I'm not saying no one has ever tried to manipulate the price of a cryptocurrency before. But the scheme you describe is not sustainable for a long period of time.
Remember --- they have an *unlimited* supply of money --- they just print/mint the stuff at will. Nothing currently in place to stop them.
Over the course of 8 years, Tether has gone from $0 to over $65 trillion --- all minted out of recycled electrons. $65 trillion is a lot of marketplace influence --- and there is plenty more where that came from.
For starters, I believe the number is 75 billion in USDT, not 65 trillion.
And Tether doesn't have an unlimited supply of money. Tether allows USDT to be redeemed for USD. If Tether was minting unbacked USDT, then Tether would eventually be shown to be insolvent.
Second, if you're manipulating the price upward, it becomes more and more expensive to maintain the price. Like let's say Tether issued USDT to pump the price of BTC. If they wanted to maintain that long-term, they'd need to print more and more USDT to maintain the price, which gets us back to insolvency.
Third, the CEX would need a reason to pump the price. Usually, people pump prices to execute a "pump and dump" where low-value assets are dumped on unsuspecting consumers at a high price. It's possible, of course, but executing a pump and dump scheme is a lot of work and very risky for very little reward with such expensive, highly traded asset like BTC.
> If Tether was minting unbacked USDT, then Tether would eventually be shown to be insolvent.
Tether's has been shown to be technically insolvent every time they've been forced to open their books.
> Second, if you're manipulating the price upward, it becomes more and more expensive to maintain the price. Like let's say Tether issued USDT to pump the price of BTC. If they wanted to maintain that long-term, they'd need to print more and more USDT to maintain the price, which gets us back to insolvency.
This is literally what they seemed to have done though. Tether's market cap hovered around a few billion for a few years and then suddenly shot up to almost 80B.
It is only allowed for verified customers --- those with $100,000 or more to redeem. This severely limits any exposure to a bank run.
If Tether was minting unbacked USDT, then Tether would eventually be shown to be insolvent.
By whom? Lots of people think it's always been insolvent. Can you prove it's not?
executing a pump and dump scheme is a lot of work and very risky for very little reward with such expensive, highly traded asset like BTC.
When you have control and influence over both the pump and the dump, it's easy. And price is pretty irrelevant when you can just mint money and "loan" it to select others (aka "whales") so they can participate.
I think you're "begging the question." You believe that Tether is a fraud. You're using the fact that the price on a CEX and DEX are the same to justify that belief. "See, the price on a DEX matches that on a CEX, therefore Tether is a fraud."
Whether or not Tether is a fraud has nothing to do with the price match on a CEX and DEX. The price on CEXs and DEXs will always match due to arbitrage.
(This isn't a statement on whether or not Tether is a fraud. I'm just pointing out that the price on a CEX and DEX will always match with sufficient liquidity in the market).
Whether or not Tether is a fraud has nothing to do with the price match on a CEX and DEX. The price on CEXs and DEXs will always match due to arbitrage
Agreed.
The point is --- any market manipulation will affect DEX the same as CEX. People often erroneously point to DEX as a way to avoid CEX influence and control. It's not.
I'm still not understanding the correlation between a centralized exchange and perpetuating a scam. Tether doesn't rely on a centralized exchange. If an entity, centralized exchange or otherwise, is willing to pay off the entire market to perpetuate a scam, then yes, DEXs will be impacted. That doesn't seem related to whether or not an exchange is centralized.
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