Phil Potter on Bitfinex and Tether

Mr Obnoxious - A podcast by Peter McCormack

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Interview location: New York
Interview date: Saturday 11th May, 2019
Company: Bitfinex & Tether
Role: Chief Strategy Officer at Bitfinex | Co-Founder at Tether

Creating a Bitcoin business is hard, especially one processing hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in value. For exchanges, these challenges are especially difficult, from defending against relentless hack attempts to securing banking services.

Starting a Bitcoin business today is undoubtedly easier; companies have become more open to working with Bitcoin businesses and specialist providers now exist. Still, the regulatory challenges exist as companies serve international customers with a broad set of unclear, jurisdiction-specific laws.

Bitfinex has a long history in Bitcoin, surviving many of its own challenges. It too suffered a major hack which nearly destroyed the business and faced the challenges of navigating the regulatory framework while struggling for banking services. Further, many of the team at Bitfinex were responsible for the creation of Tether, itself facing many difficulties.

In this interview, I talk with Phil Potter, who was Chief Strategy Office at Bitfinex and co-founder of Tether. We discuss the Bitfinex hack, challenges of getting banking services, the history of Tether and the difficulty of auditing reserves.

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Helpful Links:

Connect with Phil:
- On Twitter @PhilGPotter
- On Crunchbase

Mentioned in the interview:
- Bitfinex
- Tether
- Bitfinex Examined: Inside the Troubled Bitcoin Exchange’s History
- Bitfinex hack
- Bitfinex Token Sale Has Lined Up $1 Billion in Commitments, Shareholder Says
- New York Prosecutors Demand Transparency From Bitfinex and Tether
- Bitfinex and Tether Ask Court to Loosen NYAG’s Fund Restrictions
- Tether Audit: FSS Report States All USDT Is Fully Backed, but Can’t Prove It
- Bitfinex and Tether is unauditable: Why they will never do a real audit.

Other relevant WBD podcasts:
- WBD088: Matthew Hougan from Bitwise on Why 95% of Reported Bitcoin Trade Volume is Fake
- WBD087: Erik Voorhees on Maximalism, KYC & Shoddy Reporting
- WBD076: Mark Karpelès on the Collapse of Mt. Gox
- WBD050: The SEC's Hester Peirce on Regulating Cryptocurrencies
- WBD048: Jesse Powell is Building a Culture of Crypto Values at Kraken
- WBD022: Erik Voorhees on Shapeshift User Accounts and the Problem with ICOs

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