The Friedman memo showed they were 1-1 cash/usdt back in September, and they've stated clearly it's institutional money coming in. In fact, that's exactly what I would expect for large buyers trying to spread their purchases across exchanges who don't use USD directly.
"I agree that if no one was able to get fiat in or out of Tether and USDT were still being issued that would be a huge problem. As it stands, however, institutional customers are able to deposit USD to Tether, and this is how USDT is being issued."
https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/7fsfwl/dail...
If you believe them you must believe that they've received $250 million dollars in the month of November alone.
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/
This on a daily pattern that looks like a step function. Where could this money possibly be coming from? Anonymous millionaires?
Hedge funds, family offices, etc.. $250M isn't all that much. Arrington is trying to raise a $100M crypto fund, Novogratz is raising a $500M one.
Their market cap has gone up $68 million in the last 12 hours. If it's truly pegged doesn't that mean they've taken in $68M in that span of time?
And he also said the following:
Yes, though that was prior to his clarification. They haven't removed any of the many claims on the website assuring a 1-1 backing, they did an audit, and the issuance makes sense given the situation. Doesn't seem all that likely to be a scam to me. Of course, I could be wrong.
The Friedman memo is a joke.
https://mobile.twitter.com/bitfinexed (One of the people monitoring the situation)
https://np.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7g5yml/my_investigation... (Some more info)
Make sure you are able to get out on time if needed. Investigate and decide for yourself. There is a lot of censoring and vote manipulation going on. I am not going to point fingers, but just that you are aware.