I only know two things about Bitcoin: it's an environmental nightmare and I don't know anywhere near enough about it to get involved, financially or technically. So I'm adding a pinch of salt to this article about the recent price spike in the crypto markets, but if it's even 50% accurate, well... oof!

The tl;dr is that a company (Tether) have effectively inserted themselves into the crypto market as a middleman, by inventing a supposedly asset-backed go-between for cryptocurrencies called (predictably) Tethers. Except, there is scant evidence that the claims Tether Ltd makes about Tethers being physically-backed are true, and the rate at which Tethers are "minted" appears to be escalating the closer that investigative forces in the US get to actually understanding how Tether Ltd works. In other words: it looks like the whole thing is a scam.

Specifically, a scam for people to legitimately buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with USD on legitimate exchanges, transfer to unregulated ones where they are converted into Tether-backed equivalents (i.e. sold to Tether for a nominal fee), then transferred by Tether back to USD. The market looks like Bitcoin trading is on the up, but all the real wealth is pumped out and replaced by meaningless tokens. If that's true, the whole pyramid may be about to topple...