[pjc50]

> Holding their reserves in something other than cash is the way they can make money

Depending on what it is, that's also a way they can lose money.

If you think of Tether as an investment organisation that takes $ and hands out claims which they say are worth 1$, while making a bunch of investments, what's that in regular investment land? A money market fund. What can go wrong? https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/money-mar...

[NovemberWhiskey]

Yes; I think that's absolutely right and insightful - the right way to think about Tether is that it's an opaque (refuses to disclose asset mix; is not audited), expensive (pays no interest; charges for redemptions), unregulated (not subject to the SEC or any other regulatory body) money market fund.

In the real world, literally no-one would own that.

[pjc50]

You can in theory hold it off-exchange and transmit it without KYC, which has to imply a certain category of use. But most of it is being used as the "float" by exchanges, I believe.