Tether (USDT) Halts Support for Kusama, BCH SLP, and Omni Chains

The company behind the most valuable stablecoin in terms of market capitalization, Tether, has formally stopped supporting three separate blockchains. The stablecoin issuer halted minting USDT on Kusama (KSM), the Simple Ledger Protocol of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Omni Layer (OMNI) on Thursday.

Tether claims that while making the decision to add USDT to various blockchains, community interest is crucial.”We carefully assess the work needed to secure the security, usability, and sustainability of the chosen blockchain, taking into account security, customer support, compliance, and regulatory supervision. Maintaining support becomes ineffective and may risk security and oversight if blockchain experiences sustained traction issues and show no indications of recovery in usage statistics.

For the Polkadot (DOT) interoperability blockchain, Kusama serves as the canary test network. The SLP is a token system for the network of Bitcoin Cash, a hard fork of the original Bitcoin (BTC).

As one of the first sidechain protocols for Bitcoin that aimed to provide the dominant cryptocurrency more functionality, Omni Layer was introduced in 2013. It was also the first chain on which Tether issued USDT.

Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer of Tether, said that the stablecoin issuer found it particularly difficult to drop Omni.”This decision hurts our hearts, particularly in light of the Omni Layer, the original transport layer for Tether USDT back in 2014.

Due to the lack of well-known tokens and the accessibility of USDT on other blockchains, the Omni Layer has encountered difficulties over time. As a result, the use of USDT on Bitcoin via the Omni Layer decreased as more exchanges favored alternative transport layers.

Even if it means making challenging decisions, as an ethical organization we must maintain consistency, transparency, and adherence to open processes. In the last 24 hours, BCH has fallen more than 14%, while KSM has down more than 7%.