[heptathorp]

> $500 mil right now is 61,000 BTC. There are currently 16,700,000 BTC in circulation. Making the Tether stuff only equate to 0.3% of all Bitcoin.

That's also not the correct way to look at it. The price hasn't been a constant $8200 during the issuance of those tethers, it was lower earlier. So way more than 61,000 BTC could have been bought with that money.

Besides, to figure out what effect tether has had on the price you need to factor in liquidity, not the total supply of BTC. If the real value of tethers is much lower than their nominal value (because they are not actually backed by dollars), and they were used to take a significant percent of BTC off the market, then the price of BTC is significantly higher than it ought to be.

[dmichulke]

> The price hasn't been a constant $8200 during the issuance of those tethers, it was lower earlier.

The same holds for the bitcoins bought with dollars at Mtgox.

But to end the discussion:

  Dec 31, 2013: Marketcap 10  bn, Vol 34 mn
  Today       : Marketcap 240 bn, Vol  8 bn

So 600 mn had a much bigger impact (20x daily volume back then) than they'd have today (0.075x daily volume).

[fastball]

What exactly do you mean by "take a significant percent of BTC off the market"?

If this is some sort of Ponzi/exit scheme like many people are thinking, and all that BTC is effectively stolen by Bitfinex, I'm sure they'll spend it eventually. It's not like they're taking Bitcoin, giving people Tether, and then burning the Bitcoin.