Before you read my too many words, I’m going to directly clarify that I do not support Tether or Bitfinex. I am not opposed to them either. This is not a defense of Tether or Bitfinex. At its roots this situation can be attributed to them failing to be transparent and honest with the community. If it turns out that what they are up to cannot bear the light of day, then they will be guilty of the crime of bringing calamity to the future’s economy, and investigation will be relentless. Furthermore, justice should always be treated fairly and with the utmost highest esteem and due seriousness.

This is also only my opinion. I am probably wrong and it really simply is that Tether is the harbringer of the apocalypse and things are all as simple as they appear.

We should at least see how they respond, or don’t respond, before assembling the lynchin’ crew.

I'm setting the comment price at what I have to provide some cost to the PR team and astroturfers who want to control and influence the narrative.

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Right now we have just entered the first layer of chaos. BTC price was high in the sky, looking like it’s about to go full parabolic and enter a literal new paradigm. The alt market suddenly had gains again, and big ones, and so suddenly. How exciting it is as that new money comes into the market and buys the tops.

When suddenly the echo chamber mobilizes together to supposedly warn and protect you about something evil... that evil, evil Tether, and those bad, bad men at the market leader, Bitfinex. Give it some thought, friends.

Where the hell was the echo chamber on this issue for any of the last year? The issue has been conveniently dismissed or marginalized at every key moment, except for now.

If Tether is really monopoly money backed by nothing, then:

Bitfinex are the dumbest people of all time. To have a BTC printing machine (exchange fees) and risk it by... trying to print monopoly money on a public blockchain in 2018. I believe all their cold wallets are publicly signed and they hold multiple spots on the richest address list on multiple currencies. And while yes, a lot of those funds are customer deposits, they're going to have a hard time doing a bank run with the money; It was beyond obvious. When I returned to crypto I was like "What the hell is Tether?". It took me two weeks to wrap my head around why or what the point in that token was because I felt like it’s one of those “truth is stranger than fiction” moments. Why do I need something useless “pegged to fiat” when I can just, you know, have fiat?; and BTC going parabolic this year and crypto creating a fever was a market, social, and economic disruptive event. It can only be assumed that the enforcement agencies of nearly every country in the world have been watching everything with a close eye. That is how the world works. Do you honestly believe nobody in analysis or intelligence positions saw Tether and hasn't thought to themselves “lol wtf?” and investigated it? They know and always have known. Yet, no action has been taken.

So, don’t you all think it’s somewhat curious that all of a sudden this big storm about Tether appears? It’s all over social media, chat rooms, Slacks, and Discords. Suddenly there are users appearing. Lots of names we don’t recognize, or maybe we have seen them a few times, but never put a name to a face, and they are adamant and aggressive in their opinion, especially if you argue to the contrary, play devil's advocate, or worse, give benefit of the doubt.

The reality is that when someone like the US Department of Justice is going to execute a major enforcement action, especially on something at the level of profile we’re at with crypto today, do you think they’re going to front run it in the media and give their prey the headsup that the heat is on?

Tomorrow, go into the forest with a rifle and hunt yourself a Tiger. Sneak up behind it, and start barking like a dog at it, so it knows you're there.

I recall when BTC-e was taken down, there wasn’t a whole lot of noise or warning. One day you wake up, and the website has a US Department of Justice takedown notice that looks like a troll. You go on Twitter and Reddit and you find out that everyone’s in prison and the Government has the private keys to the exchange wallet. But it’s okay. In a few years you might get the money back.

The sudden black swan was the same with Full Tilt Poker and Pokerstars when they were very... creatively... getting around the US Government’s restrictions on providing or processing fiat funding to US residents on gambling sites. Turns out, they didn’t have the player’s funds in full and were running on a fractional reserve.

There wasn't any notice. There were a few ripples and writings on the wall if you were attentive, but nobody was going to make any noise and let you know what was coming.

One day, everyone woke up and:

Overnight, online poker was wiped out. It has never really recovered. People lost all of the funds in their playing bankroll, which for most players, completely wiped them out. It took years before the funds were returned to the players, and they only got the money back because the DOJ sold the assets to another company, and part of that deal with the DOJ is that company had to repay the players.

And indeed, they did repay the players years later.

Do you really, honestly believe that the "journalists", as well as independent guys like Bitfinex'd figured this out, but intelligence and analysts from major players and the biggest regimes have been asleep at the wheel since January? Amidst a time when Bitcoin is disrupting all of the major systems across the entire world?

This phenomenon is so adamant that Tether is a scam and this is all going to go down hard. It’s very systemic and it’s very mouthy. The implication and the narrative often have pointed elements such as: Just like Mt. Gox! Dontcha remember Gox? You don’t want to get Gox’d again do you? If you question or challenge them at all, their hostility is incredible, and in many cases they’re unable to rationally back up their claims. Instead they berserk about how Finex and Tether have to do the proving that they’re honest.

I want to point out that while there is logical merit inherent in that thinking, and the absence of a hard audit on Tether’s reserve is certainly an orange flag at a minimum, and that although Finex and Tether really should have addressed this issue to the community to establish and retain trust and stability in our economy and their exchange months ago, that under the rule of law from any upright non-dictatorship, the burden is, speaking from the perspective of macro principles, on the prosecution to establish guilt on either a beyond-reasonable-doubt or balance-of-probabilities level.

The burden is not on the accused to prove their innocence. That is the sort of shameful, filthy, warped tactic that regimes like the Chinese Communist Party and other vicious dictatorships in history have implemented when they want to destroy someone politically as they destroy someone financially.

I am not defending Tether or Finex. If you cannot read what I am saying rationally and think it over, that is your problem. It’s your risk and your reward, and as I’ve been saying for a while, what you believe can happen and what is actually happening have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Also, Tether and Finex now owe the cryptosphere answers, disclosure, and reconciliation. I'm merely saying that you cannot use false and warped logic like the above to evaluate the situation. There is a reason upright rule-of-law systems do not operate that way, and it's established on the backs of many, many dead people over the course of human history.

But, please think it over:

Tether’s Terms of Service state that there are no guarantees Tether is redeemable for USD.

Before climbing to the rafters and blocking out the sun with false narratives or knee-jerk reactions, take a breath and give it some rational thought.

Tether is something tied to a company. There are precedents in history already with situations like Liberty Reserve that evidence that you will have your entire life surrounded and destroyed for trying to create a currency. On top of that, Tether is marketed to be linked in value or backed in reserve by the United States’ fiat currency. In a sense, it advertises itself as a derivative of USD fiat. Psychologically, it certainly has that effect. Why else does anyone trade in it?

Do you really think they can afford to not dot their Ts and cross their Is from this perspective?

USDT is not USD. You are buying a coloured token on the Omnilayer system, which is on the Bitcoin Legacy blockchain. You are not buying or trading USD. Do you know why this problem and situation exist most fundamentally? Because people keep buying Tether and trading with Tether exactly as they would with actual fiat. Fiat sucks, but even if this all resolves perfectly, Tether is still less than fiat.

It doesn’t say that you can’t redeem them for USD or that they won’t redeem them for USD, merely that they aren’t guaranteeing it. Because it’s not USD. It’s USD Tether.

That being said, now would be a great time for someone to come forward with evidence that they’ve cashed their Tether back into fiat , and if there’s absolutely nobody who can, well, then the bubble has popped and the game is as good as lost.

Furthermore, I have some familiarity with the practice of law and how lawyers, as professionals, do things and have to do things both to protect their clients and to protect themselves personally. I'm of the opinion that for what Tether is, a clause like this is virtually mandatory and making a mountain out of it based on its appearance is very naive.

Bitfinex has no fiat banking and that's how we know Tether is a scam!

Well, no. You don't know that Bitfinex has no fiat banking. Of course they have fiat banking. I have major reservations that they'd be able to continue operating business if they did not. Furthermore, Finex is a major OTC exchange for larger players and institutional players in the Asia Pacific region, and of course, they need to be able to get in and out.

From Finex's own announcement page:

So, they have fiat banking options, just not for us normal guys. They're a Hong Kong based Bitcoin exchange. They sit just outside of the jaws of the Chinese Communist Party while Bitcoin is helping to bankrupt the CCP as capital flight is happening at an enormous rate and is bankrupting the CCP as their cadres and officials set up personal exit strategies.

Believe it or not, there can actually be other causation besides blatant fraud.

Finex has an inherent incentive to not be printing monopoly money out of thin air, on a public blockchain, in the dumbest and most obvious scam of all time.

Why? Because an exchange generates absolutely enormous money in fees. You want to talk about a BTC generating machine? No machine exceeds an exchange. What currency do they primarily collect fees in? Cryptocurrencies. Specifically Bitcoin Legacy.

You can say what you want about whoever you want, but deep at the root of every human soul is the flaw that is selfishness and egotism. What this means is, in the absence of a twisting phenomenon, a person will not act against his own interests.

When they come, you’re immediately raided in a military-level operation and you’re immediately going to prison for a very long time. All of your assets are seized and all of your files are confiscated. They also seize control of all the wallets. The principals spend the rest of their lives in prison (Roll-7-Or-Better to “pay a fine”), bankrupt, and often the investors and directors are implicated amidst the sweep.

If you own and control an absolutely immense amount of value and money in the form of Bitcoin, along with a nearly never-ending incoming supply of it, do you commit suicide in the dumbest scam in history and get seized directly by the US Department of Justice like BTC-e did? Even if somehow you get away, you can never get away with the money, because the Bitcoin ledger is public and the instant your wallets move, intelligence will hunt you.

And for what? So they could print a hundred million dollars worth of play money? Everyone is going on and on about institutional investors this and that coming to Bitcoin, right?

Why not just take $100,000,000 USD and directly and legitimately pump the market ? This is one of, if not the most lucrative markets in all of human history, right?

One hundred mega is hardly an inconceivable position size for say, CME level whales, banks, hedge funds, and even thousands or tens of thousands of individuals and groups in this world.

Besides, the risk:reward of a healthy crypto market is so good. Would it not be against your own interests to ruin it?

The Reality Is We’re the Food

The reason I post this is because I want you to think things over rationally instead of being pulled by the nose like cattle through a series of pre-planned gates.

What do I mean by that? In the market, retail, and especially retail day traders, almost ubiquitously lose all of their money in a short period of time. Everything from top to bottom is established that way and functions that way, and the accuracy of its execution is astonishing.

Investing and trading is a zero-sum game. Someone has to sell you the coins at a low and someone has to buy them from you at a high. Whoever does, loses their money, and you gain it. The reverse is also true.

So since profitability for the largest players literally relies on retail traders losing to them, why would you ever think that the pundits, analysts, and social media campaigns ever had your back? Those talking heads and those barking dogs that are so emphatic, are they there to protect you?

Whose hand feeds them, again?

Do you think deep in their hearts that they’re worried about everyone and want to warn them before the disaster, so you can get out and save your money?

At the root of the soul of every person is selfishness and egotism. Even genuinely good, honest, and kind people have that deficiency. Ask yourself, are the ones supposedly warning you even good, honest, or kind?

As a small example, since time of writing this original post, Blockstream lead developer Greg Maxwell has been caught in a very well documented brigade and hacking run on the Bitcoin community. You can see the evidence here:

So, when the machine starts to warn you and make a fuss about how dangerous and bad something is for you, your guard should go up immediately. Like, the hair on your arms should stand up and your eyes should dilate. It’s that serious.

The Bitfinex’d guy has been marginalized in the echo chamber and social media sphere all these months, and now all of a sudden, he’s been made a source of information. All of a sudden, at a time like this, people are emphatic and wanting to blow the whistle.

So, take a look at the situation:

Tether FUD abounds for a few days. Suddenly everyone "knows", and more importantly "is concerned" there's a problem. BTC pumps to a new all-time high and alts quickly repump to their old all-time highs and actually exceed them in the span of a few days after a multi-month bear market A time is set up for everyone to listen in about this issue during a broadcast. At about the same time, well, lo and behold, Tether has been hacked and deposits and withdraws are offline. What a coincidence.

And what happened?

Every Market dumped. People not only panic sold, but got stopped out and liquidated. I was trading on Bitmex and the $800 downward candle happened in the time it took me to walk to my other room, 10 feet away, to get my phone, and come back to my desk. I thought I was hallucinating. Retail bought the top and had no chance to get out.

For traders on Bitfinex, Poloniex, and Bittrex, and many others, what currency did you sell your positions into, again?

USD Tether.

In a situation where Tether appears to have been compromised, you “exited all crypto markets” (or were forced to by the flash crash) from Bitcoin Legacy, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, IOTA, Dash, etc... you know, cryptos with actual transactional abilities and intrinsic value into Tether.

And now, well, the Tether wallet is offline and you’ve been set up to feel panic and be open to capitulating, cause this is a market crash, after all, and it’s Mt. Finex and all that.

You don't want to be the idiot that got Gox'd, right?

But oh, right. Amidst the panic you dumped your core position or stopped out... and now... you’ve got Tether in your account and you can’t withdraw it because the wallet is down, and of course it's Tether and not fiat, so you can't withdraw it to your bank.

Well, you’ll have to buy back your coins at a loss and get them off the exchanges before the bad things start happening, right?

I obviously spend a lot of time at the computer. Probably too much. That also means a lot of information passes through my eyes. Probably too much.

Looking around on social media and places like Reddit, Discords, Telegrams, and forums, I noticed right away before Tether became a talking point and “everyone knew it was a problem” that there was a systemic message starting to be pushed about Tether. Something that was dissimilar in both size, fever, and methodology from how the guys who have actually been trying to warn everyone about it for the last several months do things.

It’s the same technique and pattern that Blockstream’s PR team uses when they want to push an agenda and control the community. Places like r/bitcoin are completely censored and the narrative is strictly controlled while places like r/btc, where all the banned r/bitcoin community resides, are perpetually under siege by astroturfing and false narratives.

Wolves in human skin abound posing as real users. One posts a question and another answers. Always standing on preset platitudes and talking points. They have a narrative to sell, and you’re there to buy it. If you challenge them, they get mouthy and aggressive and are often in groups, but it’s rarely backed by organic logic or reason. If you poke it with skill, you’ll see its deficiencies.

That being said, I have reservations that Theymos’s team were behind the Tether FUD. That seems counter to their agenda and interests, as what this situation presents fundamentally is a threat to Bitcoin Futures being traded on the CME.

However, after watching the chaos on social media about this last night, there was a huge and very loud narrative being pushed everywhere. Reminded me of the old days when we'd assemble in town square to hang someone based on a witch hunter's sudden accusations.

And, this was especially true in in r/bitcoin, where everything is strictly censored. You either tow the party line, or Theymos and Bashco ban you. Anti-Tether and Anti-Finex certainly was the party line. That is concerning. Hint: (use r/btc).

While there will be many organic users and natural forms of outcry during a situation like this, you should keep your guard up. The machine splashes the water and the smaller fish get moved along with it.

There are the fellows from Interactive Brokers that have made it known that they’re opposed to Bitcoin Futures being traded on the CME, and they made themselves known not all that long before the noise got started here:

Bitcoin is a real-world Game of Thrones. Perhaps a new challenger has appeared.

Want to solve Tether? Stop trading your store of value, your money, your currency, and your future for it and it will be gone in 3 days.

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