Profile picture
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
, 3 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
It's really singular that the Carreyrou of Bitfinex/Tether was an anonymous blogger (@Bitfinexed).

He had the outlines of this story before anyone, got many of the consequential details right, and did some really important archival research on previous actions of conspirators.
@Bitfinexed Kind of frustrating to me that of all the financial journalists in the world nobody said "Oh a multi-billion dollar fraud attached to one of our hottest news stories this year, maybe I should get on that beat consistently."
@Bitfinexed Credit where credit is due:

caribbeanbusiness.com/puerto-rico-to…

blog.bitmex.com/tether/

These folks listened to people who knew facts then found unambiguous government data substantiating them.
Missing some Tweet in this thread?
You can try to force a refresh.

Like this thread? Get email updates or save it to PDF!

Subscribe to Patrick McKenzie
Profile picture

Get real-time email alerts when new unrolls are available from this author!

This content may be removed anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @patio11 see all

Profile picture
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
The market doesn’t seem to sufficiently appreciate the risk that the government says: “Hmm, interesting theory that this money the money launderer has is your money. Were you money laundering? Or do we get to keep this?”
This isn’t a particularly cynical take, either; it was the opening part of the negotiation with Mt. Gox’s bankruptcy trustee over the customer deposits at Mutulum Sigulum, their US subsidiary and money laundering front. Conversation went:
Government: “We have you pretty dead to rights.”
Trustee: “I just got here, and am an actual responsible adult. What are my options?”
Government: “Save everyone some trouble. We keep half, you get half for the bankrupcy estate.”
Trustee: “Done.”
Read 3 tweets
Profile picture
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
I generally tell people to write on their own site as opposed to platforms as a hedge against the platform going away, but it also functions against getting your account suspended for e.g. alleged TOS violations, which can be caused by adversarial action in many circumstances.
Some genres of adversarial action are “You are in de facto competion with others covering the same beat for distribution by the platform and they may allege TOS violations to decrease competition for their content” and “People may intentionally misconstrue you into a violation.”
Should either of these happen you’re at the mercy of how customer service groups are budged for and incentived, which means there exists a material chance that you’ll get shut down and then have your tickets routed into the /dev/null queue.
Read 8 tweets
Profile picture
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
A lot of business models in e.g. publishing and the music industry already are ISAs, better known as equity; the offer is something like "We'd like to invest $20k into your book at a $5k pre-money valuation. Btw our terms have, let's say, a wee bit of structure."
This is re-using approximately accurately some startup financial jargon which is designed to be opaque for the purpose of pastiche, so I'll explain what that just said in words that are a little more generally well-known.
The publisher (which is analogous to an investor) is offering the author a payment of $20k for equity (ownership) of the book. In this approximation, the publisher has offered $20k for 80% ownership.

The term "structure" here means "there are material strings attached."
Read 4 tweets

Related threads

Profile picture
David Silver (SILVER MILLER)
@dcsilver
0/ Sometimes people only look at a Complaint and then ignore the lawsuit as it moves forward. That's a mistake. Sometimes the Defendant's response is just as important for either what they say or don't say. #Bitfinex #LetsDiveIn - iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/DocumentD…
1) #Bitfinex moves to vacate the #PreliminaryInjunction - Obvious move, because the #PreliminaryInjunction as written (especially as it relates to the discovery) is VERY bad for them. The more people say Tether is backed by 74% is also bad...
2) Page 1, Paragraph 2 says in BOLD that the parties have been "cooperating for months." Ummmm, if #Bitfinex had been cooperating for months, it wouldn't find itself in this position. The amount of pages produced does not = cooperation. #MyGuessIsItWasCloserToStonewalling
Read 15 tweets
Profile picture
Caitlin Long 🔑
@CaitlinLong_
1/ STUNNED but not surprised by #Bitfinex #Tether news out of #NewYork. I'll let other cryptolawyers analyze it but here are two macro thoughts: (1) There's a big double standard here. (2) Exchanges, clean up your act--cryptographically prove your solvency
2/ First, the double-standard. Why didn't the NY AG throw the Martin Act at Merrill Lynch for doing something actually quite similar from 2009-12? Seriously, why the double standard??? Quoting the SEC's press release here: sec.gov/news/pressrele…
3/ "The maneuver freed up billions of dollars per week from 2009-12 that Merrill Lynch used to finance its own trading activities. Had Merrill Lynch failed in the midst of these trades, the firm’s customers would have been exposed to a massive shortfall in the reserve account."
Read 8 tweets
Profile picture
Raisah Ahmed
@RaisahAhmed
Right, this might be long. Let me just talk about being a visible Muslim women working in the film and television industry in Scotland. I have been asked, at an event for women in the industry, why I was at the event, the woman asking couldn't understand how someone 'like me'
wasn't at home producing a million babies and being restricted by my parents. I have been at festival openings and seen an open bar but not a single option for free non-alcoholic drinks. I have been told that if I was to change my lead character to a white woman then they'd take
on the project, a south asian woman just won't sell. For a while, every event or opportunity felt like it had added struggle to it, a need either conform to the stereotypes OR be really bold and clear my own space and firmly occupy it. When I decided I was going to work in this
Read 18 tweets
Profile picture
Eric
@econoar
1/ I don’t think there is any type of scam or fraud behind @bitfinex, #Tether, and $USDT reserves. Today’s report gave the market the most important information they needed (reserves are there), yet doubters want more. Here is why I don’t think there is fraud with #Tether:
2/ The hit on Bitfinex is that they are printing $USDT with no backing. This would mean that Bitfinex is knowingly committing fraud and market manipulation for in the crypto space, all while the biggest spotlight is on them. This seems extremely unlikely to me for many reasons.
3/ First let’s take a look at Occum’s Razor: “a problem-solving principle that, when presented with competing hypothetical answers to a problem, one should select the answer that makes the fewest assumptions.” Let’s take facts and not assumptions.
Read 11 tweets
Profile picture
Naomi Hughes
@NaomiHughesYA
Time for another writing craft thread! Since I only have limited time today (and am still recovering from a sinus infection), how about something broad? Say, the top 5 story problems I see as an editor!
Number 1 problem I see most frequently in manuscripts: lack of agency. Agency = character's ability to push the plot forward with their actions/choices. A character with no agency is basically a pinball in an arcade game: reactive, without true power to drive their own story.
Most frequently, I see female MCs who have no agency. Or, equally problematic, who are written to SEEM like they have agency, but actually don't. Ex: the kickbutt MC heroine who beats up bad guys (that's action, but not agency) while her boyfriend actually moves the plot.
Read 24 tweets
Profile picture
Robert-Jan den Haan
@erjeetjeh
THREAD: Some takeaways from the article published today by @FTM_nl on #Tether / #Bitfinex (article is in Dutch). I worked with @thomasbollen on the research behind the article and the leads that provided were followed up by Thomas. Hope you’ll read & share ftm.nl/artikelen/ing-…
1/ The article first discusses many, often separately reported, facts about Tether and Bitfinex, i.e. Paradise papers, loss of banking, break with audit company, +800m tethers in Jan, tetherreport.com, and adds all sorts of details to provide an in-depth longread.
2/ While doing research into Tether and Bitfinex, we stumbled upon an ING bank account. The article particularly describes results of subsequent research steps taken by Thomas on this Dutch link. It provides some new insights, the main takeaways are outlined below.
Read 13 tweets

Trending hashtags

#NRI #Melbourne #MorganLewisBockius #NYC #Constitution #OpPedoHunterUnited #bitcoin #JCsArmyofHate #usdt #Migrant #Corbyn #Anonymous #MaybeThatsJustMe #FakeNews #Bitfinex #TeenyBopper #مدن_السودان_تنتفض #RKBA #SudanUprising #Indian #Work #FreeAssange #Cavanaugh #bfx #TheBestWeaponIsUsuallyYourOpponentsOwnWords
Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just three indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!