how it works:
1. tethers shipped to Binance/Huobi.
2. these go straight into buying BTC. Number goes up.
3. exchanges maintain 1:1 USDT/USD peg cos otherwise the music stops.
4. bots arb the BTC price on the USD exchanges.
5. tether issuers sell BTC bought with fairy gold for USD

there's lots of extra bits but that's the core. the tethers printed at 1. are backed by the loans of the tethers, or maybe BTC bought with them. 3. is the tricky bit, and the obvious weak point of the scam.

a billiion tethers a day. the scam is at the runaway stage.

not all the bought BTC is sold, but that's where the money is being made

but also, tether is known to be used for money laundering, i.e. by serious crooks with some very robust ideas on what to do about anyone who messes them about

per @dsquareddigest's "Lying for Money" (a book everyone in crypto should read), frauds tend to grow, because you need a bigger fraud to cover up the previous smaller fraud. tether is around there.

the brick wall at jan 15 isn't the NYAG hearing, but the new FinCEN crypto rules

the FinCEN implementation of the travel rule means lots that hasn't been tracked suddenly will be. This was put in *quickly* because N.Korea has been using tethers.

the crypto world has ABSOLUTELY SHAT at this, cos they know how crooked the business is.

but it's happening.

and this is why tether is printing at a billion USDT a day, and why Bitcoin will hit 50,000 USDT some time soon - they have to keep the scam going, and are absolutely desperate to lure in more of the scarce actual-dollars.

there are many other scams attached, ofc. squeezing the existing HODLers, who are blissed out on new paper wealth. binance is now running a pyramid scheme to recruit more suckers to trade and lose.

the crypto market is a single unified scam casino: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/09/06/the-crypto-market-as-a-single-unified-scam/