Tether—or, to give it its full title, the Tetheral Reserve of Cryptocurrency—is the essential source of liquidity in the crypto trading markets.

Every 24 hours, the entire $2 billion supply of tethers sloshes around 3.5 times, performing vital work for the market: completing the Barts on the price charts, burning the margin traders, and keeping the game of musical chairs going just that little bit longer.

Tether remains the king of the stablecoins (n.: a coin found on the floor of a stable), at 98% of stablecoin trading volume; it handily trounces its competitors, all hobbled by their foolish flirtations with the fatal encumbrance of those tedious, old-world legacy "laws," and "regulations" about anonymously sending millions and billions of dollars around the world, and making sure that money transmitters are honest, solvent, and not fronting for crooks.

Tether is particularly valuable for the sort of 100% trustworthy and reliable exchange that never saw a shitcoin it didn't like, and also can't get actual-money banking for some reason. Maybe Tether can get USDT listed on Liberty Reserve.

And you can rest absolutely assured that every tether is worth a genuine US Dollar that definitely exists, and that you can exchange it back to actual money any time. Probably.

In good news for the cryptocurrency ecosystem, there's been an update to the Tether front page. Specifically, its updated the fine details of precisely how tethers are "100% Backed." This is the latest "update" in its recent timeline, and ends on my own prediction:

2017: Every tether is backed by an actual dollar that we have and exists. Frequent audits, coming soon!

2018: Every tether is backed by a dollar, our lawyer said so in a sworn statement and you can totally trust him. Also, we showed that guy from Bloomberg some paper with numbers on it.

2019: Most of the tethers are backed! With bad debts from degenerate margin gamblers, some dead shitcoins we found behind the sofa, virtual Magic: The Gathering cards and, from time to time, other tethers.

2020 (Estimated): Penis

What Tether means by "receivables from loans made by tether to third parties" is that Tether prints USDT, loans the USDT to margin traders, then uses the loans to back printing more USDT. Gotta get that Bitfinex trading volume pumped back up somehow.

But it's okay! "1 USD₮ is always valued by Tether at 1 USD." Their mother thinks they're pretty, on the inside.

To be fair, this was all in the white paper —"Bitcoin: an electronic system of trusted third parties, running fractional reserves, manipulating, I mean managing, the market."

/r/cryptocurrency is sure everything is fine, just fine, and all of this is actually good news:

If Tether really is an issue for us, then perhaps tether will be the final bottom we all are waiting for. There's no way tether would try and push a scam through another bull run. Way too risky for them.

You can also rest assured that every aspect of Tether's new declaration is above board, and definitely not parent company iFinex trying to get ahead of the bullet in the long-running criminal investigations.

And if the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission and US Justice Department should phone up your fellow cryptocurrency altruists, with some pointed questions? Well, your comrades definitely won't fold on you or anything, in their own enlightened self-interest.

In the meantime, join #yanggang2020, and the Bogdanovs will grant every Wojak on /biz/ 1000 tethers a month.

Bitfinex'ed turned out to be right about everything —but ixnay on saying "amscay," and number will go up! Or not much further down. Please. Please.