Whenever this "Tether-Printing" address sends Tether to the Treasury address, the Treasury sends the same amount to Bitfinex.

*If the information in this post is known already, please disregard.

EDIT: They've removed the label of Bitfinex from off their Rich List, and seem to have changed the Bitfinex receipt address (this is unconfirmed). Yet, the patterns remain the same. Treasury (3Bb) to unknown (31ok), same amount sent from unknown to unknown Rich List recipient (16tg2). My guess? This (16tg2) is the new Bitfinex address.

 

Unfortunately, during my research, the website locked me out and I can no longer view it. I'm not done researching. I want to dig into Bitfinex's and Bittrex's addresses to see what is being done with the hundreds of millions being sent to them. Feel free to contribute further in the comments. Some questions I don't have answers to yet:*

1. Is there more than one "Tether Printer" address?
edit: No. There is only one. See doc.
2. Is there more than one "Tether Treasury" address?
edit: No. There is only one. See doc.
3. What happens to the Tether once they hit the exchange (what are they specifically being used for)?

 

Anyway, on to the research:

I got started by looking into the "Treasury" address on Tether's "Rich List."

This address (3BbDtxBSjgfTRxaBUgR2JACWRukLKtZdiQ) was created on June 9th, 2014 and is an address belonging to Tether’s Treasury. At the time of this writing, it is currently in possession of ~30 million Tether, which will soon be sent to Bitfinex (you’ll see why I know this at the bottom of this post).

 

This address (3MbYQMMmSkC3AgWkj9FMo5LsPTW1zBTwXL) was created on October 6th, 2014. This address has only ever received Tether once, from Poloniex (1Po1oWkD2LmodfkBYiAktwh76vkF93LKnh), to the tune of 0.00197296 Tether. Yet this address (3MbYQMMmSkC3AgWkj9FMo5LsPTW1zBTwXL) sends hundreds of millions of Tether to the Tether Treasury. At the time of this writing, it is in possession of only 0.00197296 Tether. Recognize that balance (the only amount it ever received)? It’s safe to say that this is the address (or one of them) which is “printing” the Tether cryptos.

 

Okay, now we can ask what those Tethers are being "spent" on... Let’s look at the Tether Treasury address for some clues:

Here’s a list of the latest transactions from this "Tether Printing" address (3MbYQMMmSkC3AgWkj9FMo5LsPTW1zBTwXL) to Tether’s Treasury (3BbDtxBSjgfTRxaBUgR2JACWRukLKtZdiQ), and from the Treasury to Bitfinex (1KYiKJEfdJtap9QX2v9BXJMpz2SfU4pgZw).

| From | To | Amount | Timestamp(s) | |---:|:---|:---:|---:|---| | Printer | Treasury | 25 million | 10/28/2017 6:01:42 PM | | Treasury | Bitfinex | 25 million | 10/29/2017 9:32:00 PM, 11/3/2017 8:58:42 AM | | Printer | Treasury | 25 million | 11/3/2017 8:50:13 PM | | Treasury | Bitfinex | 25 million | 11/3/2017 9:12:47 AM, 11/3/2017 9:18:25 PM | | Treasury | Bitfinex | 7 million (the only time Tether Printer didn’t send Treasury the same amount) | 11/4/2017 10:27:41 PM | | Printer | Treasury | 20 million | 11/7/2017 10:18:43 PM | | Treasury | Bitfinex | 20 million | 11/7/2017 10:34:53 PM | | Printer | Treasury | 20 million | 11/8/2017 10:54:38 PM | | Treasury | Bitfinex | 20 million | 11/8/2017 11:41:28 PM | | Printer | Treasury | 30 million | 11/10/2017 12:12:45 AM | | Treasury | Bitfinex | 30 million | 11/10/2017 12:40:19 AM | | Printer | Treasury | 30 million | 11/11/2017 8:55:02 AM | | Treasury | Bitfinex | 30 million | 11/11/2017 10:50:41 AM | | Printer | Treasury | 20 million | 11/16/2017 5:04:25 PM | | Treasury | Bitfinex | 20 million | 11/16/2017 5:32:59 PM | | Printer | Treasury | 30 million | 11/17/2017 | | Treasury | Bitfinex | 30 million | 11/17/2017 | | Printer | Treasury | 30 million | 11/17/2017 | | Treasury | Guess. | 30 million | Probably sometime today or tomorrow.

 

Is this starting to paint a picture? Okay, but we can’t just stop here. What’s happening to the Tether once they hit Bitfinex? I couldn't go further to find out, because the site won't load for me anymore.

But if anyone wants to continue the research, here's where I left off:
This address (1KYiKJEfdJtap9QX2v9BXJMpz2SfU4pgZw) belongs to Bitfinex. It is currently in possession of ~85 BTC and ~22 million Tether at the time of this writing.

I haven't yet had a chance to look at each transaction on this address. After this, I planned to research the remainder of these addresses on Tether's "Rich List." Of particular interest to me is the 268,596,866 Tether chillin on Bittrex right now.

 

^^^edit: ^^^formatting

^^kudos ^^to ^^u/noreallyimthepope ^^for ^^helping ^^me ^^out ^^with ^^formatting