There is strong demand for any kind of vehicle which allows transferring value digitally outside of the traditional banking system. I don't think tether users trust tether because they advertise on their website that it is "backed", but more because they have strong need for something like it and there are no alternatives.

Of course the huge demand has been spotted by many others and now there are loads of these "stablecoins". Some are more regulated and might take quickly over if feds decide to stop tether.

Crypto supporters have been saying this for a decade, but outside of money laundering, drug sales, and hodle profiteering, no such demand has been shown to exist.

Of course the huge demand has been spotted by many others and now there are loads of these "stablecoins". Some are more regulated and might take quickly over if feds decide to stop tether.

If the "feds" go after tether, they will also go after the alternative stablecoins.

e.g. If Tether gets shut down because of fraudulent misuse of reserves, then the government might be OK with some aboveboard execution. If on the other hand they get shut down for money laundering via tether, well, stablecoins exist to enable that, and if they can't enable that they likely don't have a use case large enough to support the engineering/operational teams required to run them.

The success of companies like Square or Venmo show there is huge demand for an easy way to send money around.

You will say that they are inside the traditional banking system, and that is true. But when using them it feels like they are not.