If you haven't been following the cryptocurrency space lately, Tether is a coin that is always supposed to be pegged to USD and no matter what direction the market is going Tether should always be worth 1$. Also, every Tether is alegedly backed 1:1 in USD and EUR. Something people have been questioning for quite some time and Tether firing the auditor that was supposed to prove that they got the money to back all of the tokens they are issuing just added fuel to the fire of suspicion that has been building up for months now.

Everyone in crypto is very worried about the tether situation, and if these really count as dollars

And if it turns out they don't, Tether has no legal responsibility

If that wasn't enough to raise a couple of eyebrows, Tether has been linked multiple times with affecting the cryptocurrency markets direction with issuing new tokens and shady trading.

Example of wash trading on Kraken where in 24 hours, Tether has shown over a billion US dollars in market volume. Can this be the reason btc went up from 1k to 20k and dropped rapidly all the way to 7k? Most likely not the only one but probably the biggest effect in this bull run is caused by Tether printing and illegal trading.

Printing new Tether and manipulating the market

When the 6 month long bull run for btc and other altcoins finally came to and end, rapidly decreasing cryptocurrency prices and taking the whole market down the drain. Tether jumped in on Tuesday at 6:51 PM UTC issuing another 300mln of new tokens for the first time after firing their auditor. And guess what. BTC went up by 6% that day. It is also worth mentioning that Tether has issued nearly $1bn worth of USDT since January.

“$300,000,000 NEW TETHERS IN ONE DAY.
The largest grant of fraudulent and unaudited Tether tokens in history. Oh look, Bitcoin jumped up big time today.
What a f****** surprise. First new Tethers since they fired their auditor.”

Note: Bitfinex shares leadership with Tether. And Tether has been linked numerous times to other high ranking exchanges and using illegal trading techniques to manipulate the direction of the cryptocurrency market. This has led critics like Bitfinex’ed to criticize both, the exchange and the token for their apparent lack of transparency, since the company has not had an external audit done of its cash reserve.

In response to Bitfinex’ed’s previous online criticisms, crypto exchange Bitfinex had threatened legal action against its critics in December of last year. In response, Bitfinex’ed has reportedly hired a D.C. based lawyer for any legal battle with the exchange.

Bitfinex'ed fears no one and daily continiues to expose Tether and the shady business they are operating.

What does this mean?

The whole cryptocurrency market bull run we were so excited about might be nothing but fake and caused by Tether and Bitfinex illegal trading to acquire profits from issuing new tokens and selling them for other coins. Literally creating money and traffic out of thin air for who knows how long. Meaning the markets are most likely overalued by a lot. That's not a problem if people continue paying the high prices and the demand for crypto stays the same. But what if Tether falls appart and everyone realizes that they don't even have half of the money to back all the tokens they are issuing? What if feds come in and arrest them for illegal trading and the pumps stop?

The ticking timebomb

This surely can't go on forever, or can it? IMO it must go down. It's just a matter of time because if for some reason Tether stops pumping the markets and/or gets proven to be a scam the whole cryptocurrency market might go down so low that the whole world will be questioning the legitimacy of cryptocurrencies. While I'm allmost sure that Tether is one of the main reasons of the recent crypto bull run I really don't know how and when this will end. But similar to Bitconnect, Tether is just raising too many questions that they can't/won't answer and when they will finally be taken to court for their illegal practices we will experience a bloodbath like you never seen before. With prices up to 80% in the red and people loosing almost everything they had Tether going down will be something that will have an enormus impact on the markets and the future of cryptocurrencies.

The problem

Having a coin always worth 1$ is a great tool for traders wanting to escape the volatility of the markets and something that is necesary for long term viability of cryptocurrencies. But Tether is not going to be our go to USD pegged coin as it's not being able to prove that they indeed have all the USD to back the Tethers they are issuing.

Solution

An open source code coin pegged to USD with an transparent and confirmable bank account balance 24/7 that we can trust. And a way to stop illegal trading by big exchanges or big money investors. Just having a pegged coin isn't enough if there are traders pumping and dumping coins left and right, day and night. This just isn't viable for long term and we will never get to use cryptocurrencies as "everyday money" if we don't find a way to stop it.

Conclusion

Tether most likely isn't sustainable long term and the people behind it have the money and power to move the markets in any direction they want. We are safe until Tether falls appart but when that finally happens (soon, I hope) we will have FUD like you never seen before. Markets crashing by enormous numbers and shrinking to where they were a couple of years ago. That will be a big setback for cryptos and something that will be really hard to recover from. I really hope it happens now rather than in a couple of years so that we can get it over with and continue growing. If you want to prepare for the worst case scenario and profit from the Tether fall just save your useless pieces of toilet paper we like to call money and have them ready for the Tether bomb exploding and when it does, wait for the FUD to kick in and buy at the lowest point of the dip and hodl.