[sireat]

Did you read the article you posted?

It makes the point that it is in fact possible to influence the market with pennies on the dollar.

Remember that market cap is meaningless while no matter how USDT were created(backed or not) those represent at least some fiat inflows.

My personal opinion: Tether initially had some USD backing maybe not 100%. Now, I'd be surprised if Tether has backing in excess of 10%.

That is still enough to control Tether if you have issuing authority and can limit redemptions for fiat.

In fact Bitfinex/Tether has done exactly that. You would be hard pressed to redeem Tether for dollars.