>Exchanges don't actually hold the things they're trading.
Bitfinex has a few billion in publicly known cold wallets.
Bitfinex has a few billion in publicly known cold wallets.
It would only do so if the exchange has a strange unrelated agreement (like to trade 1 USDT for 1 USD), or were holding the money they're using to run their operation in that asset. Except for maybe Bitfinex (because of the special case), no exchanges are doing that with USDT.