This kind of argumentation makes cryptocurrency proponents so insufferable. There’s no evidence Tether is backed, but somehow we can just assume in a parenthesis that they probably are, and then go on a tangential rant about banks or fiat or digital gold or something.
We've traded confidence in centralized, old world financial institutions, for decentralized, techno-utopian...financial institutions.
Same s**, different marketing.
Cryptocurrency proponents like to tout crypto’s ability to escape regulation as a good thing, while ignoring that the same property makes it a dream come true for financial fraud schemes.
Tether is not a cryptocurrency.
It's a cargo cult: A plain old centralized system which got the word "cryptocurrency" slapped onto it to attract dumb money.
Tether printing is a convenient way to inflate the exchange rate. Remove Tether printing and the exchange rate falls.
As long as people talk about Bitcoin in terms of the exchange rate, Tether and Bitcoin are deeply connected.
So, no, it would still tank the price, because the price is quite likely inflated through fraud.
Frankly, the AG admitted it was backed, just not “the entire time”.
The AG did not. Certainly not completely, nor to the extent that Tether claims that it is. The AG merely acknowledged that Tether had some portion of the funds it claimed to.
Ah yes, because all cryptocurrency proponents are pro-tether.
It would collapse a long time ago, if it weren't backed.
Tether says they will. Has anyone successfully done this?
> on several exchanges it can be exchanged into fiat, for smaller participant.s
No one says you can't trade USDT. But that requires a counterparty, and if it turns out that Tether is mostly backed by air they may evaporate as well.
Tether was nearing a lifetime market cap of two billion when investigated. Their "100% backed!" claim at two billion turned out to be 13.8% backed.
They printed two billion USDT over the course of six days earlier this month. Wonder how backed that is.
Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities was also registered and regulated, and also had to wire people their money when asked. Even though they didn't actually have all the assets they said they did. He was able to keep it up for 3 or 4 decades.
It will only collapse if outflows exceed inflows for long enough to deplete their supply of assets. Which is something that is unlikely to happen for as long as this Bitcoin rocket keeps racing toward the moon.
(I ask only for my own entertainment, of course. If Tether were actually backed, they'd publish regular third-party audits from a responsible accountant. Anybody thinking it's backed is a fantasist that could make Baron Munchausen seem resonable.)
As far as I know tether only allowed a few crypto "king makers" to redeem tether, and even then, only at a very small scale.
There is no evidence that this is the case. Tether sure doesn't offer such a service openly.
Redemption means I give the tether corporation some tether and they burn that tether and hand me back USD.