Bennett's Articles

Tether and Bitfinex are two of the most important companies in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Tether is the largest stablecoin, and the primary driver of volume and liquidity. Bitfinex used to be the largest cryptocurrency exchange, and still is a frequently used exchange. Tether and Bitfinex have an incredibly problematic past and are quite possibly the largest corporate fraud in history. Read more: https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/08/08/tether-and-bitfinex-introduction/

https://bennettftomlin.com/2020/12/08/an-introduction-to-the-tether-bitfinex-controversy/

https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/06/21/a-non-exhaustive-list-of-bitfinex-and-tethers-misdeeds-and-red-flags/

https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/07/17/a-history-of-tether-and-bitfinexs-audits-attestations-memos-and-letters-both-promised-and-actual/ Amidst all the confusion surrounding Tether and Bitfinex it can be difficult to keep track of what they have actually provided in terms of audits, attestations, and other documents to support their contentions. Here I will summarize, but the important note that needs to be included at the top is that both Bitfinex and Tether once hired an auditor, but neither ever completed the audit. Ever since Tether was founded they have promised to provide a full financial audit. It feature prominently in their whitepaper and on their website for years. They have never provided this audit, but have provided a variety of other documents meant to convince the public that they had sufficient backing for the tethers in circulation. In March of 2015 Tether and Factom announced (archive) they had formed a partnership to provide greater transparency into Tether’s holdings. The partnership never provided any additional transparency into Tether or its operations. In August of 2016 Bitfinex promised (archive) to provide a full financial and security audit after they were hacked. They initially announced that Ledger Labs was hired to perform both. No audit from Ledger Labs was ever released. This was likely in part due to the fact that Ledger Labs was not able to provide financial audits. In May of 2017 Bitfinex announced (archive) they had engaged Friedman LLP out of New York to audit them. As of today in 2021 we have yet to get an update from Bitfinex on the status of this audit. In September of 2017 Tether announced (archive) that they had engaged Friedman LLP out of New York to audit them. This audit would never occur, we would eventually get an update from a Tether spokesperson saying the relationship dissolved, citing the “excruciatingly detailed procedures”(archive) that the auditor wanted to undertake. Also in September of 2017 Tether released from previous attestations from a small accounting firm in Taiwan called TOPSUN. These were monthly attestations attesting to Tether having sufficient backing for the end of the month from December 2016 through March 2017. Strangely these were not completed at the end of the respective months but were all completed on May 23rd 2017. (Strangely approximately two weeks after they announced that Friedman had been brought on to audit Bitfinex) Read more... https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/07/17/a-history-of-tether-and-bitfinexs-audits-attestations-memos-and-letters-both-promised-and-actual/

https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/07/26/the-available-evidence-that-tether-and-bitfinex-committed-bank-fraud/ Recently Bloomberg reported that several Tether executives (archive) have gotten ‘target letters’ for bank fraud from the Department of Justice. There is evidence that Tether and Bitfinex may have participated in bank fraud. We have several reasons to believe that Tether may have committed bank fraud starting by this video that was saved by Bitfinex’ed. We’ve had banking hiccups in the past, we’ve just always been able to route around it or deal with it, open up new accounts, or what have you… shift to a new corporate entity, lots of cat and mouse tricks. Sometimes those accounts get shut down because the correspondent banks realize this is Bitcoin related. The specific claim that Bloomberg is claiming is under investigation is that Tether may have misrepresented to banks their line of business and tried to hide that it was cryptocurrency related. I think the above quotes make it extraordinarily likely that Tether was doing exactly what they are accused of. Update: I forgot to mention the below story that the NYAG revealed. https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/DocumentDisplayServlet?documentId=vIexA1b0spKOnK_PLUS_ZUGTJ3A==&system=prod (Archive) (My copy) When the New York Attorney General filed their request for an ex parte order they revealed that for a period that Bitfinex depended on ‘friends of Bitfinex’ who would use their accounts to service withdrawals. It is very likely in my opinion that this was not fully disclosed to their banks. It is also important to remember that Bitfinex and Tether relied on Crypto Capital Corp to provide ‘Bank Fraud as a Service’. Crypto Capital Corp would misrepresent to banks that they were in real estate, while actually providing shadow banking services to Bitfinex, Tether, Kraken, Quadriga, Bitmex and others. They would also use fake bond certificates to claim to have more funds than they actually did, and the principal was arrested with counterfeited bills and the ability to issue more. It is thanks to this fraudulent behavior that Crypto Capital Corp was able to maintain banking relationships for the periods where they could. When Tether lost banking in 2017, they likely depended on Crypto Capital Corp. It would be Crypto Capital Corp eventually having their bank accounts seized that would lead to Bitfinex robbing hundreds of millions of dollars from Tethers account. Moral of the story, don’t lie to your bank.

In this episode, inspired by Dr. William Lagakos' book "The poor, misunderstood calorie" I decide to take a deep dive into the science behind nutrient partitioning and simple things we can do to help maximize the effect. Link to book:https://amzn.to/2HMQYAc

This episode is not normal, and you may want to skip. I give my thoughts on the first 50 episodes and some things I have learned. Unscripted and unedited, it is much less produced than many of my episodes.

This is a fun episode about a potential link between Trans fats and aggression. There was an interesting study done that suggested greater consumption of trans fats increased the aggression in people. Study: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032175 Lambda School Link: https://lambdaschool.com/scinutrient

In this episode I take on the dietary recommendation agencies who have made it their mission to unfairly demonize saturated fats, which are at best very weakly linked to mortality.

This episode is about a seminal new article that upends many of my previous assumptions about intermittent fasting and is leaving me scrambling to edit my book.

In this episode I rant about how I think open journals and open data are important for science to progress.

In this episode, another request, I analyzed the health effects of magnesium. It may be useful for depression, anxiety, insulin sensitivity, glycemic control, and even testosterone.

This episode is heavy on the science. I got a question about whether or not arginine precursors may contribute to muscular recovery through interactions with macrophages and I had no idea so this whole episode you get to learn right along side me.

DO NOT START SMOKING, DO NOT START DIPPING. TOBACCO IS CANCEROUS. But nicotine may be a useful treatment for Parkinson's disease, may help with cognition, and could be useful for depression.

I love the sport of football. I played for 10 years and coached for 7. It is a sport that helped make me who I am today. However, there is increasing evidence, especially for linemen, linking it to higher rates of heart disease.

Creatine is a popular supplement among athletes, bodybuilders, powerlifters, and weightlifters. It has pretty significant evidence suggesting that it will improve muscular strength and sprint performance and limited evidence that it will improve your intelligence.

The reproducibility crisis is the biggest threat facing medicine right now in my opinion. A huge number of studies are failing to replicate and that is a terrifying thing, because decisions are being based on studies that may be inaccurate. There is one study that estimates as much as 50% of preclinical research may fail to replicate at a cost of $26 billion per year.

This episode is a bit longer than most, but the last several minutes are optional bonus content. I wanted to finally discuss my favorite polyphenol with you guys, resveratrol. It is commonly found in red wine, and for a long time many of the health benefits of red wine were attributed to it. However, many of those were based on mouse studies, and in this episode we see how many of those effects persist when we instead focus on human studies.

This is an episode about a study that I have seen circulating again that certain outlets claim suggests that tequila can help with weight loss. This is not supported by the study and moreover, represents a dangerous precedent in science reporting. The worse science reporting is the less people will trust science as a whole and more likely they will be convinced by pseudoscience.

The nocebo effect is the opposite of the placebo effect we covered in episode 36, it is when bad things happen when you take a sugar pill because you expect bad things to happen. This is actually surprisingly common and you can even see severe side effects like respiratory depression arising as a result of the nocebo effect. Overall, in considering both the nocebo and the placebo effect the most important thing to keep in mind is that your psychology has power. It is important to remember that your mindset and your beliefs are going to have measurable impacts on your physiology and your health.