The Kraken crypto exchange will delist five stablecoins, including Tether’s USDT, in the European Economic Area to adhere to the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).
The delisting will affect European clients in over 30 countries, including Austria, Cyprus, Czechia, Malta, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden.
The exchange also maintains that the delisting process will ensure it meets crypto assets regulatory requirements and offers an “exceptional trading experience” for its European clients.
Kraken will halt spot trading of five stablecoins by March 31, 2025
Kraken will discontinue support for the following tokens in the European Economic Area (EEA): PayPal USD, TrueUSD, Tether EURt, TerraClassic USD, and Tether USDT.
This comes months after Mark Greenberg, the Global Head of Asset Management, insisted that the exchange had no plans to delist USDT in Europe, saying it would look for ways to offer the token under the new regulations.
The crypto platform will now gradually remove support for the five stablecoins, starting with placing the assets in a “reduce-only” mode on February 13. That means EEA clients will have to scale down or completely close out their existing margin positions.
Then, on February 27, the stablecoins will move to the “sell-only” mode. Here, the platform will still allow for token trading; however, users cannot generate deposit addresses.
Additionally, the platform said it would close any remaining margin positions on March 17. Then, it will stop spot trading for the affected assets on March 24 at 7 a.m. EST, formally closing all open orders into other coins or fiat currencies.
By March 31, all outstanding client holdings will be converted to a stablecoin of corresponding market value.
Crypto.com will also fully delist Tether’s USDT by the end of Q1 2025
In April 2024, Tether’s CTO Paolo Ardoino hinted that it might be giving up on its crypto market in Europe following the regulation change, pointing out that Europe has placed very restrictive measures on stablecoins.
He said:
As far as Europe is concerned, I don’t think MiCA can encourage the emergence of a welcoming regulatory framework. Clearly, the message being sent is that Europe does not want crypto with regulation that largely limits access to it, especially for retail investors.
Paolo Ardoino
Crypto.com is also delisting ten stablecoins, including Tether’s USDT. Similarly, the platform is giving its customers until the end of the first quarter of 2025 to convert their affected assets into MiCA-compliant tokens.
The crypto exchange had already discontinued support for USDT in Europe last year.
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Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/kraken-will-delist-usdt-mica-europe/