Remove the unconstrained supply of Mickey Mouse money (Tether) and eliminate wash trading, and you will watch Bitcoin descend into the abyss rather quickly.
Personally, I see these issues purely as “buy the dip” investment opportunities. For many speculative investors, the crazy volatility from factors like these is what makes crypto attractive. I see a deeply undervalued long-term value proposition for cryptocurrency, where the big risks for today involve the minefield of manipulation issues that have to be survived to get to the other side where the assets appreciate hugely due to a true valuation mechanism, no longer wanton speculation.
In other words, I’ll be happy if bitcoin crashes from Tether (I believe it will, probably to well under $20,000) - that is nothing more than a huge buying opportunity.
There is a huge moral issue here. You have a company that is manipulating the market like crazy convincing people to put more and more of their savings in crypto, all of it to be taken away.
This asymmetry in information alone should be reason to have them eliminated from the market as soon as possible.
Totally agree. Getting rid of Tether and holding them responsible sounds great.
But that has nothing to do with the long-term valuation of cryptocurrency. The part I object to, which is what many of the earlier comments are trying to say, is some version of “Tether & wash trading is bad, therefore bitcoin is nothing but hype / fake scams.”
Yeah, yeah, I get it. No one can really know the true price of BTC. It's all speculation. Nothing to back it up... what else do you have?
Understand this: there is a large number of people that will keep working with BTC (and crypto) regardless of price and current market conditions. There is a large number of people that don't care about the price. People will keep building things on crypto, regardless of price and it will become more and more of an alternative to existing financial/economical systems.
Speculation? You can look at the raw market data right here and see several things that should make any critically minded person go 'hmmm': https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/
How can Tether have a daily trading volume of almost 100 bln on a supply of 'just' 24 bln? Seems rather obvious that the vast majority of crypto trades are done by HFT algos and not people (or worse, that the actual supply of Tether is much higher than the reported supply).
You can't deny that Tether is a very essential component in the crypto markets. It is also an unregulated, unaudited private entity operating outside western jurisdictions, with a long history of controversies: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2019/10/28/tether-and-bitfinex/
Hardly the group you'd want managing a global currency system.
You do know what you are saying may be new to a few naive or ignorant newcomers, but that is already priced in by any reasonable person involved in the space, right? [0]
Yes, I completely agree what Tether is doing is criminal and that they will likely be responsible for the next crash.
The question is: so what? The important thing about crypto is its anti-fragility. Every crash brought a correction that made the system more robust and less prone to be extinct.
It's not going to be crypto's first crash and it is certainly not going to be the last.
Nothing can be effectively priced in as long as you have an artificial and illegitimate source of liquidity pushing the price up. Such a market doesn't allow for rational pricing mechanisms to manifest.
You are right, my term was not correct. What perhaps I would say is that those are aware of the issue are already putting Tether in their risk calculations and their exposures.
If it were not for Tether, I'd be way holding way more non-stable crypto that I am now. Right now the only non-stable token that I am buying is BAT, and mostly because their projects has a clear/transparent way to see where their money is coming from.
In other words, I’ll be happy if bitcoin crashes from Tether (I believe it will, probably to well under $20,000) - that is nothing more than a huge buying opportunity.