Very few things about Tether add up.

In an interview with Cryptonews.com, Leonardo Real, chief compliance officer at Tether, hit out at a recent Bloomberg piece which alleged that Tether was under investigation for supposed cryptocurrency market manipulation.

He said the study could not be correct because it depends on the assumption that Tether is not fully backed 1:1 by real US dollars.

"The story put forth by Bloomberg cites an unbacked, independent study which claims that, if USDT were to be unbacked it could indicate manipulation of the Bitcoin price. The entire study relies on the assumption that USDT is unbacked and therefore not sufficiently driven by trader demand. This is flawed, and claims which suggest that USDT transactions aren't driven by demand when it is consistently in the top 2 of traded cryptocurrencies in the space with regards to volume, are simply ridiculous by now."

It might not be the most reassuring refutation one could hope for, given that allegations of Tether not being fully backed have been circulating for just as long as the allegations of market manipulation.