This morning, $162 billion stablecoin large Tether proudly introduced that its workforce is happy to “bring USDT home to Bitcoin” by way of two new protocols.
Lacking from that announcement is the truth that Tether is definitely terminating assist for many USDT-on-Bitcoin tokens on September 1.
As a part of a “strategic infrastructure review,” Tether admitted on July 11 that it might be terminating assist on September 1, 2025 for its largest model of USDT on Bitcoin’s blockchain, the Omni layer.
After Monday, the one USDT-on-Bitcoin tokens left will likely be lower than $50 million on Blockstream’s Liquid, a functionary-controlled sidechain.
Extremely, Tether was trustworthy in July, explaining that Bitcoin’s Omni layer wasn’t “high-utility, actively developed” infrastructure “aligned with community usage trends” as a lot as different blockchains that the corporate determined to proceed supporting.
So, efficient September 1, redemptions of USDT-on-Bitcoin Omni will stop and tokens will likely be manually frozen by the corporate.
That may finish over a decade of Tether’s assist for the Omni layer since at the least October 2014.
Killing USDT-on-Bitcoin whereas ‘exploring’ Lightning
This morning, the corporate didn’t repeat that actuality whereas advertising and marketing preliminary plans to “bring USDT home to Bitcoin” by way of two Bitcoin Lightning Community protocols, Taproot Property and RGB.
Tether launched its first model of USDT on Bitcoin know-how linked to Mastercoin, a 2013 preliminary coin providing. Over time, Tether has added fiat redemption and freeze assist for quite a lot of blockchains.
Immediately, it helps fiat redemption on Tron, Ethereum, Solana, Aptos, Ton, Avalanche, Celo, Cosmos, Omni, Kaia, Close to, Liquid, Tezos, Polkadot Asset Hub, EOS, SLP, Algorand, and Kusama Asset Hub.
On Monday, Tether plans to discontinue assist for Bitcoin Omni, EOS, Algorand, SLP, and Kusama. Not but stay, it’s introduced an exploration of doable assist for Bitcoin layer 2 protocols.
The simultaneous announcement about including Bitcoin assist whereas eradicating Bitcoin assist isn’t the one instance of Tether doublespeak.
Its chief monetary officer signed a settlement and agreed to by no means deny that from June 1, 2017 till September 15, 2017, USDT tokens weren’t backed “1-to-1” by USD held by Tether in a checking account. That is regardless of opposite claims at the moment.
Tether has additionally paid the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee $41 million over claims that it inconsistently backed its USDT.
