Uphold Cut USDT for MiCA and Split Europe’s Dollar Rails

Uphold told its European users in June 2024 that USDT and five other stablecoins would leave the platform on July 1. The notice cited MiCA. Leftover balances would be converted into USDC on June 28 if clients did not move them first.

The conversion put Uphold’s European book onto USDC, EURC and PYUSD as MiCA’s stablecoin rules took effect on June 30, 2024. Two years later, licensed EU venues still cannot offer USDT, and Tether’s chief executive still points to a 60% bank-deposit rule as the reason the firm will not file.

Uphold Gave European Users a June Deadline

The notice did not arrive as a polished press release. Antony Welfare, a CBDC adviser at Ripple, posted Uphold’s European email on June 17, 2024, which is how the cutoff first circulated in public. New York-based Uphold said it was ending support for the named tokens to line up with the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets rules for the European Economic Area.

Clients were told to convert by June 27, 2024. Any remainder would be swept into USDC on June 28, 2024. Trading and other support for the six names would then stop on July 1, 2024, fourteen days after the email became public.

USDT was the headline name on that list, but it was not alone. Dai, Frax, Gemini Dollar, Pax Dollar and TrueUSD were bundled into the same conversion. Uphold said it would keep USDC, the euro token EURC, and PayPal’s PYUSD.

That mix already showed the split the rest of the industry spent two years completing. Dollar liquidity that a licensed venue could still touch sat in Circle’s stack. Tether, Dai and the smaller dollar brands were treated as inventory to be closed out, not as products to be redesigned for an EU e-money license.

The Six Tokens That Left the Book

The email named six outbound tickers and three that would stay. Their later status on the EU e-money token file is the part the 2024 wires did not have.

UPHOLD’S 2024 STABLECOIN CUT AND THE 2026 FILE

Paxos, which issued USDP, later appears on the same EU file through other tickers such as USDG. That is a different product from the Pax Dollar Uphold removed. Dai and Frax sit further from the e-money model because they are not a single-issuer claim on one fiat currency held in a licensed European entity.

Users who ignored the June 27 note did not keep a Tether balance on Uphold. They woke up in USDC. The platform chose the conversion asset for them, and that asset was the one Circle was already preparing to issue inside France.

Circle Cleared France the Same Weekend

MiCA’s stablecoin title started to apply on June 30, 2024. The next day Circle said its French unit had an e-money license from the ACPR, France’s banking supervisor, and that USDC and EURC would be issued in the EU under those rules. Circle called itself the first global stablecoin issuer to meet the new regime, and said that of the ten largest stables by market cap that day, only USDC cleared the bar.

By working closely with French and EU regulators, we are now able to offer both USDC and EURC as fully-compliant dollar and euro stablecoins to the European market.

Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Circle press release, July 1, 2024

Coralie Billmann, managing director of Circle France, said the license came after months of work with ACPR authorisation teams. Circle also opened Circle Mint in France so firms could mint and redeem both tokens through local banking rails. Holders of those e-money tokens have a right of redemption at par, which the company states on the same notice that announced the French EMI license for USDC and EURC.

Paxos notified an EU white paper a day earlier, on June 29, 2024, according to the compiled ESMA file. Circle’s July 1 announcement was still the one that moved the large dollar coin European venues actually wanted to keep. Uphold had already picked that coin as the default bin for stranded USDT.

Why Tether Still Will Not File

Tether never put USDT through the same French (or any other EU) e-money process. Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s chief executive, posted on September 22, 2026 that the firm refused an EU license over a clause that forces large issuers to keep 60% of reserves in commercial banks. He tied that refusal to a report that Europe’s central banks now want the same clause deleted.

"Europe's central banks want Brussels to delete a MiCA rule on stablecoin reserves. It forces large issuers to keep 60% of that money in commercial banks. Tether refused an EU license over the same clause." https://t.co/dzkyoQFH2n pic.twitter.com/cCiXSkkmLH

— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) September 22, 2026

The floor he is describing is the significant-token version of MiCA’s reserve mix. Smaller e-money issuers face a lower 30% bank-deposit share; once a token is large enough to be classed as significant, the share steps up to 60%. The European Banking Authority had still not named any e-money token as significant as of the September 2026 register notes, but USDT at global scale would sit in that bucket if it ever entered the regime.

The clash is mechanical. A rule written to make redemptions safer by parking cash at EU banks also concentrates runnable deposits at those banks. That is the objection Ardoino has used to stay outside the license, and it is the same objection now showing up in central-bank commentary. Forcing Tether-sized reserves into uninsured commercial accounts would swap Treasury-bill liquidity for bank credit risk. Leaving those reserves in bills leaves USDT off licensed EU order books.

Holding USDT in a private wallet is not a crime in the EU. Offering it to EU clients from a licensed crypto-asset service provider is the restricted act. That is why Uphold’s 2024 conversion, ugly as it looked in an inbox, matched the legal shape of the market that followed.

Coinbase, Kraken and Binance Caught Up

Uphold was early, not unique. OKX had already taken USDT pairs off its EU book in March 2024. Larger brands then spent late 2024 and early 2025 walking the same path Uphold had put in an email, once national supervisors started treating non-licensed dollar tokens as products that could not be sold into the EEA.

WHEN THE BIGGER BOOKS DROPPED USDT

1. March 2024: OKX removes USDT trading pairs for EU users and keeps other stables including USDC.
2. June 17, 2024: Welfare shares Uphold’s notice covering USDT, DAI, FRAX, GUSD, USDP and TUSD.
3. June 28, 2024: Uphold auto-converts leftover balances of those six tokens into USDC.
4. July 1, 2024: Uphold ends support; Circle announces its French e-money license the same date.
5. December 2024: Coinbase removes USDT for European users.
6. January 31, 2025: Crypto.com delists USDT and a wider set of non-compliant tokens on its EU platform.
7. February 2025: Kraken moves EEA users through reduce-only and then sell-only stages for USDT and several other stables.
8. March 31, 2025: Binance drops non-compliant spot pairs for EEA users, including USDT, while saying custody and some perpetual contracts can remain.
9. July 1, 2026: The last national grandfathering window for crypto-asset service providers closes across the EEA.
10. September 22, 2026: Ardoino posts that Tether refused a MiCA license over the 60% bank-deposit clause.

By the time the CASP transition ended on July 1, 2026, USDT had already been off the main licensed spot books for a year or more. Uphold’s users had been off it since June 28, 2024. The late movers looked dramatic because of their size. The legal logic was the one in Uphold’s email.

Europe’s Stablecoin Register Still Has No USDT

The public compilation of ESMA’s e-money-token white papers, checked against the official file on 24 September 2026, still has no Tether line. It does have Circle, Paxos, Societe Generale Forge, Banking Circle and a longer tail of mostly euro names. The same ESMA page that hosts the downloadable files stamps that update on 24 September 2026.

THE EMT FILE ON 24 SEPTEMBER 2026

• Issuers: CASP Tracker counts 24 companies authorised to issue e-money tokens, from the official white-paper file.
• Paperwork: Those firms account for 49 notified white papers across 14 countries.
• Dual hats: 9 of the 24 issuers also hold a crypto-asset service provider license; the two registers are separate.
• Empty ART column: No asset-referenced token issuer has been authorised, so basket-style stables are not on the licensed menu.

The same tracker counts 359 licensed crypto-asset service providers. That figure is the exchange-and-custody side of the house, not the issuer side. A venue on that list still may only offer stables whose issuers sit on the e-money file. That is the clamp Uphold applied in 2024 and that every licensed book now lives with.

Readers who want the raw law can open the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation text. The live issuer and venue files sit on the ESMA interim MiCA register, which ESMA warns does not mean each white paper has been approved for substance, only notified.

What Licensed Books Can Still Trade

On a MiCA-licensed European venue, the dollar and euro stables that can be offered are the ones with an e-money or bank license plus a notified white paper. Circle’s USDC and EURC are the large names. Euro tokens from banks and specialist issuers fill in the rest, and Paxos appears through USDG rather than through the USDP ticker Uphold dropped.

NAMES ON THE COMPILED EMT LIST

• Circle: USDC and EURC, ACPR in France, white papers dated 1 July 2024.
• Paxos EU: USDG, EUROe and eUSD, with a first white paper dated 29 June 2024.
• Societe Generale Forge: EURCV and USDCV, also ACPR, first white paper 1 July 2024.
• Banking Circle: EURI, Luxembourg CSSF, white paper 28 August 2024.
• Other euro lines: Schuman Financial’s EURØP, Quantoz, AllUnity, StablR, Monerium’s EURe and several bank-issued euro tokens sit on the same file.

The full roster of 24 authorised e-money token issuers is longer than the brand names most traders type, and most of the extra capacity is euro, not dollar. That is the market Uphold’s conversion pointed at in June 2024: a short, licensed dollar choice, a growing euro menu, and no USDT on the regulated screen.

Ardoino’s September 22 post leaves the door in one direction only. If Brussels ever drops the 60% bank-deposit clause, Tether says it refused over that clause. Until a white paper for USDT shows up in ESMA’s file, licensed European books have the same job Uphold gave itself on July 1, 2024, which is to keep Tether off the ticket and let Circle’s dollar do the on-venue work.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis for information only. It is not investment advice, a recommendation to buy, sell or hold USDT, USDC or any other token, and it is not legal advice on MiCA licensing. Readers should consult a qualified financial adviser and, where needed, a lawyer admitted in their EU member state before moving funds or choosing a venue. Figures, register counts and license statuses reflect the cited Circle notice, ESMA file update of 24 September 2026, and related primary pages, and those records can change.