If you scrolled Crypto Twitter at all today, you already know this meme is absolutely everywhere – and for damn good reason.

Laura Shin, the former Forbes crypto lead and host of Unchained, dropped this masterpiece alongside the latest edition of Unchained Daily, and it immediately started cooking.

The context? Yesterday S&P Global Ratings downgraded Tether (USDT) all the way to 5 (weak)​ – the absolute basement of their stablecoin stability scale.

They pointed to the growing chunk of high-risk assets in Tether's reserves: Bitcoin, gold, corporate bonds, secured loans, “other investments” – now roughly 24% of the total backing, up from 17% a year ago. Bitcoin alone is over 5.6% of circulating USDT, already eating past the thin overcollateralization buffer.

Translation: if Bitcoin keeps dumping, USDT could technically dip below $1 collateralization. Not a great look for the dollar peg everyone treats as bulletproof.

The meme nails it perfectly.

The balloon is obviously Tether. The shaky patches are the exact assets S&P called out. The guy on the left is literally holding a giant “WEAK” sign while saying it looks unstable (hi S&P!). And Peter Griffin, calm as ever, gives the thumbs-up and says “Perfect. Now stamp it harder.”

That line is brutal.

Tether famously uses quarterly attestations from accounting firms instead of full audits. The joke is that no matter how shaky the reserves get, the solution is always just get the accountant to stamp the report a little harder this time.

Paolo Ardoino came out swinging, basically saying legacy rating agencies are mad they're getting disrupted and that Tether is the most overcollateralized, profitable financial company on earth, blah blah. Classic Paolo.

But the meme already won. Crypto Twitter has spoken: this is the funniest, most accurate roast of the entire situation.

Because deep down everyone knows USDT is the greasy lifeblood that keeps half the meme coin casino running. As long as the peg holds and the liquidity stays deep, nobody actually cares what's in the reserves.

Until someone does.

And when that day comes, we'll all be yelling the same thing as Peter:

“Perfect. Now stamp it harder.”

Laura Shin 的原始推文
S&P Global 的完整评估
CoinDesk 关于降级的报道

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