RE: Bitconnect, confirmed exit scam

I'm sure you're aware of Tether's influence on price. With so many coins, bitcoin last year included having such a low marketcap it was child's play for any manipulators to boost the price. It seemed like each new day was a pump and dump group's chance to rocket any altcoin of their choosing with a small enough marketcap to get the momentum going, this is pretty well-documented to have occurred numerous times through communications channels we're all familiar with.

As for yourself, as a large holder I would hope that you're aware of the problems that could present themselves if prices continue to drop as a result of the fallout from the inability for tether and wash-trading on the exchanges to keep a price floor on the crypto market.

I liken this problem to the one that's slowly happening in the fiat space. The direct parallel is that as long as the central banks continued to purchase assets or make bids on things like equities or corporate bonds or toxic instruments things seem to be good and a nice price floor is maintained or bonds seem cheap because there's always a buyer. When the central banks decide to slow down their purchases the market will arrive at true price discovery and quickly realize everyone only felt safe because they knew there would always be a buyer of last resort.

In crypto that could be applied to tether and the exchanges that sought a quick buck instead of making money the hard way via running decent exchanges and trading platforms and taking their already sizeable trading fees. Instead they decided to unleash the faucet of money, inject their own fake capital (USDT) into the system and allow the types of spoofing and wash trading that are banned for obvious reasons in regulated markets. When the buyer of last resort, let's say Bitfinex and all other exchanges that allow such activity via Tether, are no longer willing or able (due to a liquidity crunch, similar to how inter-bank lending can fail in times of crisis) to print more money (regulatory scrutiny can certainly do this to Tether itself if any government finds the incentive, they're afraid of US regulators hence banning US traders from using USDT, as with US traders comes US scrutiny which is why they're locked out of most ICOs) then price discovery quickly becomes a game of who has their money nearest the exit door.

This leaves most essentially trapped in a crowded room, and though the smoke may be obvious at first the gate-keepers themselves are the first to know of the underlying issues and will close the doors behind them if they see fit. Once the inferno is apparent you're left with hundreds of thousands if not millions stampeding towards any exit they can find, but they'll soon realize that the door they have available to them at their exchange of choice didn't actually lead outside, it just goes into another crypto-fire room.

Basically, if you can only exchange your crypto for USDT it means that there's no fire escape and you'll be lucky to get out with third-degree burns to your initial capital. Many will be left with just ashes. Sorry for painting this horrifying picture. Not many exchanges have access to real banking services, do not have the liquidity they state, and do not have fiat pairings. Trade carefully.

The TL;DR could be... Kraken+Poloniex=USDT trading exchanges, they have some of the fattest Steem wallets, and USDT's true value is a big question mark. Where's their banking? Why won't they be audited? Why is Kraken allowing 0 fee trades, are they really confident that they can operate without charging for trading, or are they just hoping you keep your money in the casino until they can cash out?