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by odorousrex 3069 days ago
Money Laundering?

You have $1M in dirty money. Wire it to Tether for some Tethers. Go on Bitfinex and buy lots of bitcoin. Transfer the bitcoin to a legitimate exchange. Sell for clean USD.

This could be a very valuable (and lucrative) service in certain circles, I have no doubt. One thing that could jeopardize the livelihood (...and lives?) of people running a business in this space would be a steeply falling Bitcoin price. They would probably do anything to keep the price up. Like issuing more magic tethers and buying Bitcoin with them.
1 comments
unknown_apostle 3069 days ago
But even then...

Why USD -> USDT -> BTC -> USD?

Why not USD -> BTC -> BTC -> BTC -> USD?

What does the extra layer of USDT really add legally, except for some added obfuscation that a few extra "intra-bitcoin" transactions would add as well?

(Genuine question, this is one of the more fascinating stories I've heard in a while :-)

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gamblor956 3069 days ago
It's my understanding that Tether transactions aren't traceable because there isn't a public blockchain...and possibly not even a blockchain at all. So the obfuscating step is the USD->USDT transaction. The rest of the process is getting clean money back.
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unknown_apostle 3069 days ago
Tether is on Omni layer. Its transactions are registered on the Bitcoin blockchain and I think that makes it traceable.

USD -> USDT and back is traceable using standard investigations of books and banking transcripts of entities dealing with Tether's managers.

Also, Tether is by now an internet-wide phenomenon. It's in the spotlight. And yet it keeps growing.

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