I have two comments.Fraud deepens, imagine carnage if it ever blows up.
First, it is true that holding Tether is a risk, just as is holding Bitcoin. But bitcoin will double and triple easily, so you're getting paid to take the risk, but the best USDT will ever do is stay flat. Now granted, its probably better than the shit currencies of all these countries (not to say that USD isn't a shit currency mind you), but still, the risk is there. Obviously its better to hold USDT than currencies of Argentina or Venezuela since its pegged to USD, but there is the risk of holding USD in a synthetic form.
And second, from my years of watching the markets, I have only seen things blow up because of some catalyst. Madoff blew up because of the 2008 crisis and people wanting to withdraw from the fund. Banks blew up this year with a flurry of withdrawals as well. Crypto companies blew up in 2022 because of a price drop and also withdrawals. So it seems like for Tether to blow up, we need a major event. But unless there is a huge equity market crash, I just don't think there is another blowup in the crypto space. If anything, more blowups with banks and such. If tether has survived until now, what else will take them down? Now that they are adding bitcoin to their balance sheet, when it doubles lets say, they will have a nice bump in assets against their liabilities. They are also making nice profits now I'm sure from the high interest rate environment.
So my point is that the event which would expose their weakness and be the catalyst for their demise is probably past. The phrase "fake it till you make it" comes to mind. They probably were faking it, but now that their assets are growing in size while liabilities are constant, the chance of a collapse is slipping away. Even if we are to believe that the 80B of issues tokens was only backed up by 40B in assets, or whatever that value is, the day may come when they are now truly fully backed with a huge cushion. More and more people will be running to USDT at a time when their investments are also growing, so where is the weakness going to come from that will expose whatever is ugly on their balance sheet?