I could see that getting rationalized as "creating tether for the contemporary USD equivalent of BTC, so it's still all as promised" (even though it is not), bu

I could see that getting rationalized as "creating tether for the contemporary USD equivalent of BTC, so it's still all as promised" (even though it is not), but that would really just be throwing tether under the bus to buy bitcoin some more time. And not terribly far from plain out minting unbacked tether.