A bunch of people were mean to me for asking Tether questions, so figure I’ll just leave it alone now.

Ahahahaha, just kidding: R̶u̶s̶s̶i̶a̶ ̶T̶o̶d̶a̶y̶ Max has roughly tripled my interest.

And anyhow, we haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet….
1/ https://twitter.com/maxkeiser/status/1344823172827377664

So last night I'm like, “how do I exact righteous nerd vengeance on these impolite rubes?”

And then I said to myself, “Self, let's follow the money like the detectives in the movies!”
2/

First, we develop a hypothesis: what we would expect to see if something nefarious was going on, and then we’ll look for it?

Perhaps not a “Karl Popper approved” method of inquiry, but then again what is? (properly using a brain is quite hard…)
3/

And I concluded that what I'd expect to see is capital flight from USDT-only exchanges to USD-enabled exchanges.

This may be confusing to some, so let's unpack what I mean first.
4/

Some exchanges have actual Dollars and some only have Tethers. A few have both. If you want dollars, you have to get them from the former.

Curiously, the tether-only ones are where you get insane leverage… but I digress, let's save that for the next time RT-Max stops by.
5/

So if some cynical, secretly-fiat-believing actor were to do something of dubious intent, we’d expect to see capital migration toward real dollar exchanges.

What would that look like? Well, I wasn't sure until I dug in.

And then I was like “holy shit.”
6/

This will take some unpacking so let's start with the easy stuff.

Coinbase is a real dollar exchange, and when we look at the BTCUSD price delta between it and Bitfinex, we note that bitcoin is more valuable on Coinbase - a trend that increases during pumps.
7/

“But corelation isn't causation!” chant the cyber hornets.

Yeah well… I'm far from done, my pointy-arsed friends.

For starters, let's also note the same delta with Kraken here:
8/

Someone will ask about my thesis because FinTiwt () so just to really drill it out, the thesis is:

“Under a capital flight condition, having BTC on a real dollar exchange will be more valuable than on a USDT exchange, and market dynamics will reflect that.”
9/

But wait, this sandwich comes with chips!

Digging in more, I found the following useful twitter search string:

"from unknown wallet to #Coinbase" (from:whale_alert)

Go ahead: try it out, I'll wait here.
10/

Interesting right? What you're looking at is a transaction record of large, unknown actors moving money to Coinbase, a real dollar exchange.

You can sub 'Coinbase’ for ‘Kraken’ or whatever, but let's stay here and poke around for a bit first.
11/

Note that our hypothesis has 2 dominant capital carriers: BTC and XLM.

If we chart these volumes out, it’s curious to note the large spikes during USA holidays:
12/

These BTC/XLM flows represent roughly $3.6B of capital flight since November - to Coinbase alone!

I didn't go back farther than that because I had to hand-collate all this, but it could be an interesting project for someone who, like me, obviously lives in mom’s basement.
13/

Oh… did I mention the meal also comes with a beverage?

And it's a fun one: go pull up a chart of XLMUSD (proposed capital carrier)

Wait never mind, I'll do it so nobody has to get up:
14/

Notice how that thing “moons” in November, and then again later?

Now: guess when XLM volumes to Coinbase started...

Now this is a tidy transport mechanism!
15/

Okay, I'll explain: let's say you're moving capital out of <whatever> but you'd also like double your money.

1. Put into XLM
2. Jam XLM price higher
3. Convert to Dalla Bills

16/

I mean that's pretty incredible - Np wonder I've been consigned to the world of staying poor, I'd never see that angle.

Well… except for right now when I just did.

But other than that, I really "don't understand crypto."
17/

Oh hey, while we're on the topic let's also verify that the capital extraction process makes XLM more valuable on certain exchanges like Coinbase.

Well, look at that: an extraction spike.
18/

But wait! Rice crispy treat for dessert too!

On some exchanges, you can see a direct USDT/USD pair. Let's look at one here, against BTC price:
19/

…and we can observe that Tether is more valuable when BTC is low, and less valuable when it moons.

Why? Impossible to really know for sure, but selling a crap ton of Tether to juice your extraction carrier vehicles would be one plausible explanation.
20/

Is it China? Is it Putin? Is Max Keizer Putin???

Obviously I have no idea.

All I know is that “sunlight is the best disinfectant,” and that I don't like cheap shots at well-intentioned curiosity.

Particularly my curiosity because, obviously, I have issues.
20/

Gotta say... for an evening worth of work by an adderall addict with a terminal (note: I use tradingview, you spoiled brat).

<tosses aside severed clown head>

So: who’s next?

21/21