Kirk on Nostr: I normally agree with Lola, but she’s mistaken here on virtually every point of ...
I normally agree with Lola, but she’s mistaken here on virtually every point of this:
1. USDT on lightning is in no way “expanding US hegemony over the global south”. Most people in third world countries are desperate for dollars (Jack Mallers talks about this a lot, and this bottom-up demand is why Strike started supporting USDT on Tron). Compared to their local govt shitcoin, the USD is a pretty decent store-of-value.
While it used to be that only fairly wealthy people in these countries who were able to save in dollars (as they either had to have offshore bank accounts or purchase physical cash on the grey market), USDT vastly expands who has access to dollars. As much as I hate the dollar and the entire fiat system, in this context it is the opposite of subjugation. It is liberation for potentially billions of people.
It is also entirely opt-in. Compare some individual buying USDT on an app in their phone to vs the IMF or World Bank giving massive loans to their country’s dictator and then forcing all the citizens to pay off the debt once that dictator inevitably embezzles the funds. One is liberatory and voluntary, the other repressive and forced.
2. As for Lola’s second paragraph: “The collab circumvents US dependency on selling debt to other nations while furthering Tether's position as one of the largest buyers of US Treasuries, custodied by a private entity formerly owned and operated by the US Secretary of Commerce.” I’m not sure what is particularly negative about any of this.
We should want Tether’s position as one of the largest buyers of US Treasuries to be further cemented. Demand for USDT has historically been directly proportional to demand for bitcoin. If the US govt is dependent on Tether to buy its treasuries so it can fund itself, it can’t then go cracking down on bitcoin because that will affect demand for USDT and thus demand for treasuries.
This is unambiguously a good thing.
3. As for USDT being a CBDC… I’m not sure how Lola could be defining CBDC for this to make sense.
Despite being issued by the company, Tether, this company has virtually zero insight into who actually holds USDT. Tether only has direct knowledge of the KYC-verified accounts that deposit/redeem USDT directly with them.
This makes accurately discerning and freezing certain USDT wallets incredibly difficult. Especially since USDT is on a bunch of chains and swapped on all kinds of DEXes.
Chainalysis is already a bunch of probabilistic nonsensical voodoo akin to blood spatter analysis or the polygraph. Imagine how much harder things are going to be for the surveillers with USDT on lightning, where you already have pretty good privacy. Especially since you will be able to atomically swap USDT on lightning to USDT on Liquid (with confidential transactions).
This seems like the opposite of a CBDC. It’s far closer to the creation of dark, digital USDs.
1. USDT on lightning is in no way “expanding US hegemony over the global south”. Most people in third world countries are desperate for dollars (Jack Mallers talks about this a lot, and this bottom-up demand is why Strike started supporting USDT on Tron). Compared to their local govt shitcoin, the USD is a pretty decent store-of-value.
While it used to be that only fairly wealthy people in these countries who were able to save in dollars (as they either had to have offshore bank accounts or purchase physical cash on the grey market), USDT vastly expands who has access to dollars. As much as I hate the dollar and the entire fiat system, in this context it is the opposite of subjugation. It is liberation for potentially billions of people.
It is also entirely opt-in. Compare some individual buying USDT on an app in their phone to vs the IMF or World Bank giving massive loans to their country’s dictator and then forcing all the citizens to pay off the debt once that dictator inevitably embezzles the funds. One is liberatory and voluntary, the other repressive and forced.
2. As for Lola’s second paragraph: “The collab circumvents US dependency on selling debt to other nations while furthering Tether's position as one of the largest buyers of US Treasuries, custodied by a private entity formerly owned and operated by the US Secretary of Commerce.” I’m not sure what is particularly negative about any of this.
We should want Tether’s position as one of the largest buyers of US Treasuries to be further cemented. Demand for USDT has historically been directly proportional to demand for bitcoin. If the US govt is dependent on Tether to buy its treasuries so it can fund itself, it can’t then go cracking down on bitcoin because that will affect demand for USDT and thus demand for treasuries.
This is unambiguously a good thing.
3. As for USDT being a CBDC… I’m not sure how Lola could be defining CBDC for this to make sense.
Despite being issued by the company, Tether, this company has virtually zero insight into who actually holds USDT. Tether only has direct knowledge of the KYC-verified accounts that deposit/redeem USDT directly with them.
This makes accurately discerning and freezing certain USDT wallets incredibly difficult. Especially since USDT is on a bunch of chains and swapped on all kinds of DEXes.
Chainalysis is already a bunch of probabilistic nonsensical voodoo akin to blood spatter analysis or the polygraph. Imagine how much harder things are going to be for the surveillers with USDT on lightning, where you already have pretty good privacy. Especially since you will be able to atomically swap USDT on lightning to USDT on Liquid (with confidential transactions).
This seems like the opposite of a CBDC. It’s far closer to the creation of dark, digital USDs.