[Shasnani]

I see this take a lot, and there's some truths to it, but I'd like to take the other side of the argument.

These stablecoin issuers are enormous buyers of US treasuries: "Tether Holdings owned $97.6 billion worth of US Treasuries in June 2024, a new high. Hence, Tether now owns more US Treasuries than the governments of Germany, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Australia. Hence, Tether is now the 18th largest holder of US Treasury bonds" (https://medium.com/coinmonks/tether-usdt-is-the-third-larges...)

Dollars are also more dominant as a reserve currency in stablecoins (~97%) than they are in real-world trade (https://digitalchamber.org/stablecoinreport/).

I.e., we see stablecoins as extending dollar dominance, not reducing it.

[bonzini]

Weren't tether's numbers sort of shady?

[davidlee1435]

Thought experiment: how much USDT is made unredeemable every year? including through lost private keys, freezing related to sanctions, etc

If you think 1% is a reasonable number, that’s 1BN per year at current market cap. Tethers been around for 10 years. Dead funds also compound.

Let’s say Tether was grossly insolvent (ie only had 50% of reserves) for the first 10BN in market cap (in other words, for the first 5 years of their existence). In addition to the 6BN+ of interest income they earn every year, there’s 1BN of reserves that will never get redeemed added every year

If Tether was insolvent before, they just need time to change that

[skybrian]

I’m doubtful these numbers are realistic, but a more conventional explanation is that stablecoins can earn interest on conservative investments (like treasuries) but don’t pay interest, which should be profitable enough if they don’t get too greedy.

This is very roughly similar to banking. It’s an unregulated bank, but it’s not inevitable that they’ll implode.

[vscapitalx]

Short answer: yes but not anymore.

They have a shady past but quickly realized they had lucked into a WILDLY profitable business. That first 10% of their existence is debated constantly and is what you see referenced constantly online when Tether is labelled as shady.

They make a disgusting amount of money and it keeps snowballing. This annoys people who want them to implode for earlier crimes.

For context they are more profitable than Blackrock.

[pjc50]

.. how are they profitable? Market making? Tbill interest? TX fees?

[kristjansson]

> Tbill interest

or similar. They have $100bn dollars and their only job is not to lose any of it.

[jgilias]

In this interest rate environment they’re basically printing money.

[Yizahi]

Giancarlo literally prints these tokens from his laptop. The ultimate profit scheme.