Latest news from the world of cryptocurrencies: Yesterday, Tether’s stablecoin USDT celebrated its 10th anniversary.
🎬Today marks the 10th anniversary of USD₮!
To commemorate this occasion, we will soon be releasing a documentary titled “Stability and Freedom in Chaos”.
how to travel $USDT is a lifeline for millions of people, fighting inflation and promoting economic freedom around the world. 🌎🤝 pic.twitter.com/oviKmIgpgx
— Tether (@Tether_to) October 6, 2024
However, this is not the most important news about USDT that came out over the weekend.
MiCA compliance: Latest news on stablecoin USDT (Tether)
The European Union’s new crypto regulation known as MiCA comes into effect.
In fact, the rules regarding stablecoins in the EU market have already come into force at the end of June, but there is time until December to comply.
USDT is the world’s leading stablecoin and the most used in Europe.
New European regulations only recognize true fiat-backed stablecoins if they are issued by entities that are officially and legally recognized as issuers of e-money, or digital forms of fiat currency.
At the moment, Tether, the issuer of USDT, is not yet recognized by the EU as an issuer of electronic money.
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The important news, confirmed by Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, is that Tether is working on a solution that will be ready by November, more than a month ahead of the December 30 deadline.
It is important to remember that if USDT is not MiCA compliant after December 30th, it will have to be delisted from exchanges for all users residing in EU countries.
Although it is still clearly unlikely that exchanges will allow the possibility of legally offering trades in USDT from European citizens, from a theoretical point of view, this option is absolutely possible in practice.
For this reason, Tether is exploring solutions that would allow USDT to become MiCA compliant and continue to be offered by exchanges to residents within the EU.
The solution needs to be completed by December 30th, but Ardoino has confirmed it could be ready as early as November.
uncertainty
The problem is that we don’t yet know exactly what kind of solution it is.
Ardoino himself only said that more details would be revealed in the future.
This will still be a new technological solution designed specifically for the European market, i.e. adapting USDT to the new regulatory situation in the region.
Tether believes that certain aspects of MiCA will make the operation of licensed stablecoins in the EU more complex, and also introduce potential new risks to both local banking infrastructure and the stablecoins themselves. states.
One of the issues raised by Tether itself is the risk that new regulations pose systemic risks for both banks and digital assets, making them vulnerable to problems such as mass withdrawals, as in the famous case of Silicon. Valley Bank last year.
However, while emphasizing that the use case for stablecoins in Europe is very different from that in emerging markets and developing countries, where USDT even exists, the company has finally created a clear and structured regulatory environment. It is noteworthy that he praised EU regulators for doing so. More popular.
10 years of Tether and the latest news on the stablecoin USDT
On October 6, 2014, USDT was born.
At that time, Ethereum didn’t even exist yet. The Ethereum blockchain was created the following year, and in fact, the USDT token was first launched on a Bitcoin sidechain called Omni.
Today, the old Omni has nearly 900 million of the more than 119 billion USDT in circulation. Initially in 2014, less than 300,000 were issued.
In 2015, the number already exceeded 500,000, and in 2016 it exceeded 1 million.
The first boom came with the speculative bubble in the crypto market in 2017, with USDT’s market capitalization increasing 1000 times to over $1 billion in less than two years.
However, note that the price of USDT has always hovered around $1, so it’s only the usage that has increased significantly, not the value.
It exceeded the 2.5 billion mark the following year, but fell below 2 billion during the bear market.
A second major boom began in 2019, when the number of people exceeded 4 billion, and continued until 2022, when the number reached 80 billion.
During the 2022 bear market, USDT’s market capitalization fell below $70 billion, but it rose again in 2023, first exceeding $90 billion, and then again to over $100 billion in 2024. It is currently hovering around $120 billion.
