If people believe in USDT then it's the same as USD almost. There's far more than 2.5bn of USD being held across the globe so 2.5bn isn't really surprising. Many may leave USDT in their accounts in order to capitalize on short term volatility that they would not be able to do so if trying to use fiat because of the delays involved. Given that the whole market cap is 200bn it means only a little over 1% is in Tether at any one time, personally i don't feel that is too much at all.
People fail to understand that USDT quantity is not marketcap. And they keep on calculating ratios between USDT quantity and marketcap.
USDT is supposedly pegged to USD, 1:1, stable coin.
Ratios should be calculated between USDT quantity and the inflow of FIAT money in the crypto world, which is as I said, roughly 6B$ for a marketcap of 300B$.
So, 2.5B USDT out of 6B$ inflow, how does this ratio sound to you?
So, who is holding 2.5B USDT tokens and what do the masses do with USDT(other than short-term[1-2 days] transfer of value)?
That's a very good question. I guess nobody in their right mind would use USDT for anything else but short term trade.
It is a complex situation indeed. Even the short term you mention is not defined. Is short term one week? One month? Three? Six? One year? Nothing is clearly defined n cryptocurrency. What is short term to you can be long term to another. I have to say that I love the idea of exchanges providing tether. It serves a means of preventing loss during crash. I do not care about the mathematics of it.
It says there "short-term[1-2 days]".
I asked a question about what do the masses do with so much USDT, not about what is important to you or what do you think about it or its matematics, or how do you feel about it. Try to read the post.