Tether Loses Europe: The Consequences of the EU USDT Ban on the Crypto Market
Date: 2024-12-27 Author: Gabriel Deangelo Categories: BUSINESS
The most popular dollar stablecoin Tether (USDT) will disappear from European crypto exchanges by December 30, 2024, including such platforms as Coinbase. This is due to the entry into force of the MiCA directive, which sets strict requirements for cryptocurrencies. USDT does not meet these requirements, which forced European exchanges to delist it.
Some companies, such as OKX, stopped supporting USDT long before the rules came into force. However, experts are confident that the loss of the European market will not be fatal for Tether. Competitors, such as USD Coin, which complies with the directive, will most likely occupy the vacant niche.
Meanwhile, the Tether team has chosen a different path — investing in projects that issue stablecoins that comply with MiCA requirements. This could help the company maintain a presence on the European market.
While the community is discussing the ban, new difficulties for the company have attracted attention: Tether has not issued new batches of stablecoins for two weeks. This has raised concerns that the ban in the EU could lead to a loss of parity between USDT and the US dollar.
However, skeptics believe that this is just panic created by competitors trying to strengthen their positions before a new round of market growth. Among the alleged participants in the information attack is Ripple, which recently received permission to issue its own stablecoin.
At the same time, it is worth noting that rumors about the collapse of USDT arise every year. The main claims concern the opacity of Tether reserves. In September 2024, another wave of panic was caused by doubts about the asset's security, expressed by analysts at Consumers' Research and a publication in The Wall Street Journal, where Tether was accused of having ties to the criminal world.
The situation escalated after a Bloomberg article discussed the Trump administration's support for Tether. According to the publication, Trump is a vocal supporter of digital assets, and his nominee for Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, has ties to Tether through Cantor Fitzgerald.
This has raised concerns that such ties could increase risks to the financial system and facilitate illegal activity. Experts are calling for tighter regulation to ensure that stablecoin issuers use only safe assets and monitor transactions.
Without these measures, analysts warn, Tether could become a threat to both financial stability and U.S. national security.
