On this point, I too have a really difficult time understanding how there is supposedly >$50 billion in treasury bonds backing Tether USDC sitting at Cantor Fitzgerald. It really does seem like the bonds backing tether just came out of thin air, unless tether was sponsored by an entity that gave them the wherewithal to obtain the bonds, for the sole purpose of moving money without KYC with tether.

100% - even a few years ago, Tether claimed that they were receiving USD deposits approaching $5B per week. That amount of income is at the Saudi Aramco and others level.

Of course, it was all supposedly being deposited into Deltec Bank, whose website was a Wordpress site, whose "Deputy CEO" couldn't remember the name of the country's two banking licenses, and which one Deltec held, or whether they held both.

I guess it's hard to track all of those things when you go from getting your Masters in Science at HEC Lausanne at 15, and immediately being appointed a Professor of Finance at a Lebanese university, all while running your own hedge fund, "Indepedance (sic) Weath (sic) Management" from Jacksonville FL...