Tether's latest response "Single Whales Drive 2017 BTC Rise": Defective, nonsense, insult to the community

Just now, Bitfinex officially posted a blog saying that we have reviewed and analyzed the papers updated by John Griffin of the University of Texas and Amin Shams of Ohio State University. They said that a single whale boosted Bitcoin's surge in 2017. But the updated papers by Griffin and Shams are still flawed and embarrassing.

E.g:

1. Authors have previously publicly acknowledged that they do not have accurate data on key trading hours or capital flows across different exchanges. The serious lack of information means that they cannot build an effective sequence of events. In addition, the updated paper is still based on the same incomplete data and the original selected data, which makes the original research insufficient.

2. The authors now acknowledge that the transactions they observe may be consistent with Tether's market purchases, not Tether's issuance.

• Logistics + blockchain: improving ecosystems and giving new opportunities to the transportation industry
• Interpretation of the new SFC regulation: How to operate a licensed virtual asset exchange in Hong Kong?
• Interpretation: The road to energy saving and emission reduction, from PoW to PoC

3. Importantly, the author does not own or cite any data that Tether has sufficient reserves to support the circulation of Tether. Although Griffin made false exaggerations in his recent radical comments to the media, these authors have little understanding of the cryptocurrency market and the need to promote Tether token purchases.

In short, the digital token economy is driven by larger, more complex factors than the trading practices of any single participant. From the reaction to the latest documents, experienced senior traders in the ecosystem seem to fully understand the concept.

It's easy to attribute the soaring price of bitcoin in 2017 to such a simple approach, but it is an insult to the tens of thousands of people in our community who rely on the principles of digital currency economics.

In addition, Tether and its affiliates have never used Tether tokens or distributions to manipulate cryptocurrency or token pricing. All Tether tokens are fully supported by reserves and issued according to market demand, and this is not to manipulate the price of encrypted assets. It is completely wrong to assert that the issuance of Tether tokens for illegal activities is nonsense. Since December 2017, Tether token circulation has tripled. This is the result of Tether's acceptance and widespread utility in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Earlier, Scallions quoted Bloomberg News as saying that University of Texas professor John Griffin and Ohio State University's Amin Shams updated their first paper published in 2018. In last year's paper, they claimed that the soaring bitcoin in 2017 may be triggered by manipulation. Now, they have come up with a new claim that a whale may be the driving force behind misconduct, and it seems to have the ability to change prices at will. According to his research with another scholar, Amin Shams. John Griffin said in an interview:

“Our findings show that the price of Bitcoin is not driven by thousands of investors, but by a large investor.”

Tether opposed the allegation, and its general counsel, Stuart Hoegner, argued in the statement that the paper “has a fundamental flaw” and that the paper is based on an insufficient data set. In addition, he added that the study may have been published to support "parasitic lawsuits."

It's worth noting that, according to The Block, both Bitfinex and Tether issued their statements last month, saying they knew that "an unpublished, non-peer-reviewed paper mistakenly believed that Tether's release was manipulation encryption. The reason for the money market." However, the current updated paper has been peer reviewed and will be published in the forthcoming Journal of Finance.

In addition, the cryptocurrency community does not buy the results of this study.

Su Zhu, CEO of Three Arrow Capital, said that the scholar in charge of the paper "starts with a conclusion and then tries to find data to support it."

Mati Greenspan, market analyst at eToro, believes this conclusion is completely out of touch with his own experience. Greenspan said that in the 2017 uptrend, he witnessed the opening of “millions of retail accounts” on eToro.

Does that single bitcoin whale have the possibility of disturbing the encryption market? It is not uncommon for Whale Alert co-founder Frank van Weert to trace large wallets back to major exchanges. These exchanges and high-net-worth individuals and cryptocurrencies are known as "the biggest bitcoin whales." “Many traders think of a single trader when they hear the word whale, but so far, the exchange is the richest custodian of Bitcoin, they have the largest wallet.” According to Whale Alert, despite the single wallet Traders may influence the price of Bitcoin, but at the same time different holders of large amounts of Bitcoin will also have an impact.

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!