What the hell is a tether even?
Tether, a virtual currency that is supposed to be tied — or tethered — to the value of a dollar.
Customers can buy Tether coins on Bitfinex and then transfer them to other virtual currency exchanges, providing a way to move dollars between countries without going through banks. Tether has also become a very popular way to buy Bitcoin. In recent weeks, a few hundred millions dollars’ worth of Tether has changed hands on a daily basis across several exchanges, according to data on CoinMarketCap.com.
Tether and Bitfinex have insisted that the two operations are separate. But leaked documents known as the Paradise Papers, which were made public this month, show that Appleby, an offshore law firm, helped Mr. Potter and Mr. Devasini, the Bitfinex operators, set up Tether in the British Virgin Islands in late 2014.
One persistent online critic, going by the screen name Bitfinex’ed, has written several very detailed essays on Medium arguing that Bitfinex appears to be creating Tether coins out of thin air and then using them to buy Bitcoin and push the price up.
EDIT: From NY Times.