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.
Yep. It just means money is coming into the market.
People always claim when new USDT is created it means they just created it out of thin air lol. I always wonder where do they think this magical money created out of thin air goes lol??! I've never heard of anyone being GIVEN tether for free.
Obviously Tether isn't simply created out of thin air as the conspiracies always claim, it is printed when people bring new fiat into the market and exchange it for Tether. And yeah as you say it doesn't mean all this money is flowing into Bitcoin, it just means a lot of people are exchanging fiat for Tether, which will in general go to Bitcoin or other cryptos or stay in Tether waiting for when they person wants to buy.
So to answer the OP's question: yes, a bunch of new money coming into the crypto market (some of which is being exchanged for Tether) is of course one of the driving forces for the surge of Bitcoin's price. Because people moving money into the market generally means more buy pressure for Bitcoin.