New Bills Could Bar Tether From Issuing USDT in the US, Complicate Exchange Listings

A pair of new congressional bills to regulate stablecoins could bar El Salvadorian-based Tether from issuing new USDT digital dollars in the United States.

Two new congressional bills that aim to regulate stablecoins in the United States could have a significant impact on Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer. The bills, one in the Senate and the other in the House, would impose strict compliance requirements on stablecoin issuers, including a one-to-one reserve ratio and an audit by a U.S.-based accounting firm.

If Tether fails to meet these requirements, it could be barred from issuing new USDT digital dollars in the United States and face the possibility of being delisted from major exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini.

Tether has never produced an audit, although it does provide quarterly attestations of its reserves through the accounting firm BDO. Its latest report, released last week, showed that Tether had $143 billion in assets against the outstanding supply of USDT at the time ($137 billion).

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has previously expressed a willingness to get audited but claims that no U.S. firm will take them on as a client. In a July 2024 interview with Forbes, he said, “A big auditing firm might service 50,000 banks, and each of those banks would pay them maybe $1 million annually. Imagine that you have these 50,000 banks, and then you have one stablecoin company. What would your 50,000 customers say about the fact that you onboarded a stablecoin that is probably its strongest competitor? So, it is not very easy as a selling point for the big four companies (Deloitte, PwC, KPMG and EY).”

Tether did not respond to a request for comment.

The stablecoin legislation could also complicate decisions from U.S. exchanges regarding whether to keep USDT on their platform at all. The asset was delisted late last year from many prominent European exchanges that had to come in compliance with the Markets in CryptoAsset Legislation (MiCA).

However, neither congressional bill makes that explicit demand.

“While U.S. regulated exchanges would likely prioritize compliant stablecoins, delisting isn’t an automatic requirement,” explained Laurenth Alba, an attorney and Head of Business Development at Rome Protocol. “Instead, exchanges will assess risk; if Tether does not obtain a federal or state-issued stablecoin license, some platforms may voluntarily reduce exposure or restrict U.S. customers from trading USDT to avoid regulatory risk.”

Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini did not respond to requests for comment.

Even if USDT is not delisted at exchanges, there could still be complications. One lawyer who had examined the stablecoin legislation thought it likely that a forthcoming market structure bill would instruct crypto companies to work with regulated stablecoin issuers, “If you were to structure a regulation that would reward people for complying, you also have to take steps to make it harder to operate for people who don’t comply,” he explained.

Neither bill provides a grace period for Tether, or anyone else, to meet all of the stated requirements. However, it will likely still take months for the companion bills to pass both chambers of congress and eventually be signed into law by President Donald Trump.

One factor that could help Tether is that Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Commerce, the billionaire Chief Executive Officer of asset manager Cantor Fitzgerald, is a long-time business partner and investor in the company. The lawyer familiar with the stablecoin legislation said they believed Tether did “not lack the resources” to become compliant if they so desired.

Representatives for Hagerty and Hill did not respond to requests for comment by press time.