[m101]

"backed" is a somewhat unclear term. Given tether don't only hold cash their securities will have mark-to-market valuations. At purchase prices, in a legitimate operation, they should be "backed", but if they were forced to finance redemptions at losses from purchase price then I suppose might not be "backed".

However, they must have been sitting on so much interest up to now given where rates went recently that, provided they ran a fairly conservative operation, they should have plenty of reserves.