The news is official: yesterday Tether announced that it has stopped issuing EURT.
EURT is the stablecoin pegged to the euro issued by Tether, and it has nothing to do with USDT, which is also issued by Tether, but pegged to the US dollar.
Therefore, from now on, the new requests for the issuance of EURT are no longer processed by Tether.
Tether and the stablecoin EURT
EURT is a fully euro-collateralized stablecoin created by Tether in 2020 (USDT is from 2014).
Up to today, just over 25 million EURT tokens have been issued, almost all on Ethereum.
Its market capitalization is therefore about 25 million euros, equivalent to less than 27 million dollars.
It is therefore a minor stablecoin, so much so that it is even only in fourth place in the world among euro stablecoins. In first position, by market capitalization, there is Stasis Euro (EURS) with 130 million.
In other words, EURT has not been successful, neither among the stablecoins in euro, nor in comparison with USDT.
Despite this, it is present on as many as 37 exchanges, and has a trading volume not much lower than 3 million dollars daily, while Circle’s EURC exceeds 55 million.
In light of this, its potential disappearance from the crypto markets will not leave a great void.
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The motivazioni
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As explained by the CEO of Tether, Paolo Ardoino, the reasons behind the decision to abandon the project are related to the European regulatory framework.
Tether's decision to delist EURt has not been taken lightly, but until a more risk-averse regulatory framework in Europe is in place—one that fosters innovation, offers the stability and protection our users deserve and avoids potential banking systemic risks—we have chosen to… https://t.co/WQWAeMwpbD
— Paolo Ardoino 🤖🍐 (@paoloardoino) November 27, 2024
Ardoino states that the decision to delist EURT was not taken lightly, but emphasizes that the current European regulatory framework is too risk-averse, does not promote innovation, and does not offer sufficient stability and protection for stablecoin users.
The problem, according to Ardoino, is that European regulations do not allow avoiding potential systemic banking risks regarding stablecoins, which has led Tether to choose to prioritize other initiatives.
The fact is that by now, from this point of view, Tether is mainly focusing on Hadron in the European context, which is its platform for the issuance of tokens that encompasses all the technology and know-how the company has developed over the last decade.
EURQ and USDQ
Precisely thanks to Hadron by Tether, two new stablecoins, EURQ and USDQ, have been recently launched, which are already fully compliant with the European crypto regulation (MiCA).
They are stablecoins issued by Quantoz Payments, which is a blockchain company based in the Netherlands but is directly supported by Tether.
EURQ for now capitalizes only 1.5 million dollars and is present on only two exchanges, while USDQ capitalizes 6 million and is present on the same two exchanges as EURQ.
So for now, these two stablecoins have not yet been able to take the place of USDT or EURT in the European Union, but they have just landed on the crypto markets and there is still time until December 31 to comply with the European regulation on stablecoins.
EURQ and USDQ are explicitly mentioned in the official press release in which Tether announces the cessation of EURT issuances, effectively indicating them as the alternatives they are focusing on at this moment.
Tether: the phasing out of EURT
The official statement from Tether also invites EURT holders to redeem their tokens within a year, that is, from now until November 27, 2025.
So not only has the issuance of new EURT tokens already ceased, but a delisting of these tokens is also anticipated.
Probably the fastest way to get rid of EURT tokens is to sell them on Bitfinex in exchange for EURQ, since the crypto exchange that belongs to the same group as Tether supports both of these tokens. Unfortunately, for now, there does not appear to be a direct trading pair between EURT and EURQ, so it is necessary to sell EURT in USD, and then perhaps buy EURQ paying with USD.
On Kraken, it is possible to make this double exchange using euros instead of dollars, that is from EURT to EUR, and then from EUR to EURQ.
Within a year, the EURT tokens will probably disappear from the exchanges, and when it is no longer possible to redeem them via Tether, they will effectively be unusable.