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by honestfeedback 1260 days ago
Sorry, but no.

The burden is absolutely on so-called "stable" coin issuers, exchanges, and other parties trying to sell crypto assets to prove that they are somehow the exceptional case of responsible grownups working within the ecosystem...b/c the "success stories" of circa 2019 are turning out to just be the folks who had the biggest scams running, and no one seems to be able to explain what's actually changed since then. (Hint: nothing! Nothing has changed, except that some of the rubes are becoming aware that they're the suckers left holding the bag, which makes actual cash somewhat thinner on the ground.)

Yes, sure, many of the exchanges are still running and money is moving around, so _someone_ is making a profit. But every time another domino falls the stans immediately challenge everyone to prove that _this particular_ actor is somehow insolvent, since obviously the rest of the ecosystem is sound...and in fact, the future of finance! Really!

It all stinks, just like it did a year ago, and five years before that.

To your numbers: they're made up, based on "value" of other crypto assets being shifted around, with no accounting standards, audits, or regulatory scrutiny to validate or back them.

2 comments

As a layman trying to understand all this, doesn't the latest BDO report on their transparency page https://tether.to/en/transparency/#reports indicate ~40 billion usb to be in US treasury bills? That sounds pretty safe/OK to me, or what am missing? Do you accuse BDO of issuing bullshit reports?
So firstly, there's this - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-18/tether-dr...

Which seems to indicate that they signed an agreement with BDO Italia, "an independent subsidiary" of BDO. Not sure if that's significant in itself. Probably not.

Secondly, BDO are "evaluating" their ongoing relationship with crypto firms - https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-12-...

And third, well, it's not an audit, it's more of a "Reserve balances look OK to us on this date" report. It doesn't (for instance) take into account any other liabilities the company may have.

So I'd say this is (as another poster mentioned) better than nothing, which is what they used to give, but worse than an actual audit.

> The burden is absolutely on so-called "stable" coin issuers

The burden, perhaps. The question was about belief.

Surely the rest of your comment (rant?) cannot be in response to my comment.