[jonknee]

> People always refer to Tether 'printing money out of thin air', but they never consider the prospect that investors are wiring money to exchanges, having Tether printed for their use, and then using that USDT to purchase cryptocurrencies.

If you have USD you can just buy BTC directly, you don't need to deal with Tether. There is no reason to wire $100,000,000 to a mysterious company to get USDT to then buy BTC. I think it's much more likely they're simply making up new Tethers and using those to bid up the market during downturns--that's why Bitfinex won't give you USD when you sell and instead gives you USDT.