That's interesting, my Cryptopia DOGE trading pairs (and LTC) beg to differ. Will there be a crisis of confidence if Doge crashes to 0 on Cryptopia? Of course not.

USDT is one of many trading pairs offered by crypto exchanges. It matters no more or less than NZDT, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other common trading pair in the crypto world.

> That's interesting, my Cryptopia DOGE trading pairs (and LTC) beg to differ.

How?

> USDT is one of many trading pairs offered by crypto exchanges.

USDT is not a trading pair, it's a single cryptocurrency. The issues that give it a special role, both tied to it's USD peg, is that:

(1) It is sometimes treated as equivalent to, and commingled with, USD by exchanges (notably, Bitfinex), and

(2) USDT:<X> trading pairs, on exchanges that don't handle USD lat all, are often treated by the community as if they were USD:<X> trading pairs.

(3) The special role USD has in world markets.

Yes it does, because USDT is (supposedly) inherently pegged to the dollar. It's used as a vehicle for stability when normal banking is not available.

See: binance, liqui.io. These exchanges don't have fiat deposits/withdrawals. BTC is meanwhile taking all alts down with it.