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Todd Carlisle
@tcardizzle
This post is opinion backed with factual evidence. I know it's going to get a bunch of pushback but my intention is to share with you what I've done and why. In the end you have to make your own decisions. I'll provide sources for my reasoning that I encourage you to check out. I'm 100% out of crypto. Why? On February 23 of this year the NY District Attorney announced a settlement agreement in the state's investigation into the 3rd largest currency by market cap, Tether. Their investigation determined Bitfinex and Tether Deceived Clients and the market by Overstating Reserves, Hiding Approximately $850 Million in Losses Around the Globe. An agreement with iFinex, Tether, and their related entities required them to cease any further trading activity with New Yorkers, as well as forced the companies to pay $18.5 million in penalties, in addition to requiring a number of steps to increase transparency. I encourage you to go back and look at the chart for Bitcoin and the stock market after this announcement. Both saw significant declines. This was only one state and did not apply to anywhere else. Since then tether has continued being used. For those of you unfamiliar tether is what it's called a stablecoin. The creators of tether alleged that each coin is backed by a dollar. The New York district attorney investigation found this to be false. Furthermore several academic papers have alleged that tether was the whale that drove the 2017 rise in Bitcoin prices and then caused its eventual collapse. The last claim has some controversy but I encourage you to read the paper I will enclose a link. The first question is not in controversy. the stablecoin tether is not backed by $1 for every unit like they claimed. They now claim that it's backed by a dollar or cash equivalent. As a part of their settlement agreement they are required to provide information as to what exactly these cash equivalents are. They have failed to do so. This caused the moment that I was waiting for as the sign to get out. There's a growing cry for a larger scale investigation into tether more specifically an audit into their books. I believe the evidence is overwhelming that they are a fraud on a level of Bernie Madoff. They are involved in billions of dollars worth of crypto Trading. If you look back at the charts for what happened when one state declared tether to be a fraud and multiply that by the 49 remaining I think you will see why I'm out of all crypto right now. One state has already proven that bitfinex and tether are frauds creating coins to cover losses on a massive scale. I was surprised at the time that people just seemingly forgot this and it continued being the standard for stable coins in the industry. In fact if you go to almost any exchange it will quote you the crypto versus USDT. So should an investigation find what the New York district attorney found and take the same action they did in banning it the consequences in the crypto market would be significant. I'm not claiming that tether is going to end cryptocurrency as a concept but I am claiming with evidence that it will cause a significant decline in the price. That one combined with the Chinese crackdown is more than enough reason for me to sit on the sidelines for a bit. I realize the comments are going to be filled with pro crypto people saying hodl or something and that's fine. I'm not trying to convince you to do anything it doesn't affect me but I am trying to provide you with information you may not have so that you can make a decision for yourself. So examine the information and make your own choice. Research on the Bitcoin whale https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3195066 ///// Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated, Fueling Skyrocketing Value, Researchers Say https://nyti.ms/2l49aN0 /////// https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-ends-virtual-currency-trading-platform-bitfinexs-illegal //// https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/09/ex-cftc-chairman-calls-for-more-regulation-of-tether-stablecoins.html /////// https://youtu.be/WW1QNQ8fsEM ////// Bitcoin Chart 2/23 https://www.kitco.com/news/2021-02-23/Bitcoin-daily-chart-alert-Bulls-getting-hammered-need-to-stabilize-prices-Feb-23.html ///// Stock market 2/23 https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/stock-market-news-for-feb-23-2021-2021-02-23
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