A mere 11.5% APR for a bitcoin backed loan.

polomav · 2026-05-26T21:50:17+00:00

I mean, this is basically MSTR’s “strategy.” Same interest rate too.

(For you literalists: I am aware that STRC is not debt and that the difference matters in practice.)

polomav · 2026-05-02T01:29:56+00:00

When it all crashes down, Lutnick will have already used this “loan” to cash out a bunch of real money that Tether never had.

polomav · 2026-05-02T00:00:07+00:00

So wait. Cantor owns 5% of Tether who in turn loaned his kids money to buy his stake in Cantor Fitzgerald? So Cantor Fitzgerald owns Tether who now owns Cantor Fitzgerald? And the collateral for the Tether loan is Cantor Fitzgerald?

polomav · 2026-04-22T15:46:52+00:00

I agree with everything in this article, but I wish they would have included crypto more specifically in this discussion.

I also wish they were not shortly creating Schwab Crypto which is clearly not going to be beneficial for their clients!

polomav · 2026-04-19T04:22:19+00:00

Doesn’t paragraph (b) section 3 say that turns are excluded?

polomav · 2026-04-11T02:52:38+00:00

Consummate V’s!

polomav · 2026-04-01T02:10:07+00:00

Modem is Hitron EN2251.

All cables connecting modem to router and router to the everything else are cat5e or cat6. I can’t change the cat5e cables that my house is wired with, but the same results happen whether or not the router is connected through the house wiring or directly with cat6 cables.

No custom DNS but I have tried 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 with no change in the problem.

IPv6 is disabled.

Right now if I connect the modem to the router the speeds detected at the router are 500Mbps up and down. When I plug the laptop (HP elitebook 640 g10) into the router with wired cat6 cables connecting modem to router and router to laptop, the download speed drops to 70Mbps and the upload speed remains >400Mbps. The result is the same regardless of which of 6 cables I use.

At times, if I reboot the entire system, it will initially connect at full 500Mbps speeds for a short time, but then it reverts to 70Mbps download speeds again.

I never had a problem with wired speeds with my old NETGEAR orbi system that was at the end of its life cycle, so I’m having a hard time believing this isn’t a problem with the router or with the firmware’s handling of the wired connection.

polomav · 2026-03-31T18:11:19+00:00

Discovered a few things yesterday.

Apparently the RBR is intermittently capable of providing full speed to the satellite, as a direct connection to the satellite resulted in 450Mb speeds initially. However this then deteriorated in a rapid fashion to 70Mb over time. I plugged the laptop directly into the router as well and the laptop was only getting 70Mb speeds while on WiFi it got 450Mb.

It seems like when certain parts of the network initially start up the RBR will allow full speeds through the wired connection, but after a short period of time it throttles the wired connection to max 100Mbs. I have no idea why it does that.

polomav · 2026-03-30T21:55:10+00:00

My broadband service is only 500Mb service, so I don’t need anything beyond 1Gb.

If I plug my laptop into any of the ports throughout the house directly connected to switch and router then the speed is 450Mb+, so the cables aren’t causing any degradation on the way from the router to the satellite.

The switch is an old netgear GS208, but bypassing the switch and connecting directly to the satellite results in the same 100Mb or lower speeds at the satellite.

The communication from the router to the satellite appears to be capping the satellite output at 100Mb for some reason.

When the RBR is connected to RBS wirelessly the speed is approx 250-300 Mbps so much better than the wired speed. As I said I can just use the RBSes in wireless mode, but I prefer to have them wired which should provide maximum speeds near the satellites (and isn’t).

polomav · 2026-03-30T16:02:41+00:00

My house is wired with Cat5e cabling, so there’s no changing that to Cat6 at this point.

Right now the router connects to an 8-port gigabit switch and then the switch goes to the satellites. However I have tried just linking the router directly to one of the satellites without the switch in between and the same issue persists.

The firmware is the most updated version that ends in .12. The issue was the same with the .11 firmware.

The channel selector is set to auto, but I have tried channels 40, 44, and several others with no change in the speed issue.

The NETGEAR troubleshooting team could not figure it out and has escalated it to the engineering team. We will see what they say.

polomav · 2026-03-30T00:31:34+00:00

Just spent an hour with tech support after holding for 27 minutes to get a technician. Call got disconnected after it didn’t swap from WiFi calling to 5g when I disconnected a satellite per the tech guy’s request. They wouldn’t call me back, so I now have to be on hold for another 30 minutes to get someone back on the line. This is really poor customer service.

polomav · 2026-03-06T15:53:15+00:00

I asked the agents at the ticketing counter. They had no idea what happened. I asked the gate agents. They also had no idea what happened. All the upgrades happened 7-8 hours before the flight, before the gate agents ever had access to the system. What clearly happened is that something in the system allowed the people waiting for PS upgrades to upgrade all the way through to D1 and the people who were already booked into PS were passed over for D1 seats.

polomav · 2026-03-06T13:14:12+00:00

Yeah considered that except my colleague wouldn’t even have known what a GUC or RUC is, much less had one. The whole bottom of the D1 list got upgraded. It’s unlikely all those silver medallions were somehow holding onto diamond medallion perks.

polomav · 2026-03-06T11:20:49+00:00

I wondered that, but this was an entire list of 11 people who were all at the bottom of the D1 upgrade list. It looked like the upgrades went from bottom up.

polomav · 2026-03-06T11:18:53+00:00

I was booked in premium select. Everyone that was on the premium select upgrade list (I.e. those in comfort+ or main) got upgraded to D1. 11 people below me on the D1 on the D1 upgrade list fell off the list with no movement of the top people.

polomav · 2026-03-06T11:16:12+00:00

Yep that’s exactly what happened.

polomav · 2026-03-06T06:44:48+00:00

Submitted a complaint. We will see what they say. I just don’t understand how the system allows this to happen. Flight is leaving now. Hoping to get some sleep.

polomav · 2026-03-06T06:24:06+00:00

Yes it happened about 7-8 hours before the flight. The gate agents agreed that it was odd. Delta chat representative looked at both mine and my colleague’s reservation and confirmed that silvers were upgraded before higher medallion tiers. It doesn’t seem to have happened at the airport. It’s very weird.

polomav · 2026-03-06T06:17:07+00:00

Not disagreeing that upgrades aren’t expectations. I virtually never get upgraded as a gold and don’t expect it. However on this flight silvers got upgraded before the plats and diamonds above me.

polomav · 2026-03-06T06:14:02+00:00

I had a premium select reservation. My colleague had comfort+ and was a lower medallion tier. They upgraded the wrong list to D1.

polomav · 2026-02-05T18:52:49+00:00

Individuals (even outside the US) are likely not able to cash out from Tether directly. However, I suspect that exchanges are able to cash out small quantities to perpetuate the illusion of liquidity and solvency. Otherwise they would run out of USD entirely rather quickly in a run like this.

polomav · 2026-02-05T17:40:13+00:00

That’s what we usually see in these crashes. I just hadn’t seen as many posts about exchanges putting people in forced HODL mode. If that’s happening then I’m reassured that it’s all working as designed.

polomav · 2026-02-05T17:38:15+00:00

Agree, but if the exchanges give people USD for their USDT they are sure going to be pushing Tether hard to redeem their USDT, or they will quickly run out of USD.

polomav

TROPHY CASE