Tether absolutely poses a large risk to crypto. If companies do issue stablecoins, they should have links to third-party attestations that verify proof of reserves like Circle (USDC) does.
Tether could end all of their "FUD" if they ever published such a report.
IMO “FUD” about Tether will never end, because it’s a fairly clear scam. The fear/uncertainty/doubt around it is not due to an easily remedied lack of transparency, the lack of transparency is just an attempt to disguise the scam.
I see Tether heading towards collapse, not legitimacy, and any actual increase in transparency would just hasten the collapse.
The problem is an independent audit would also uncover Tether's likely involvement in various illegal schemes to pump up the prices of cryptocurrencies. It's not only that they don't want to be audited but that they just can't.
An attestation is doesn't mean squat. It means someone witnessed something once and some agreement was executed in accordance with some policy.
You want an audit. I have been there, seen the procedures, run the numbers, and independently verified that when followed yield the same result as reported.
It's the difference between "Seem's legit" and "The numbers check out".
Tether could end all of their "FUD" if they ever published such a report.
Circle's reporting: https://www.circle.com/en/usdc#transparency (edited to change audits --> attestations)