How does tether make money (aside from potential fraud)? Is there a transaction fee that supports the people and cost of running tether (the company)?
Seems like it could be a decent business if it was legit.
[1] https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/mspd/2021/opd...
If we're playing that game I'd do the same but invest in tax-free municipal bonds and the like which can currently earn 3-5%. That would earn you $1.86 billion on the low end. Keep staff & expenses low, pay everyone insane salaries (eg 5m per year is less than 100m given their staffing levels), and coast until acquisition. Everyone gets rich now and again later when you sell.
That's what is so ridiculous about Tether... they have plenty of ways to go legit if they wanted to do so. Heck even if they were only spending half of every $ they took in to actually back the Tethers (and pocketed the other half) they could have invested in the US Stock market over the past four years to make up the difference, then presented public financials this year proving they have enough currency, bonds, stocks, and paper to fully back every Tether. They'd have pulled the same trick lots of big time crooks did and gone fully legit. The fact that they aren't doing that indicates they're either really stupid, really greedy, or both.
In reality, there was never $60B+ of interest from the market, but once they invented it via printing unbacked tethers, they could grab real USD from people FOMO'ing in and then park that cash somewhere offshore where it can't be touched when the whole thing melts down.
Occam's razor states that they don't have the money given that they'd have zero issues if they actually had $60B+ in deposits.
(all according to them, but completely unaudited)