Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Episode 180: Untethered (Patreon)

Published:
2021-08-30 22:29:42
Edited:
2021-09-24 02:36:55
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

Content

We examine the bizarre criminal history of one of the least stable tokens in the cryptoverse and quite possibly the largest Ponzi scheme ever: Tether. Featuring: Brock Pierce, the Colombian drug cartels, DaCryptoSnake, the Minnesota Vikings, a fake Dutchman, and more.

Files

Comments

Paul Brewer

‘Perfidious Dutch’? More like TrueXenophobAnon, amirite? Jan Ludovicus nowadays is going by Jean-Louis if the Bitfinex website is to be believed

dam

You called?

Norbur

Would love to get brace's reading list for this episode. I feel out of my depth but fascinated. Also, love hearing the inception of coindexter again

D G

Why surprised? Crypto does literally mean "secret".

D G

Also... You really should stop saying "They can't do this". They literally can and did do it. It might be illegal but, as you know, laws are nothing to these people.

Andrew

Just popping in here on St Patrick’s Day 2025 to note that Hurling is absolutely a sport.

Josh

Bitcoin’s conceptualization as a digital version of mining for gold is very useful (it is a great analogy and easily shows why bitcoin is worthless; unlike gold, bitcoin itself is not useful whatsoever when considered independent of its use as a currency) Yeah, yeah. Many have tread this ground before me. The analogy I’m working on works the same way, except instead of wasting work (energy) to mine gold (bitcoin), the generative AI people are wasting resources like water and land to grow (create) shitty, ugly flora (ai pictures, videos, and other useless content). As of now, this is really just a poetic metaphor, without any real useful knowledge arising from it. People spending lots of money to buy AI artwork that in a year will be worth as much as a rotted flower. Companies making their AI farms produce opium poppies and marijuana, drugs to be consumed to make you feel good; how different is this from the grandiose, complimentary AI slop people get from ChatGPT, that they consume and that makes them happy for a bit, just a bit, and leaves nothing behind but an urge to consume more compliments and “you’re right!”-s. While we still have not solved food insecurity for the children in our country, we use water and land to grow roses for the people who have failed them to buy and admire, display for others. California has been sinking for a century as we sucked the earth dry for hundreds of feet below the ground. Now we drill deeper; this time not for black gold, not to grow the food that sustains our country, but for ancient water we waste on worthless wallflowers to cover the cracked desert floor as we sink closer and closer to Hell.

Joan

Thanks for this daddio

gatito

Second baby

Frank Cold

Brock Pierce? Pfffft. More like c*ck smol

Bud Light

F1 sucks you in. My 2 year old watches it with me.

Bobby Volcano

If you guys have pull with the Patreon people can you please make it so you can both pause and restart with the button on your Bluetooth? Feels like a pretty core ui/ux thing. Thanks, great ep too

A S

Really cool that you guys finally did a Tether episode. It's at least as important as Bitcoin in the cryptocurrency cesspool, bit no one seems aware of it. I've been waiting for this particular house of cards to collapse for a while now, but I accept now that this shit isn't going anywhere. Also, almost nothing in Hong Kong is based, least of all Digibigifinex.

NYCM&AHole

BZZZZT WRONGO LIZ, YOU CAN HAVE THE SAME SIGNATORY SIGNING FOR TWO CORPORATE ENTITIES

Jimothy Realname

F1 is wild. I have a friend who's really into it and he told me they basically train kids from birth to become F1 drivers. Get 'em into go-karts at like 7, movie up into *fast* go-karts, etc.

Bobby Volcano

Fuddy duddy seems like a Liz word, fuddy daddy seems like a Brace alias

#1 Deep Thinker

Belden Program for the bicentennial episode plz

Kasz

It can't be that hard. One of those Hapsburg inbreds does it.

Jorge Michael Stefan Lima

I have no problem with cashing out in binance tho, it goes into my bank accounts in matter of seconds... when it comes to large quantities tho, stablecoins are more widely used cuz people don't want to convert it into dollars (which amounts to "selling" your crypto) and end up paying taxes....... and if there's one thing that the crypto community hates more than fiat, it's taxes

pulled a muscle yearning

Liz, if you're into F1 check out the Rich Energy story, and maybe check out Alanis King who's writing a book on it. She also has a fairly insane twitter feed. Could be a fun story to dive into

Sick dude

Haha! Brace's crypto voice is freakin awesome! Tales from the Crypto Keeper!

justdave

No cryin' in baseball (we still love you honey)

Alex

This junkie nurse comes into my work and every time mentions crypto. Who is Chris hoskinson?

justdave

Before this'n started I said to myself, "God Damn I hate cryptoshit' - thank you for making my feelings feel validated

justdave

BRACE GO ON CUMTOWN!

NYCM&AHole

I was the crypto keeper until Twitter suspended my account

MoldyTolge

True Anon is in the Portal Universe, incredible reveal at the end

jules

where tf is collins rector

Michael S. Judge

that sounds like an ALADDIN SANE outtake, and the first line would be like "Hooked a smooth little spaceboy just before they bombed the X-ray boutique" [saxophone honk]

justdave

I hate how I still kinda like bowie, despite being a grown up, ~and~ him being a chomo an all

Sparrow

I didn’t respect racing as a sport until someone bought me 16 laps (plus 8 as a ride-a-long) in Dover. It is so intense and fun to constantly go 200 mph

Rhod

Dam! I know this is really important stuff but it’s really hard to follow. I’m going to have to listen to it again.

John Stokes

So what I’m getting is this world has become a whole bunch of bottoms that people are trying to stop from falling out. From the housing market to our banking system. Wall Street. Crypto. It’s all bs. The only difference between what’s going on in crypto and what goes on in the other financial markets is the people manipulating those markets have the experience and the contacts to keep that bottom from falling…

SoldierBlue

Lol. I thought it was my headphones

Kasz

Anakin Hapsburg: iM tHe oNlY nOn HuMaN wHo CaN dO iT (Sorry, I'm done)

stuckforever

Yeah I have trouble following anything cryptocurrency related. Its all just BS numbers to me

Gavin Farrell

Thanks for the skeptical look at crypto. This is like 1929 penny junk stocks all over. Deregulated casino nonsense.

Elsie Hupp

“Legitimate” casinos are quite regulated by comparison. Casinos don’t need to cheat* in order to make money. Casinos even tell you up front what their statistical take is! … * whether banning skilled play (i.e. in blackjack) counts as cheating is up to the observer.

absoluteboi

i've made $90K playing the crypto markets since last november lmao ponzi schemes rule

Dubaba

Speaking of biodynamic wine...biodynamics is rooted in Nazi German mysticism. Alot of weird crossover, plus Rudolph Steiner is a fucking nut.

Luis

“Crypto is pretty contained” just like “subprime is contained” and “inflation is transitory”

Brydon

It costs more than $800 to buy a suit??

cstenzy

The Channel 5 appearance ended all possible discussion about your height

Adam Brosnan

I agree that Tether is proper sketchy, but a lot of your criticisms apply to when the US came off the gold standard. France and other countries didn’t think the US had the gold to back how many dollars were in circulation so they started cashing in their gold at the agreed rate, so the US reneged on it’s commitment to it. But the dollar still maintained it’s place in the system because it maintained its intrinsic value even though it’s theoretical base had been removed. Tether is being accepted by people who have a lot of money in Bitcoin so they clearly see it as à legitimate store of value. All that considered, Tether is so fucked up and it seems inextricably linked with the Tron Network and Justin Sun. something just doesn’t feel right about it.

Adam Brosnan

And that governments are trying to develop Central Bank Digital Currencies. I’m not exactly an advocate of private money, but it seems to be more legitimate then Brace and Liz are making out. The same goes for a lot of others in the space.

Adam Brosnan

I just listened to the point about the printing of tether being correlated to Bitcoin price jumps. I need to reconsider everything I’ve just said. I still somewhat maintain the gist of the comments though.

Adam Brosnan

And the Gary Gensler MIT lecture series on blockchain and distributed ledger technology. It’s on MITs YouTube page. Gary is now the current chairman of the SEC.

Adam Brosnan

And the stockmarket is in theory exactly the same. Value being backed by people in hope of it increasing in monetary value. ‘Robbing from Peter to pay Paul’. I just think it’s a more nuanced conversation than the pod is making it out to be.

Sean

the episode where brace loses his mojo

Terrance McDonald

Where the hell was the Van Halen drop, Chomsky??

Drake

Stables coins on foreign exchanges are "like" money laundering cause every crypto transaction is a taxable event. Its possible to get rekt and still end up owing millions in taxes , if you made money trading before losing it all! Buying stablecoins and trading on foreign exchanges, then bringing stable back IS an effective tax avoidance strategy FOR NOW. Unless you get greedy. Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered- by the IRS I mean

Vendetta

Ummm what kind of Satoshi kink is brace going on about wow

Starry Pr1nce

I'm still not sure what brace's (and other left pod guys) basic critique of crypto in general is. It seems to be focused on the easy target grifters rather than any principled critique of blockchain tech itself. Like what is their strategy for storing value in the current political economy? Obv not saying btc max. We have inflation, inaction on stagnant wages, no m4a on the horizon, blackrock buying houses to rent to you, democrats that made the Bush tax cuts permanent, etc. Like why is any coin worse than the dollar at this point? Does it even matter? Value can only be stored in the maintenance of healthy social institutions, you can't just do *brace sound*. That being said if you hold your crypyo off exchanges then you will still own it long term, after the tether house of cards crumbles. What's the real critique of Cardano and Vechain?

birdo

The "left" pod scene is funded by The Fed to discredit both Crypto and the ABC organizations

A S

Well yeah, economic utility is inversely related to social utility.

Connor Gouge

nobody is going to use internet money in the developed world, they are just going to keep using USD/EUR etc because that's what they get paid in and that is what they pay taxes in. What is the benefit for normal people to use it or care at all? You say they aren't any worse than the dollar but unless people can start using it with as much convenience as the dollar why would they switch? What is the actual benefit for people? It doesn't help their wages, it doesn't help reduce your mortgage/rent, your boss isn't going to pay you in it if the business income is in USD so it doesn't save you from inflation because most americans have practically no savings, why should anyone actually care?

A Loon

My (not investment advice) is that crypto is a ponzi, yep, there's an element of ponzi in all investments. The interesting thing is that crypto is more a pure ponzi, a levered long on the current run-up. Scary! What can break it though? Why not dance while the music is playing, what could go wrong? BTW, I have 0$ in crypto, though frequently I wonder if that is a mistake.

TA

someone just deleted the tether controversy section on Wikipedia lol

Colin Richardson

I hope there are some f1 episodes in the future: max moseley, racing in despotic countries for cash, rich energy, Tony fernandez, vijay mallya, bernie’s bribery case, toto was just “cleared” of insider trading last week. A complete cesspool.

Seamus Rafferty

Hurling is in fact a sport that's been played in Ireland for over 1,000 years

Stephen Wells

Has anyone broke this news to Graham Elwood?

Sam

Starry Pr1ncess, the real critique is that Tether is manipulating cryptocurrency prices higher by printing unbacked tether and aggressively buying in a highly illiquid market. These massive speculative price increases damage the use case of cryptocurrency which is more credible than the government USD money printing scam but the government writes the rules and doesn't like competition.

Adam Brosnan

@Sam, surely the same is true of the FED printing loads of money to re-inflate the traditional stockmarket? It’s conceptually identical to what Liz described with Tehter, just one of the markets being manipulated is being singled out as somehow especially problematic. Also, stock buybacks are a thing. I just dislike how crypto is being singled out as somehow worse or different.

TrueAnonPod

crypto != USD and tether != the fed. fiat denominated in USD is backed by "full faith and credit" of the united states government there is no equivalency to cyptocurrency and anyone telling you otherwise is trying to scam you. it is absolutely not conceptually identical. you can critique QE and the reverse repo arrangements and other fed policies and speculate about on the ground inflation (or deflation, as it may turn out) but crypto is an asset, and tether, which is money laundering USD into counterfeit tokens is inflating the prices on the speculative asset.

Skip scrambler

Was hoping someone would pipe in with this. And it’s not just throwing. 😂

Adam Brosnan

Well, technically, when Nixon took the US off the gold standard, he said he could because the dollar was underpinned by the American industrial base, which is no longer the force it was. So now the dollar doesn’t have its material basis in gold and the rationale for being able to take the US off the gold standard (it’s industrial base), is no longer valid. As I said in my other comments, I agree with a lot of what is said, but people are losing faith in ‘the full faith and credit’ of the United States government. @Liz, what is more legit, Tesla, or a crypto like Cardano or Etherium? The EiB is using etherium services for digital bank notes. I just feel like the show was laser focused on it all being a scam and ignored anything to the contrary.

TrueAnonPod

its not throwing...it's hurling!!!! You're barfing up a disk with your arms!

David Bauer

great episode, I’m dying for a deep true anon treatment of Maoism.

ab

if brace slanders poles one more time im gonna do an old pagan ritual on his soul

sammi sweetheart

i feel like part of it is the fact that the names of the entities involved are so nonsensical in themselves. i feel like i’d have to actively take notes to even retain the building blocks. these sorts of episodes usually take 2-3 listens for me and even then i feel i have a tenuous grasp. as dumb as it sounds, a terminology shortlist might be kind of nice to have.

Ernest Ambrus

Can there be a two part special on Coindexter already?

Rhod

A diagram would work I think

A S

I hate all of this shit so much, but I must confess I do have moments where I think "If you can't beat em, join em"

Shiv

“When you give your b!tch a penny farthing —that’s a bicycle” words to friggin live by

Jessica S

YES. I want this too.

Jessica S

I feel like there have been several topics in the last year that I’ve looked up on Wikipedia, things that would definitely have at least had a conspiracy theory article related to it and was surprised to find neither a conspiracy section or mention of whatever it is I was looking up.

justdave

I'm canceling my subscription

MR DOUGLAS MURDOCH

Yes! I was sure I had seen this on TV. thanks for confirming I wasn't imagining things

Xander Udo

#dutchlistenersheartliz

Treppy

push and wait a literal second and then push again it will start playing. i don’t know why.

Tomas Fala

That's called discus ya dunce

brett Kreidberg

I think January 6 foot obviously plant because why would a right wing malicious attempted coup without any guns?? There’s no way that the most Second Amendment loving people in the world would attempt a coup without being fully armed. Come on now

DH

i'm a very dumb man when it comes to finance but even I understand that at its core, crypto isn't an alternative to the dollar -- it's all fake assets whose value will only ever be measured by its worth in terms of fiat currency. Its a symptom of the speculative vampire economy that's arisen to feast on the rotting corpse of a thoroughly deindustrialized, privatized imperial core that has lost any sense of purpose in the world. This shouldn't be hard to understand -- look at who is profiting from the "crypto" "market," and ask what good it has done for the world. The answer is nothing.

Tim Cooper

https://twitter.com/StateCommon/status/1418317516313567234?s=20 Quote: "Let’s recap: - Tether owns 30+ billion in Commercial Paper. They are unwilling to say who their CP is from. - The printing of $1 Tether coins stopped around June 6th. - On June 7th, Chinese real estate developer Evergrande was unable to repay their CP loans on time." https://twitter.com/FirstSquawk/status/1435260980036980741 "BITCOIN EXTENDS FALL, LAST AT $45,953, DOWN 13% ON THE DAY" lol guess this is what happens when you use commercial paper like a bank and someone can't pay on time. Whole crypto is getting rocked right now.

Samuel Feder

I was just in Sedona for a wedding and a store that was asking $1,200 for a geode crystal had a sign on the door that they took Bitcoin. Anyway god save us all

meyer

Shitcoin

Andrew

Back for a relisten 👀