amazing how things have evolved. It was big news in December 2017 when Tether reached its first $1 billion in tethers. Now the BVI-registered company is issuing that kind of money every few days. Why? Because they can. So far, nobody has stopped them. Also, because they have to. If they were to stop now, the price of bitcoin would collapse, exposing Tether for what it is—a massive fraud, the likes of which nobody has seen since Madoff.
The price of bitcoin is now over $40,000, up from $32,800 a week ago. So if you bought bitcoin last week, you made money without ever having to get up off the living room couch. Just remember that you have to actually cash out via a banked exchange like Coinbase to realize those gains.
Bitfinex says it’s paid off Tether ‘loan’
Bitfinex announced on Friday that it’s paid off the remaining $550 million balance of its loan to sister company Tether in one fell swoop—in fiat currency and with interest.
Where did the money come from? Bitfinex won’t tell us. (The announcement was only three sentences long.) They just want us to believe—based on their word alone—that the entire matter is behind them. So I guess the New York attorney general can drop its probe?
That loan was at the center of the NY AG’s investigation into Bitfinex. After losing access to $850 million via its payment processor Crypto Capital, Bitfinex gave itself access to $900 million of Tether’s reserves—without telling its customers. And that’s after years of Tether saying that tethers were backed 1:1 with real dollars.
Nobody knows for sure how much of Tether’s money Bitfinex helped itself to. Bitfinex indicated—here and here—that it had previously paid off $200 million, leaving us to assume that the total loan amount was $750 million. But Bitfinex isn’t being upfront about how much it borrowed. And thus far, we have no audits, loan documents, or other evidence to prove the repayment was anything more than a story-book fantasy.
The fact of the matter is that Bitfinex was insolvent in 2018. Rather than crash and burn, it helped itself to Tether’s customer’s money to cover up for its massive losses. Are we to believe now that those losses magically disappeared? Just as we are to believe that tethers are now fully backed?
Let’s face it, Bitfinex probably started going down the tubes as early as August 2016 after it was hacked to the tune of $72 million worth of BTC and then lost its banking. The company’s operators have been playing a game of cat and mouse ever since. (See my Tether timeline for more details on past shenanigans.)
Mainstream media gets wise to Tether
Tether is getting more coverage in mainstream media. In his WSJ story, “What’s behind the bitcoin bubble,” columnist Andy Kessler covers all the Tether basics, including the NY AG probe and even the “Bit Short” article by Crypto Anonymous. (That story really is getting around, isn’t it?)
Word is getting out. Reporters are asking questions about Tether, and they are starting to document the funny business. Probably as a way to get up to speed on the topic before the shit really hits the fan—a day we all know is coming, wherein Tether gets exposed for what it really is.
In contrast, crypto media is trying desperately to fight the “Tether FUD.” Earlier, we had a reporter from The Block going on a podcast to try and convince us those billions of tethers are all backed with real cash. And I’m seeing nonsensical stories like this one in Bitcoin Magazine on “debunking the Bit Short.” Here’s one in another crypto rag about how the loan repayment will put an end to Tether FUD.
Bitcoiners and many crypto outlets—that are directly funded by the crypto industry—believe that Tether needs to be protected at all costs. How do you defend a company that won’t tell you what tethers are backed by? That refuses to submit to an audit? That is being investigated for fraud by one of the most powerful attorneys in the nation? You can’t, but they do.
I should mention that Jeremy Allaire has also come forward as a Tether apologist. Allaire is the CEO of Circle, which is part of the Centre Consortium, a collaboration with Coinbase that manages the USDC stablecoin.
USDC is growing rapidly. There are now $6.5 billion worth of USDC in circulation. The regulated stablecoin gets monthly attestations—but no full audit. Grant Thornton’s attestations say reserves are in cash and “other approved investments.” We don’t know what those investments are or who approved them. And it’s December attestation is over two weeks late, compared to earlier months. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about though.
Nigerian banks cut off crypto services
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) ordered banks on Friday to close the accounts of anyone involved in crypto services and to stop facilitating payments for crypto exchanges.
Bitcoin’s popularity in Nigeria was driven largely by a Russian Ponzi scheme called MMM. This connection, along with a few fraud causes, made African governments and regulators leery of crypto. The CBN warned banks in January 2017 that bitcoin and other cryptos were used primarily for money laundering and funding of terrorist activities. And then in February 2018, CBN warned Nigerian citizens they would not be able to get legal help if the crypto markets collapsed.
The CBN’s recent move impacts fiat on- and off-ramps, but peer-to-peer platforms like OTC desks remain unaffected. As a result, Binance temporarily suspended deposits in Nigeria naira. (Binance letter, Coindesk)
Musk tweets about DOGE, number go up
Dogecoin—a coin that was designed as a joke—made the WSJ after billionaire Tesla chief Elon Musk kept tweeting about it, causing the price to go parabolic.
Musk is doing this for the lulz. Watching people scramble to buy an asset after he tweets about it is his idea of amusement. Imagine, if you will, a rich guy throwing dollar bills onto the street and watching poor, wretched fools dive for it. This is Musk’s sense of humor.
The SEC has warned him that he can’t tweet things about Tesla for the lulz, so he is now applying the same douchebaggery to something he isn’t interested in simply because he can.
Kiss frontman Gene Simmons (the guy with the tongue) also announced he was stocking up on DOGE because he thinks it will increase in value. Why not? If Musk keeps tweeting about it, certainly number will go up.
Other newsworthy stuff
Trolly wrote a blog post about how the “Bitcoin economy” is just an illegal casino run by the mob. Leverage is the lifeblood of crypto, he says. And regulated exchanges like Coinbase are feeding the monster.
David Gerard wrote a blog post spelling out how Tether works for those who are still getting up to speed.
Yearn DeFi was exploited in the usual manner—smart contracts and not-so-smart people. A hacker made off with $2.8 million after draining $11 million from one of Yearn’s deposit pools. For the uninitiated, Yearn.Finance is a “yield aggregator” where users deposit funds in pools, which are then deployed to other DeFi protocols to generate yields for those depositors. DeFi—or decentralized finance—is based on smart contracts—bits of “unstoppable” code that run on a blockchain. (Cointelegraph)
German prosecutors have confiscated more than $60 million worth of bitcoin from a fraudster. But they can’t access the funds because Mr. Fraudster won’t give them the keys. How do you confiscate bitcoin if you have no access to it? (Reuters)
Miller Value Funds, run by veteran hedge fund manager Bill Miller, may invest up to $337 million in GBTC through its flagship fund, the Miller Opportunity Trust. GBTC’s premium to NAV is currently 6.5% — not the great arb opportunity it once was, so I’m wondering how much they will actually invest. (Decrypt)
Antonije Stojilkovic, a Serbian man, along with his coconspirators allegedly defrauded crypto investors out of more than $70 million. He has been extradited to the US. (DoJ press release)
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Amy Castor 