My understanding is that Tether have repeatedly refused to allow an audit of their holdings, therefore everyone assumes everything they say is a flat-out lie.
"because it is in Mandarin."
Like what the actual fuck.
Office Space: What if - and believe me this is a hypothetical - but what if you were able to translate the audit. Would that do anything for you?
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/tether-really-isnt-a-scam-com...
And straight from the horse's mouth: https://tether.to/en/tether-update/ (search 'Auditors')
They have repeatedly been forced to admit in court that they lied in the past. They have also had reserves invested with a fake bank whose CEO stole money from them and is now convicted in bank fraud. They claimed to be one of the largest holders of specific asset classes, but nobody trading those has any memory of trading them. And so on and so forth.
The refusing to allow a real audit is just icing on a cake consisting of a mountain of evidence of fraud.
As Matt Levine memorably said, they are "practically quilted out of red flags."
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-a...
So they must be "backed" by something, we just don't know whom or how, that allows them to keep their scheme running.
https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1580269516331720706
Still his reason to make that bet was the comedy of being proven right about how broken crypto is when he lost his money. And not for the opportunity to be proven right and make money.