PANews reported on December 20 that according to Bloomberg, the EU crypto asset law will take full effect at the end of the year. In order to comply with the Crypto Asset Market Regulation (MiCA), many cryptocurrency exchanges in the EU have removed USDT, the mainstream stable currency Tether. This move is affecting the market for such tokens, with new issuers trying to fill the gap and investors defaulting to using euros for cryptocurrency trading.
The new EU rules are designed to give regulators a deeper understanding of cryptocurrency flows and help prevent crimes such as money laundering, which blockchain forensics experts say USDT is often used for. But cryptocurrency executives warn that MiCA could end up drying up market liquidity without achieving the EU's goals, making the bloc less attractive to digital asset traders at a critical time. "I understand the reasons for doing this to a certain extent, but it's quite exclusive and restrictive for EU customers themselves because USDT is the most liquid stablecoin by far," said Usman Ahmad, CEO of Zodia Markets, a crypto trading firm backed by Standard Chartered Bank.
Tether’s main competitor Circle received such a license in July. However, Tether has yet to obtain such a license, but has not ruled out the possibility of trying to obtain one in the future. In the event that Tether does not obtain a license, regulated exchanges must delist the token by December 30. Tether declined to comment on its own plans for an e-money license.
