Tether effect on price of BTC in 2020 and onward

Hi,

i am writing in this community, as this seems to be only a few out of the many crypto related communities, which seems to accept that tether (and other stable coins) exponential printing has had very significant price inflation effect on the price of BTC but crypto assets as a whole really through direct purchase in tens of billions, causing retail fomo through causing inflated prices and quite a few other shenanigans. I like it, that this community is acceptable towards discussing this topic.

We all know that during the last 2017 mania, when total crypto MC reached close to 1T, there were ever, even at the peak, only ~1.3B tethers in circulation and through retail mania, there was in fact a lot of fiat in the system. Even back then, tether was accused of manipulating the market, albeit to far smaller magnitude. 2021 however, now with total more than twice, MC at 2T, there are currently total of 63B of stable coins in the system, somewhere... somehow... and there is a lot of speculation and different opinions as to what effect it might have had, to what degree and how all of this stable coins might effect the markets onward into 2021 and 2022.

My best personal understanding and opinion is, that tether is in fact by majority, unbacked and the most known "conspiracy" holds truth (NYAG settlement and quite a few others reached this conclusion and i find it hard to believe that much has changed if to even for worse, during last year or so), in which they have just printed through 2020 out of thin air, purchased bitcoin off the markets, inflated prices (focusing mainly on BTC and ETH) and basically all of the backing is in the form of crypto assets. I also think quite a significant amount of stable coins is also used for/going into paying for staking rewards (this "money" has to come from somewhere right), which in essence is another tool which is used to prop up prices by limiting supply and paying interest for it with, well, empty air. By injecting ~40B of tethers alone in one year into the markets, looking how even by the time (EOY 2020) retail interest started to rise, more than 2/3 of bitcoin purchases were done through tether, one could make a case, that therefore first half of the 2020, tether portion was even higher, as in, tether was essentially majority of the market until retail interest picked up in the second half of the 2020 and has continued to do so significantly through events such as Tesla purchase, SQ, PayPal news etc. My personal opinion is, as this time around compared to 2021, there is even more empty air in the bubble due to stable coin exponential growth and therefore once bear market/panic/cascaded liquidations will happen, it will be far more dramatic than it was back in 2018.

TLDR I suppose i really have 2 questions i would appreciate your insight into.

1. How big role do you personally think did tether treasury had in inflating the prices through 2020 and
2. how do you see this play out in the coming years?

Eventually people will start to cash out, liquidity will be major question, as leverage is probably on ridiculous levels, and if tether is in fact unbacked, i am trying to understand, how different might or might not the market play out, now with ~50 times more stable coins in this asset class. One might wonder, how likely might be insolvency concerns, similar to QuadrigaCX, but on far larger scale once people start rushing towards the fiat gateways.

Thanks for those sharing their insight and ready to discuss.