[vegannet]

You can’t redeem Tether — that’s a core part of the fraud, they have “banking issues” and had them for years. You can sell it on an exchange but the Tether organisation have prevented any redemption of USD from USDT for years. Anybody turning USDT into USD is selling their USDT.

[gruez]

So you can't trade USDT for USD at all (eg. third party exchange trades, or withdrawing from an USDT exchange directly), or is it only that you can't trade USDT for USD by going through Tether Limited?

[tim333]

Though when you sell your USDT for euro or whatever on Kraken say, the tether org must step in and buy to keep the price at US$1. So they effectively redem if not directly.

[griffinheart]

When is tether org involved in this?

From your example the only thing that happened is that now you hold x euros and Kraken holds x amount of USDT.

Unless Kraken goes to Tether org and asks "hey I got these USDTs, please give me the USD" no redemption has occurred.

That some people can in effect transact USDT for fiat via other mechanisms (like your example above) says nothing about Tether org backing or reserves.

Until you go to Tether org with your USDT's and ask them for USD you won't know if they have the reserves.

[tim333]

The reason tether stays at $1 is because the tether org or their delegates buy or sell to keep it there. They have to or the whole thing would become untethered as it were.

[seibelj]

Plenty of companies redeem USDT for USD. I myself worked at a company that redeemed billions of dollars. The FUD on HN is approaching delusional levels.

[miracle2k]

And what does the company do with those USDT? If the money printing theory is correct, companies like yours would be the ones counteracting any sell-pressure on USDT. If the theory is not correct, companies like yours would see an at least equal buy-side demand for USDT, bringing real USD into the system.

I mean, does the company hold (increasingly?) large USDT positions on their balance sheet (and would therefore be the ones in the hole if Tether loses the peg), or is the company able to get actual dollars out of Tether inc. in exchange for those tokens?

[seibelj]

I worked at Circle https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/48857/former-head-of-cir...

[microtherion]

That article was published in December 2019, when $4B of Tether had been issued in total, and covers an unspecified earlier period.

Are you sure that the $20B of Tether issued since then have an identical origin story?

[xur17]

https://tether.to/faqs/

> Unfortunately, Tether has decided to stop serving U.S. individual and corporate customers altogether. As of January 1, 2018, no issuance or redeeming services will be available to these users. Exceptions to these provisions may be made by Tether, in its sole discretion, for entities that are: Established or organized outside of the United States or its territorial or insular possessions; and, Eligible Contract Participants pursuant to U.S. law.

> An Eligible Contract Participant includes a corporation that has total assets exceeding $10,000,000 and is incorporated in a jurisdiction outside of the United States or its territories or insular possessions. This will be the principal basis upon which we will continue to do business with selected U.S. persons.

Basically, it looks like they only provide on and off ramps for large clients outside the US. Given their history, I am betting they might not want to reveal where they store their assets, and don't want to deal with US regulators (but not sure this is working).

[whimsicalism]

So as source for the claim that you "can't redeem tether", you are linking to something that says you can redeem tether?

[cool_dude85]

Tell you what: you give me $100, I'll give you back a cooldude coupon. I have sole discretion as to whether I'll redeem this coupon when you hand it back to me.

Question: Would you say you can redeem this coupon? It's possible I might decide to give you back your money, after all.

[FabHK]

> something that says you can redeem tether

Tether, in its sole discretion, may choose to redeem tether, as long as you're a corporation with over 10m USDT incorporated outside the US.

I'd say that's not an ironclad guarantee that you can redeem tether.

[xur17]

When did I say I was providing a source for not being able to redeem tether? I'm just linking to information that I found useful when forming an opinion on the matter.

[seibelj]

Yes, I worked at a company that had an entity outside the US that minted and redeemed tethers. This is how it works.