> The entire point of Tether is that you can absolutely trust them with $100K, $1M, $10M, or whatever. It's backed, it's robust, it's tethered, and they guarantee payout.

No, they don't. This is what Tether says in its ToS at https://tether.to/en/legal :

"Tether reserves the right to delay the redemption or withdrawal of Tether Tokens if such delay is necessitated by the illiquidity or unavailability or loss of any Reserves held by Tether to back the Tether Tokens, and Tether reserves the right to redeem Tether Tokens by in-kind redemptions of securities and other assets held in the Reserves."

So, instead of redeeming your $1M in USD fiat, they can give you an equivalent amount of Dogecoin or Chinese commercial paper.

Furthermore, they say: "In order to cause Tether Tokens to be issued or redeemed directly by Tether, you must be a verified customer of Tether." You are not a "verified customer" of Tether if you exchanged USD for USDT at Coinbase or Binance.