Yes. To me, its more like they leaned into what the assumptions about them because they couldn't shake the assumptions. As in, at first they were doing what they said and people complained anyway, so then they did what people were complaining about because it was a conveniently awesome amount of money and people kept complaining, so then they changed their legal contract to reflect that they can be what people complain about, the state investigated and found the period of time where they did what people complained about and had not updated their legal contract yet.
"Everyone thought I was lying so I decided to prove my detractors correct" is just lying to your customers with extra steps.
"Because you thought I (cheated on you|took drugs|did crimes) and I hadn't, I decided I might as well do it for real, so there's no harm done" is not a defense, it's a hollow self-justification.
I'm not an apologist for them, I just don't care that they lied. Corporations lie and that's not controversial to me. They settled, with another US authority, the matter over their reserves is resolved - for that time period and legal agreement, the same standard applied to every other institution in the financial services sector. If you want a chronology of events, I offered it.
its not a defense, I'm not an apologist. corporations lie. I don't actually find that controversial maybe because we are not 4 years old anymore. this is what happened, they settled, does your passion over how you frame this topic actually matter?
its not different than someone that everyone overwhelmingly trusts was found to have moved the reserves.
here everyone just expected them to be doing that, and eventually they did it, not different than someone nobody expected to be doing that eventually being found to have done it as well. these cases prove that at one point they had not, even when everyone assumed they were. its like taking a time machine back to 2016 and telling people "hey actually they're fully backed", its interesting to find out, from the state's investigations, that they actually were.
thats the only chronology I explained.
lets play a new game: what's inaccurate about what I said? seems like thats a much more productive discussion.
the reason I think the distinction matters is because its resolved now. And that resolution involves Tether still existing. So our passion about a systemic threat to crypto and maybe the broader financial system will not involve the state doing something about that. which is fairly important to understand, both for your decision to use it even if briefly, or for espousing your passion about why others shouldn't use it.
