Bitcoin is traded, even is we forget for a moment about wash trading. In each transaction we generate only a small margin, which adds to the value of traded assets. Only 2-5 billion dollars of bitcoins were from mining in 2020. Tethers are printed out of thin air and sold fully, from 0$ to 1$ (in equivalent), margin is 100%. So 15 billion of new tethers printed this summer had much more influence on the market than even greater amount of Bitcoin trades.
> Research by John M. Griffin and Amin Shams in 2018 suggests that trading associated with increases in the amount of tether and associated trading at the Bitfinex exchange account for about half of the price increase in bitcoin in late 2017.[29][11][23]
