Tether General Counsel Stuart Hoegner Retires Amid MiCA Uncertainty

Stuart Hoegner, General Counsel of Tether and Bitfinex, has retired from his role as the legal chief of the two firms and will be replaced by Michael Hilliard.

Stuart Hoegner, the General Counsel of Tether and Bitfinex, has retired from his role. Hoegner's retirement is a separate event from the implementation of MiCA.

Stuart Hoegner has retired from his role as General Counsel of Tether and Bitfinex, with Michael Hilliard set to take over the role. Hilliard has been working alongside Hoegner for “several years.”

In a Jan. 2 statement shared with Cointelegraph, Tether announced that Hoegner had retired and would be succeeded as General Counsel by Tether’s current legal counsel.

“Michael’s deep understanding of both companies’ operations, coupled with his strategic approach to legal and regulatory challenges, has been critical to advancing both Tether and Bitfinex’s mission,” the firm wrote in the statement.

Stuart Hoegner has retired from his role as General Counsel of Tether and Bitfinex.

The change in legal leadership for Tether comes amid the implementation of MiCA in Europe, which officially came into effect on Dec. 30.

The MiCA regulations have left stablecoin issuers like Tether in limbo, with the regulations not clearly stating whether or not the firm’s U.S. Dollar-pegged stablecoin Tether (USDT) complies with the new crypto framework for the European Union.

“No regulators have explicitly stated that USDT isn’t compliant, but this does not mean that it is,” Juan Ignacio Ibañez, a member of the Technical Committee of the MiCA Crypto Alliance, told Cointelegraph in a Dec. 29 report.

In October 2024, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) — a key supervisor of MiCA compliance — declined to tell Cointelegraph whether USDT was seen as a restricted stablecoin under MiCA.

A spokesperson at ESMA then said that the regulator was working with market participants and other stakeholders to address stablecoin-related issues presented in MiCA.

While there has been murky guidance on the matter of Tether’s legal status in Europe, United States crypto exchange Coinbase delisted USDT in mid-December, citing compliance with MiCA.

Despite Coinbase’s move to delist USDT, the stablecoin has continued trading across the EU, with many exchanges still awaiting further clarity from European authorities on USDT’s compliance with MiCA.

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