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collectedparts | 3 years ago

It's also a general expression of lack of confidence in the US banking system.

Exchanges that offer true "USD" trading pairs ultimately have to store that cash [at a bank] somewhere. But at which bank? Before this week, most people probably wouldn't have paid attention.

Some like Coinbase offer passthrough FDIC insurance [1], but again, if you have more than $250k you're potentially s-o-l just like an SVB depositor.

So weirdly, 1 USDT ("definitely sketchy but somehow has never broken peg") all of a sudden may seem less risky than 1 "USD" at [which bank again?].

[1] https://www.coinbase.com/legal/insurance

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deepsun|3 years ago

> somehow has never broken peg

But all past stablecoins never broken the peg before they did.

KaiserPro|3 years ago

> It's also a general expression of lack of confidence in the US banking system.

that's not it. there are far better gauges of dissatisfaction in US banking, share price in banks is a far better gauge. if you want a metric for USD then swiss franc is better.

USDC and other "stable coins" are risky, noisy and generally bad medium to long term investments. Unlike domestic currency they have such small trading volumes that they are easy to manipulate.

Thats great if you're the one doing the manipulation. At best they perform better than cash, but without any of the protection, at worst they go bust. Emerging markets have less fraud than generic crypto backed devices.

capableweb|3 years ago

> USDC and other "stable coins" are risky, noisy and generally bad medium to long term investments. Unlike domestic currency they have such small trading volumes that they are easy to manipulate

How are you supposed to manipulate a currency pegged to the USD? It'll fluctuate a bit above or below, but not by much except in extreme cases. And even in those extreme cases, it seems like the peg gets restored eventually. Talking mainly about USDC, USDT and DAI here, as those have all been "depegged" and subsequently restored their peg afterwards.

mrcggl|3 years ago

USDC is not an investment, it's a tokenized market money fund which you can redeem for 1$. Circle, they company issuing it, said that they will honoring redempetions 1:1 from tomorrow (weekend they can't because of bank closures).

Also the trading volume of stablecoins and of the largest cryptocurrencies is close on most day to NASDAQ's listed equities trading volume.

Eisenstein|3 years ago

Which bank does USDT hold their pegged dollars in, again?

Felminor|3 years ago

Alone the fact that every stable coin created itself out of thin air when bought, makes this tremendously stupid.

threeseed|3 years ago

> But at which bank?

One that has adequate risk management controls, attempts to comply with Basel 3 etc.