[lucozade]

> Bitfinex TOS even say that they don't have to give you dollars for your tethers

That bit's not entirely true. I believe it was but hasn't been since Jan 1. The actual wording is

"Tether will not issue Tether Tokens for consideration that is other Digital Tokens (for example, bitcoin), and will not redeem Tether Tokens for other Digital Tokens; only money will be accepted upon issuance, and only money will be provided upon redemption"

There are various other caveats requiring you not to be a criminal etc but that's fairly standard boilerplate.

As to the rest of your comment, I entirely agree.

[camus2]

So you are saying I can go to Bitfinex with my USDT and ask for real dollars in place of my USDT and they will give me real dollars?

[jpatokal]

On paper, yes, that's exactly what they promise. In practice, they "suspended" this last April:

https://tether.to/announcement/