Tether Stops USDT Support for Bitcoin, Kusama and Bitcoin Cash

Tether announced changes to its USDT issuance strategy, stopped supporting Bitcoin, Kusama, and Bitcoin Cash, and indicated possible future cooperation.

Tether, the issuer of the stablecoin USDT, has announced major changes to its support for various blockchains. Tether has discontinued support for USDT on the Bitcoin ( BTC ), Kusama ( KSM ) and Bitcoin Cash ( BCH ) platforms following an extensive evaluation for security, customer service, regulatory compliance, and overall oversight.

The company cited lack of traction as the main reason, saying that “when blockchains have not shown a significant increase in usage for a significant period of time, it becomes increasingly challenging to justify the necessary resources and oversight. It could even pose a potential security risk."

The immediate impact of this move will be to stop USDT-Omni, USDT-Kusama, and USDT-BCHSLP minting starting today, August 17th.

Nonetheless, Tether has assured users that USDT swaps on these platforms will continue to follow standard procedures for the next 12 months.

Additionally, for those looking for an alternative, there is the option to swap affected USDT for other versions through platforms such as Bitfinex.

Omni is the groundbreaking layer Tether used in 2014 to facilitate its stablecoin issuance on top of Bitcoin. While USDT’s Omni usage has dwindled due to the availability of stablecoins on other blockchains, Tether hasn’t completely shut down the prospect.

They could reconsider issuing USDT for Bitcoin through Omni, especially if Omni Layer’s decentralized exchange (DEX) and token issuance protocol activity increases significantly.

Tether also works with RGB, the smart contract system on Bitcoin’s layer 2 and layer 3. In the future, once the USDT implementation on RGB is up and running, they will be able to issue USDT on Bitcoin.