Bitcoin is sitting at around $54,000, and Tether has hit a new milestone: 50 billion tethers in circulation, something it’s quite proud of. “Will we reach $100B before 2022?”
So far, in April, Tether has issued 9 billion tethers—and the month isn’t even over yet. Tether has been minting 2 billion tethers at a time—the largest single batches we’ve seen to date.
Per the NY AG settlement agreement, Tether is supposed to provide a breakdown of its reserves in May. And they are already whining about how unfair and unjust this is.
Stuart Hoegner, Tether’s general counsel, complained on Twitter: “The second-biggest stablecoin issuer [USDC] doesn’t give a breakdown of their reserves, either. Observers should ask why our detractors are pushing one rule for them and another for us.”
Oh, I don’t know, Maybe because USDC wasn’t caught hiding the fact it lost access to $850 million?
(USDC—a stablecoin bootstrapped by Coinbase and Circle—has issued 13.5 billion USDC to date, not quite the level of Tether, but it’s working its way up there.)
Coinbase debuts on Wall Street, then lists USDT
Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the U.S., debuted on Wall Street on April 14. Trading opened at $381 a share—a 52% increase over a $250 reference price set by Nasdaq. COIN swung as high as $429 that first day. (Though, now it is at $291.)
It was the moment Coinbase execs and its VC backers had all been waiting for. They didn’t waste any time dumping their shares on retailers, according to data from Capital Market Laboratories.
Insiders sold off $4.6 billion in COIN on the first day of trading, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong sold shares worth $292 million. (SEC filing) (Cointelegraph)
Less than two weeks later, Coinbase—being the respected operation that it is—dropped the bomb that it is listing tether on Coinbase Pro.
Ecstatic bitcoiners claim the move legitimizes Tether. Actually, the move delegitimizes Coinbase.
Listing tether makes Coinbase look shady, like they’ll do anything to boost profits and keep share prices up so insiders can continue their sell-off. (My blog post)
Tether is a wildcat bank, operating with no oversight. It has been largely responsible for boosting the price of bitcoin because it allows unregulated crypto exchanges to thrive and funnels them a steady stream of dubiously backed tethers.
Thanks to Tether, Coinbase had a hugely profitable Q1. And thanks to Tether, Brian Armstrong is a wealthy man indeed.
Was it a coincidence that BTC tapped a new all-time high of $63,275 the day before Coinbase went public? Or was that simply irrational exuberance?
When Tether gets taken down, liquidity will evaporate and crypto markets will crash. Those who get hurt will be naive retailers, who didn’t understand the system was rigged from the get-go.
Bernie—gone but not forgotten
Bernie Madoff died in jail on the same day that Coinbase went public. He ran the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, and it went on for 25 years. Paper losses totaled $64.8 billion. Madoff took billions from investors and simply stole the money instead of investing.
Why didn’t the SEC catch Madoff sooner? Why didn’t they step in and do something to protect investors? They were tipped off eight years before, and yet they failed to act.
Here we are watching a similar drama unfold with Tether. All the red flags are waving. And no regulator or authority has stepped in to take strong action.
If you are wondering how fraudsters live with themselves—they rationalize and minimize.
David Sheehan, a trustee who worked to recover money stolen from investors, met with Madoff a dozen times. He told WSJ: “[Madoff] didn’t think he was harming anybody. He actually thought his scheme would work, that it just got out of hand and he couldn’t control it.”
$2 billion crypto scam in Turkey?
When Thodex, one of the largest crypto exchanges in Turkey, suspended trading on April 18 for five days of “maintenance,” users began to complain they couldn’t access their funds.
Now a manhunt is underway for the exchange’s 27-year-old founder, Faruk Fatih Özer, who has reportedly fled to the capital of Albania with $2 billion in investors’ money.
Turk authorities have detained 62 people and issued detention warrants for 16 more.
Meanwhile, Özer is claiming that Thodex is the target of a “smear campaign.” He says he was on a jaunt to meet with foreign investors, nothing more.
We’ve seen this film before. It’s called “Crypto exchange operates as a Ponzi scheme.” Last time, the protagonist was Gerald Cotten, the founder of Canada’s QuadrigaCX. And instead of going to meet with “foreign investors,” he went to India and died under suspicious circumstances.
Now another Turkish crypto exchange—Vebitcoin—has shut down amid accusations of fraud. Turkish authorities have blocked its bank accounts and detained four people. (Reuters)
These stories come at a rotten time for crypto users in Turkey. Starting April 30, the country’s central bank will ban the use of crypto for payments and prevent payment providers from providing fiat onramps to crypto exchanges. (CBRT press release)
Bitcoin promotes green energy!
Bitcoin mining is destroying the planet. Lately, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency is getting a lot of bad press on its massive carbon footprint—like this article in the New Yorker.
Yet, despite hard evidence to the contrary, people with big bets on bitcoin will stare you right in the face and tell you it ain’t so. Bitcoin is green!
Jack Dorsey’s Square and Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest published a delusional white paper titled “Bitcoin is Key to an Abundant Clean Energy Future.” They want you to believe bitcoin mining encourages the use of wind farms, solar energy, and other such nonsense. (Bloomberg)
ARK has investments in Square and Coinbase shares. And Square invested $50 million in bitcoin last year. Square’s Cash App also lets users buy and sell bitcoin. Dorsey is a bitcoin bro at heart.
Companies who care about the planet, don’t invest in bitcoin.
FT Alphaville countered Dorsey and Wood’s claims in a post titled: “The destructive green fantasy of the bitcoin fanatics.”
Bitcoin skeptic Kyle Gibson responded with a satirical “Bitcoin Is Green Energy” commercial, where we learn that “solar panels can’t work without bitcoin,” and “this baby penguin’s first word was ‘bitcoin’.”
Other newsworthy stuff
On April 22, the negative premium of GBTC reached -18.92%, a record low. It’s since rebounded to -10%, according to Ycharts, but the arbitrage opp for big investors is a distant memory.
No doubt many funds who entered the “risk-free” trade are feeling the squeeze. Despite that, Grayscale has added $283 million in assets to GBTC. (The Block)
Tougher AML laws in South Korea are forcing crypto exchanges to shutter. Turns out, several were using shell bank accounts. “…they are having difficulties to get real-name accounts from local banks.” Sounds like the Bitfinex/Tether model. (Korean Herald)
The NFT bubble is bursting. Trading volume on OpenSea is down 22% in the past month. CryptoPunks volume is down 26%, NBA Top Shot is down 61%. (Decrypt)
Edward Snowden can’t make money on books and speeches anymore, so he sold an NFT for $5.4 million. He is donating the funds to the Freedom of the Press Foundation. (He sits on the nonprofit’s board of directors.) (Coindesk)
Artists and celebrities continue to pile into NFTs, because it’s the thing to do. Eminem partnered with Gemini’s Nifty Gateway to launch his first series of NFTs. (Decrypt)
A hacker-artist figured out how to make “crypto-verified” fakes of most art-connected NFTs. It’s called “sleepminting” and he used Beeple’s “Everydays” as a test case. (Artnet)
Quote from “Black Swan” author Nassim Taleb: “If you want a hedge against inflation, buy a piece of land, grow—I don’t know—olives on it. You’ll have olive oil if the price collapses. With bitcoin, there’s no connection.” (Decrypt)
The SEC is officially reviewing a bitcoin ETF application from Kryptoin Investment Advisors. It’s one of three bitcoin exchange-traded fund proposals now under review—WisdomTree and VanEck are the other two. (SEC filing notice) (Decrypt)
The overlap between the bitcoin bros and Musk fanboys is strong. Nicholas Weaver wrote up a Twitter thread on why Musk sucks—i.e., his environmental credentials are bullshit; “Go to mars because we are going to destroy the earth” is lunacy; His cars are crap, etc.
The IRS knows you’re out there. It’s launched “Operation Hidden Treasure” to find taxpayers with unreported income from bitcoin transactions. (Accounting Today)
Stablecoins are reminiscent of the dollar substitutes that triggered the 2008 crisis. Déjà vu? (New Money Review)
If you enjoy my work, please support my writing by becoming a patron.
Amy Castor 
Enjoying your thoughts. Don’t always agree, but enjoy. Thank you.
Best,
Matt Yerington
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Amy and David, please get your book about Tether scam ready. Will be an international bestseller for sure. After Tether implosion, sell the movie screenplay rights of your book for the buckets of money you both so richly deserve and never have to work for money again. I think the authors of Billion Dollar Whale sold their movie rights for well over 7-figures. Cheerio, Tim