What proof is there exactly that USDC is different?
But everyone who didn’t just fall off a truck knows Tether is capitalized at maybe 30%, and there’s a lot of mediocre commercial paper in the assets it does hold.
USDC and Tether are completely different asset classes.
USDT is casino chips you have to buy to play the low-cap alt-coin slot machine. USDC has a de facto address within reach of the FBI.
What does this mean?
If USDT fails and goes to 0, people will lose their money, and probably no government will be able to go after the creators of USDT (Bitfinex?) and their "collateral".
If USDC fails, the US government can actually make Coinbase responsible. And that's a public company with a 51B USD market cap. As a holder of USDC, you could reasonably expect to see some money back.
Maybe, maybe not. USDC is not legal tender. Coinbase could easily argue it is nothing but monopoly money with a value of $0USD.
But the point is that the USDT people are already some combination of accused/investigated-for/sanctioned-for misrepresenting the amount and quality of the collateral, seem to have very little to lose by doubling down and to many (most?) people look like a worse credit risk than CoinBase.
Not being an accountant I rely a lot on inside baseball, but I know some whales and I’ve never heard Tether described as credibly backed.
See in particular this comment from a user who claims to be a former auditor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27532670
Thank you for pointing me to it.
Now I’m no CoinBase apologist, they’re accused of stuff that would make Dutsche blush, but USDC is a completely different animal than Tether. I won’t take payment someone’s share of dinner in USDT or ETH for that matter, I will happily hold USDC for short periods of time.
Basically, you're just trusting Coinbase.
I'd rather trust a publicly-traded company in the United States which has serious accountants certifying the validity of their books and plenty of assets subject to seizure in the the same jurisdiction I live in than some guys who at least one state has already decided don't have the money.
I'm working on my HN etiquette but it's been a long week. If I act a like a fucking smartass, call me on it, and I'll return the favor. Don't be a smartass.
Agreed! But I'd propose refraining from just making stuff up off the top of your head that is demonstratedly wrong on every level. Don't be an idiot.
What part of "I'd much prefer to hold USDC than USDT personally because I think not all accountants are Arthur Anderson-level criminals" are you objecting to exactly?
Use your words.
Because of volatility, or something else?
The concrete reason is that I'm not (nor interested in being) a currency speculator, and so I do all my currency speculation in the form of being at least somewhat long the one currency I understand reasonably well, which is `USD`.