most people weren’t using cryptocurrencies to buy stuff. Instead, they were sending regular money to exchanges, where they could then bet on coin prices. The crypto exchanges, like Bankman-Fried’s FTX, were essentially giant casinos. And many of them, especially in the early days of crypto and outside the United States, couldn’t handle dollars because banks wouldn’t open accounts for them, wary of inadvertently facilitating money laundering. This was where Tether came in. When customers wanted to place a bet, they first bought some Tethers. It was as if all the poker rooms in Monte Carlo and
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