Liquidity is the product
USDT trades on more venues, more chains and in more pairs than anything else in crypto, and it has held its peg through every crisis since 2017 — including a fall to roughly $0.95 during the Terra collapse in May 2022, recovered within days. For anyone moving size between venues, that ubiquity is worth more than a cleaner disclosure document, which is precisely why the market has never punished the disclosure gap.
What backs it, by its own account
Majority short-dated US Treasuries, with the remainder including secured loans, precious metals, bitcoin and other investments. The composition is published quarterly, and that reporting is an attestation rather than a full financial-statement audit — a distinction the issuer's marketing has consistently blurred and which has never been closed in the token's entire history.
How to hold the risk
The practical position is that USDT is the best instrument for moving and trading and a weaker one for sitting in. Traders who use it as a settlement rail are taking hours of exposure; holders who park savings in it are taking years of exposure to a reserve nobody has audited.
Redemption
Par redemption is available to verified direct customers above a published minimum. Everyone else exits through the market, where the depth is unmatched and has never yet failed to absorb a panic.