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Maybe not directly, but indirectly? If I have $10m of unrealised gains in the stock market, I can easily borrow $500k against that at near free interest rates to invest that in Bitcoin.

I have a friend who did that, and he has done well. So it's definitely happening.

This is going to happen more, especially as mainstream finance gets in the game, but I don't suspect it's common. Also note that the leveraging in your case is inverse. 500k against 10M is 5% leverage, Forex trades are done with 1000%, 10000% leverage...

Yes, there is the chance that tether actually is backed by usd reserves 1 to 1. If it happens that they are not, that is one big debt instrument there...

The most successful exchanges offer leverage: bitfinex, poloniex, bithumb (i think).