[nostrademons]

You could look at it as fractional reserve banking where one single borrower accounts for 26% of the assets.

Tether is technically solvent (at least, assuming they aren't lying). However, they made a loan of $700M to Bitfinex. If Bitfinex pays back the loan on schedule and no more than 74% of Tether holders run for the exit, they're fine.

However, that's a lot of counterparty risk, particularly considering it isn't clear whether Bitfinex is solvent, and that the big debtor (Bitfinex) and all the creditors (Tether holders) have correlated behavior. If Bitfinex becomes insolvent and defaults on the loan, Tether becomes insolvent. Bitfinex is more likely to become insolvent if Tether holders start withdrawing their money, which is the same event that would trigger a run on the bank and require that Tether call in its loan to Bitfinex.

It actually looks a lot like the derivatives bomb in the financial industry from 2006-2008. You had some institutions that were insolvent because they made bad trades. You had other institutions that were technically solvent, but were standing next to insolvent ones, and would become insolvent if they had to write off the contracts they had with the insolvent ones. It's possible that all of your books would balance at the end - but do you want to be standing next to the bomb when it goes off?