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From their website: "Every Tether token is always 100% backed by our reserves, which include traditional currency and cash equivalents and, from time to time, may include other assets and receivables from loans made by Tether to third parties, which may include affiliated entities (collectively, “reserves”)."

They don't claim 1:1 USD backing. They claim that every tether is backed by 1 USD of value. So, when their crypto holdings go up in value, TADA!, more reserves to print tether against. The problem here is they never explain what happens when the value of their backing assets goes down.




Their website's claim has changed. Historically, they claimed USD backing: 2015[1] 2016[2] 2017[3] 2018[4]. By 2019, they had abandoned that claim[5].

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20150814185145/https://tether.to... "Every tether is always backed 1-to-1, by traditional currency held in our reserves."

[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160417000232/https://tether.to... "Every tether is always backed 1-to-1, by traditional currency held in our reserves."

[3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20171201230600/https://tether.to... "Every tether is always backed 1-to-1, by traditional currency held in our reserves."

[4]: https://web.archive.org/web/20180809053152/https://tether.to... "Every tether is always backed 1-to-1, by traditional currency held in our reserves."

[5]: https://web.archive.org/web/20190426055956/https://tether.to... (current language)


Don't worry - like Stonks - Crypto only goes up




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