Can anybody with an understanding of the matter ELI5 to me how it can be that, given all the uncertainty, 1 Tether is still trading for ~1 USD on the major exchanges? That price seems to be determined by the open market. There are competing stablecoins. Is everybody just so confident that Tether is the real deal?
It certainly is strange that Tether hasn’t been shut down for counterfeiting, which is essentially what they are doing. I assume people in the banking industry allow them to operate as a way to hold leverage over the crypto markets and absorb capital that would otherwise flow to altcoins.
It really isn't counterfeiting. If you made fake hundred dollar bills and passed them off, that'll be counterfeiting. However, if you decided to give a bunch of people $100 IOUs and claim they're "totally backed by real dollars in a vault somewhere", but they're not, then it's just fraud. The NY AG and/or CFPB were able to prosecute/fine them for that, but they also got rid of the "totally backed by real dollars in a vault somewhere" claim, so whether they're currently committing fraud is unclear.