Sunday Reads – Links I Found Interesting 2021-05-16

Tether Releases Asset Breakdown

I wrote up my thoughts on it here.

https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/05/13/for-every-1-of-tether-there-are-0-03-in-cash/

Cas Piancey and I also did a podcast episode on it:

https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/05/15/new-episode-of-tether-a-stable-discussion-with-cas-piancey-tethers-pie-charts/

David Gerard wrote up his and seems to have trouble determining what a ‘reverse repo note’ might be:

Tether publishes … two pie charts of its reserves

Amy Castor (archive) also wrote up her thoughts on this not particularly valuable breakdown.

The Financial Times did some coverage as well and got some great quotes.

Nikhilesh De at Coindesk had some of the best ‘breaking’ coverage of it the morning it came out.

Protos also had some excellent coverage which helped dissect the backing.

Inside the Great Pie Chart giving Tether its dollar value

Crypto Capital Corp and Backpage

Kyle Gibson discusses some of the links between Crypto Capital (who I covered here) and Backpage.

Zhao Dong Tried and Sentenced

Protos Media covers the sentencing and the trial 

Bitfinex shareholder and ‘OTC king’ in Chinese court on criminal charges, docs

China’s crypto king pleads guilty to laundering $480M for online casinos, report

My co-author Cas Piancey did a summary podcast.

Cas has been one of the most proactive in covering Zhao Dong.

Zhao Dong Still Matters: Here’s Why

Zhao Dong: The Final Word

Another Usecase Bites the Dust

Elon Musk Finally Learns About Bitcoin

Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021

Dungeons and Dragons Combat Wheelchair 2.1 Released

This is a really cool item and ruleset if you have players at your table who want to play with a wheelchair.

ICYMI

Protos Media revealed that one of the top Brexit donors Christopher Harborne is a Bitfinex shareholder. It is currently unclear if he is related to Will Harborne, former leader of EthFinex.

Brexit’s top donor outed as Bitfinex, Tether parent shareholder

I compared Tether to wildcat banks and Liberty Reserve and gave away how I think the story ends.

https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/05/15/wildcat-banks-liberty-reserve-and-tether/

I spent some time detailing troubling links between the 2015 Bitstamp Hack, the 2015 Bitfinex hack, and the 2017 Tether hack.

https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/05/04/the-2015-bitstamp-2015-bitfinex-and-2017-tether-hacks-are-connected/

This old podcast is worth a listen. Larry Cermak (Director of Research at the Block) and I discuss whether or not Tether is a good actor. He says he would be shocked to find out that Tether was less than 98-99% backed.

https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/01/13/my-appearance-on-the-blockchain-debate-podcast-with-larry-cermak-and-patrick-mckenzie/

I finally got to give this homebrew item to a player in my campaign and they seemed quite excited.

https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/03/09/the-dagger-of-vitality-stealing/

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