Tether Reintroduces USDT to Bitcoin with RGB Launch

Tether, the company behind USDT, which is the biggest stablecoin out there, is getting ready to roll out USDT directly on Bitcoin using the RGB protocol v0.11.1. UTEXO is taking the lead on the commercial side of this launch. This move brings USDT back to the Bitcoin network, where it originally started back in 2014 with Omni-Mastercoin. With RGB, users will be able to send and receive USDT between Bitcoin addresses and wallets that are compatible. UTEXO mentioned that we could see this feature go live as soon as July, and it’ll likely be supported later on by Tether Wallet and various exchanges. Do you think this has anything to do with Tether not getting a MiCa license and being pushed out of the EU? Is this a way for them to issue USDT on a totally unchangeable chain to avoid compliance issues with regulators?

Doubt it. This has been something they have been working towards for some time now[1][2]. They seem to be heavily invested in both the RGB Protocol, and also Taproot assets. Compared to Circle (USDC), Tether even with its centralized nature, seems a lot more pro-bitcoin. [1] https://tether.io/news/tether-to-launch-usdt-on-rgb-expanding-native-bitcoin-stablecoin-support/ [2] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5528322.msg66483903#msg66483903

I think this is good, I like the Omni layer but I did not use it because most exchanges did not support it when I know about cryptocurrencies. No, I do not think so. If Tether makes the RGB protocol v0.11.1 and USDT was able to be on bitcoin addresses, this can not change EU licensing requirements.

I don't know how this will work but we shall see, that aside, this is one of the reasons why I like Tether as a crypto company, they are also working on layer 1 Blockchain, I don't want to believe that this is a rumour only. What I don't understand is why many people want them dead, almost every year as a crypto investor I always see one or two FUds about Tether's USDT, saying it's going to die or it will lose value. I talked to a friend on phone a day ago, he still mentioned that USDT Losing value, I asked what value and he said $0.99, like how I said, how is $0.99 a problem when I've seen $0.97 in the past, still nothing bad happen, it's sad.

Now I see... Been a while, almost a year and this month it finally goes live. If I understand it correctly, Tether won't be able to restrict or limit access or usage of USDT on RGB and users in, say, the EU would be able to use it without fearing that the EU might force Tether to bother them in any way? If so that's some great timing. Either a coincidence, or they knew the music was about to stop for them in the EU at least a year ago. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suppose that due to the immutable nature of the chain, even if the EU regulators take some action against Tether or try to enforce them to limit/restrict their product's usage in the EU via legal channels, there would be no technical possibility for Tether to do so hence Tether couldn't be held accountable? Again, I'm not sure it would work this way. On EVM-chains or, say, Solana it all is controlled very easily though.

From my understanding of things, in RGB, the issuer of token (in this case Tether) has the ability to set a contract schema and rights from the beggining (not to be changed later on) that could give him special priviliges. So it really depends on the issuer of the token. You can go both ways. I don't see Tether being the company it is not taking advantage of that. They'll be probably at the very least set the ability to blacklist addresses.

Interestingly, the same UTEXO that will be issuing native USDT tokens based on the RGB protocol already has bridged USDT in that protocol. In their tweet, they describe these tokens as trustless, which most likely means they cannot be frozen or blacklisted. These tokens are already traded on ln.exchange, and trades involving them are not exactly rare: https://app.ln.exchange/#/explore/spot-market-events And if the official USDT ends up having freeze or blacklist functions, I think it may be better to keep using the bridged version.

Would be really funny it that happens though. On the other hand, if USDT has different contract schemas on different chains, it would be harder for them to strictly enforce what they need to do if they wanted to compete with other government compliant stable coin. The question is whether that bridged token or alternatives can be usable for long before they got shut down for one reason or another.