I'm not sure what your actual gripe is, but you certainly have no idea what you're talking about.

Simple example:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tether_(cryptocurrency)

> Research by John M. Griffin and Amin Shams in 2018 suggests that trading associated with increases in the amount of tether and associated trading at the Bitfinex exchange account for about half of the price increase in bitcoin in late 2017.

In practice they basically use their trusted position within an exchange (as the 1-to-1 representation of a US dollar) and simply create new Tethers from thin air, move them to an exchange, buy BTC, pump the price, and essentially act as a stabilizer whenever the price starts tanking. For instance they've printed over $2 Billion worth of Tether since Saturday, with absolutely no evidence that real people actually put $2B into exchanges to buy crypto.

It's an amazing scam since anytime it looks like the floor is about to fall out, they print billions more and keep their position alive by pumping crypto back up.

Anyways the reason it's important is because Tether and other stablecoins are supposed to be the fiat offramp in the event that you want to withdraw money from an exchange. After all, to buy BTC you really first bought Tether (or USDC) and then traded your tether for BTC a minute later. So all of the hard cash in the exchange is supposed to be represented by Tether... guess what happens when people realize their cash isn't actually there 1-to-1 like it was promised? Massive liquidity crises and all cryptocurrency falls 90%+.

Be careful my friend.

- Both are not really audited

- Both have retracted claims of being fully USD backed ( only tether had to do it after court and USDC changed it a bit later)

You've spoken to Evergrande and friends?

> to buy BTC you really first bought Tether (or USDC) and then traded your tether for BTC a minute later

Nnnnno, not everyone uses sketchy and/or first-gen CEXs...

Anyway, I agree with you, and hope Tether goes away soon.

But they are the exchange, even if they claimed for long they were not.

Tether keeps printing billions of dollars with no oversight or regulation. They lied about it being backed by cash reserves, and now make a much softer claim that its backed by "some cash" and other assets (other assets include more crypto IIRC).

Basically, it feels like tether is inflating the price of BTC, and the exchanges all have a vested interested in continuing to pretend tether is worth something. If there was a run on tether (i.e. everyone tries to exchange for fiat) it could be catastrophic for all of crypto.

(Disclaimer: I am not a financial expert, and have just picked this up from reading about tether over the last few months).

They don't claim that any more. They only claim a tiny percentage is held in cash now, the rest is in 'commercial paper' apparently.