Regulators have found that Tether previously misrepresented the nature and timing of its reserves. In 2021 the New York Attorney General concluded that Tether and Bitfinex overstated reserves and covered up large losses, leading to an $18.5 million settlement and mandatory reserve disclosures, and the CFTC later fined Tether $41 million for misleading statements about being fully backed at all times. (ag.ny.gov) These actions established that Tether’s marketing was deceptive but did not find that USDT was fundamentally unbacked or that the entire float was a near-total fraud.

Since the 2021 podcast, Tether’s USDT has grown rather than imploded: by 2025 it remains the dominant stablecoin, with a market cap in the $150–180+ billion range and roughly 60% of the global stablecoin market, and it continues to trade near its $1 peg. (blockchainreporter.net) Even recent S&P research, while sharply downgrading Tether for reserve risk and poor transparency, still treats USDT as fully backed and functioning, not as a revealed $60 billion (or larger) fraud whose value has evaporated. (reuters.com) Because Tether has not been exposed as a massive fraud on the order of its full then-outstanding value—and instead has expanded and integrated further into global crypto markets—Jason’s prediction is best classified as wrong as of November 2025.