Honestly, if anybody ever bothered to assume that Tether worked the way it was advertised most of the time - just like both the NYAG and CFTC found most of the time for most Tethers - it would actually all make sense.

Why would better managed and more transparent competitors like USDC, GUSD, and PAXOS all be rising in circulation at the exact same trajectory as Tether, if Tether was just doing funny money accounting or having completely uncollateralized Tethers compared to just the same distribution of regional crypto enthusiasm in the same kinds of transactions. What if, yeah I know, what if people actually just deposit fiat and rarely redeem for fiat because they treat stablecoins as basically their savings and investing account. The craaaziest idea, I know, but the behavior is being mimicked across all fiat-backed stablecoins which suggests that its harder to assume the worst about Tether simply because its never transparent enough and yeah, it won't be. My only point is to think "hm maybe people actually use it and like it and that's the vast majority of the creation of more tethers just like two US regulators found."