They are trying to give credibility to as value-less asset that’s historically been used for illegal activity, gambling, and predatory selling of said assets to people who don’t understand them.

Tether claiming they have the ability to back up their coins with USD lets crypto people claim their nonsense actually has value.

Of course the entire thing rides on the “trust me bro” guarantees offered by tether. They could erase a lot of the stink by going through an audit but for some reason they won’t.

> They could erase a lot of the stink by going through an audit but for some reason they won’t.

They're required to by the new stablecoin legislation [0] in a provision that almost looks specifically targeted at Tether. Not sure what the time frame for this is, or if there's actually any appetite to enforce the law if they dont produce a clean audit.

[0] you can read the full text of the law here, too long for HN: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-119publ27/html/PLAW...