Good point, for those tethers to have that big an influence on the market, they need to get into the hands of real people buying tether with real money somehow.
According to the article it looks like this
1. Person buys btc with usd on coinbase or equivalent
2. Moves btc to shady exchange with tether promotions
Those promotions need to be _huge_ in for those newly minted tethers to get into the hands of real people trading.
I looked at the site with promotions linked by the article, and the front page features a couple of missions that give 50 USDT total for doing things like "join our telegram group", "set up a notification on our app".
According to the article it looks like this
1. Person buys btc with usd on coinbase or equivalent
2. Moves btc to shady exchange with tether promotions
Those promotions need to be _huge_ in for those newly minted tethers to get into the hands of real people trading.
I looked at the site with promotions linked by the article, and the front page features a couple of missions that give 50 USDT total for doing things like "join our telegram group", "set up a notification on our app".