When there is a tether print and the market cap goes up it means that money is flowing into the crypto market. Now it doesn’t mean they are buying bitcoin. They can be buying Ethereum or some other alt coin, they can just keep it in USDT and just use it as margin for trading or they can even just lend the USDT for some APR gains.
But in general, it’s bullish. It’s because money is being fed into the market and it will help the system grow overall. It’s rare for tether to have burns but it does it happen. Usually when market peaked, the supply is flat and during a long bear market there might be a tether burn or two. But in the long time frame it usually goes up.
We are nearing $100B as I type this. I think we got $500M to go.