Thread by @AlamedaTrabucco

BTW, to connect some dots here -- a lot of the people seeking access to a coin like USDT *aren't* doing so via creation. They're often doing so via just sorta buying it in the markets -- and they're buying a LOT, and REALLY aggressively.

https://twitter.com/CoinDesk/status/1348653124773441544

The premium with which USDT trades to $1 is pretty volatile as a result -- as I type this, the average BTC/USDT market (as compared to BTC/USD) is trading about 15bp lower, implying USDT = $1.0015 or so. And that's all from people AGGRESSIVELY selling BTC vs. USDT to get USDT.

And note, *these* are the best markets to use to determine where USDT is trading -- the combo of BTC/USDT and BTC/USD markets, e.g., are WAY more liquid than any exchange's USDT/USD market, so the prices from these (even though it's a two-leg trade) matter way more.

(They're trying to get it for the reasons noted in the article, as well as maybe some other idiosyncratic ones pending market conditions -- distrust in local currency/banks, collateral, access to the super liquid USDT markets chief among them.)

Man, USDT fell back to $1 (in the BTC/USDT markets) as I was typing those previous tweets :P It really does trade a ton, and not especially efficiently on a second-to-second timescale.

Other stablecoins like USDC don't have anywhere near as volatile premia -- that's because the creation/redemption process is more involved for USDT, and fewer firms can actually do it. This is why, as I noted above, many who want it are going to markets and not creating.

And when USDT gets above $1? A sophisticated firm like Alameda with great setups on all the exchanges and bots to execute more than one leg at a time is gonna want to sell! And we do -- a LOT.

That's, for instance, a big part of the reason the price came back in line while I was writing this tweet :P when it diverges from $1 we can pretty safely put on big bets because, well, we *do* have the necessary setup to do large creations and redemptions when we want to.

And, as we've been noting recently on Twitter, we do these! A lot! And this is win-win -- obviously we're making money to it because we can, e.g., be selling above where we create, but we're also bringing the price in line so that when aggro buyers come in, it sticks close to $1.

Having done so much of this and worked so closely with their team is why we trust USDT much more than the rest of crypto twitter seems to at times :P Having done big creations when USDT > 1 and big redemptions when it's < 1 will do that -- and that's been a powerful tool.

The rest of the world is missing out on something for being so distrustful of USDT, I think -- but if no one else wants to collect this premium consistently, I guess we'll have to suck it up.