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As the FUD keeps coming strong to [finish up this month](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-30/crypto-exchange-bitfinex-tether-said-to-get-subpoenaed-by-cftc), I see more people having questions and more people are on edge about "the impending crash."  I thought I'd share my perspective about these issues and why I'm actually not even considering this a crash and it's just something I planned for starting in November of last year.  Many traders or long term holders are aware that January is consistently the low point of the year for crypto and generally take profits or tether most of their coins towards the end of the year for this very reason.  It's a great way to rapidly increase in value by buying back in when we feel the bottom has hit.  So what is the "Tether Problem" that is coming to light actually about and what does it mean?
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I feel that to understand this issue you need some background information of when the issues really started.  I will do my best to keep all trading terms relatively simple and explain them to the best of my ability.  Essentially what has been going on for the past couple of years is that many traders have been accusing Bitfinex of "naked shorting" their margin trading platform and have been working to deduce where exactly the "naked funds" are coming from.  Margin is when you trade more than you have on collateral for what you do have.  Margin positions either become profitable and there is no problem, or they are not profitable and lose money, in which case your collateral funds are leveraged against the loss up until the point the loss is greater than your collateral and the account closes and you lose your collateral.  Hopefully you are all still with me at this point.

The issue of "naked shorting" is one that many have been concerned about in the crypto space for some time and it's really only possible if an exchange has control over the production of a token.  Enter the USDT token from Tether.  According to [their website](https://tether.to/), every single token is backed by its' equivalent in fiat currency and this is all handled publicly and transparently.  The only way this could be possible is with routine audits of the Tether financials by a trusted third party, which are no longer happening.  The current theory, which I am not really inclined to delve into trying to prove is that Bitfinex actually owns Tether and produced USDT tokens that are not backed by fiat (which ironically isn't backed by anything itself) for the purpose of manipulating the crypto markets for profit, giving them an unfair trading advantage against their own customers.
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 Let's avoid the obvious pitfall that many of us feel fiat currency is worthless and consider why this is likely just more FUD.  Assuming that we look at previous years and know how to read charts and see that January is generally the pits for the crypto market, we can probably draw the conclusion that this was coming as many of us did and are buying now.  The Chinese regulatory issues were a joke.  The U.S. tax law regarding crypto is so convoluted most aren't going to even be able to take it seriously.  The Korean ban turned out to be pure FUD and manipulation.  Are we seeing a trend yet?  The governments are creating fear in the crypto market which coincided quite nicely with the January 17th low and closing of the first BTC futures contracts.  I would say it's not a far stretch of the imagination that long positions on BTC futures are going to be opened before the next price run up and we are going to be cycling patterns with futures contracts for the time being.  The "Tether Problem" isn't really even a problem if you do the math, it's approximately 0.42% of the total crypto market cap.  The real problem that I see is we are going to be facing government and institutional interference via futures contracts.  That's my two cents anyway.  Namaste.
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>Image sources: [1](http://az705044.vo.msecnd.net/20180128/tether.png) , [2](https://www.coinspeaker.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Bitcoin-Exchange-Bitfinex-Discontinuing-Services-to-U.S.-Customers.jpg)