like I mentioned above, it is speculated that they are the ones who are printing the tether, then use that to buy bitcoin. They are then probably hoping that whoever receives tether for selling their bitcoin does not immediately want usd, but instead is happy with the tether as it is 'backed 1:1'. (Again, I have to stress that this is a theory i read somewhere on the internet, while lots of things add up, it may also be completely off.)

They 'pump the market' because buying bitcoin increases its scarcity, thus raising the price.

It could, if the major exchanges accept that it does and continue to back that notion...

I suppose this could work as long as you don't print too much. Let's say you have $10M USD in deposits. You can print $20M in USDT as long as you're reasonably sure that on average, people don't withdraw 50% of their deposits. This gets tricky though because USDT is used by multiple exchanges, so I'm not sure what exactly would happen if everyone withdraws their deposits not in USD, but in USDT to another exchange. They'd all need to be in on the conspiracy with some sort of settlement system to transfer money between them.

I'm not a finance or a crypto expert, so don't take my word on it. But many people way smarter than me have been trying to prove this hypothesis for years.

Bitfinex doesn't exactly have a reputation that deserves any trust, so I wouldn't put it past them.

I think there is a good reason Coinbase does not allow trading Tether.

(narrator) tether could not trade at par