Tether ends USDT minting for Polkadot’s Kusama chain, BCH SLP and Omni Layer after nine years

Tether is set to make a crucial change in an effort to strike a balance between maintainability, usage statistics, and community interest. The USDT issuer announced it would be ending mining for three blockchains, one of which it partnered with for nine years.

Tether brings USDT minting to an end for three chains

Tether announced that starting August 17, it would be ceasing the minting of USDT-Omni, USDT-Kusama, and USDT–BCHSLP. These are the USDT issued on Polkadot’s test chain Kusama, Bitcoin Cash SLP and Omni Layer. Of the three, Tether has supported the minting of the stablecoin the longest with Omni Layer, going back nine years since 2014.

Tether stated the reason was to ensure that the blockchain its stablecoin operates on has a thriving ecosystem, which was not the case with these three chains. However, the USDT issuer has reassured users of the chains that should the chains note increased utilization, Tether would be open to reconsidering the issuance of the stablecoin on it.

In its announcement addressing the ceasing of minting, Tether stated.

“We believe the market should decide which protocols and blockchains are utilized for the transfer of value. We will continue to support the protocols and chains that the community finds useful and encourage the community to expand the use cases of USD₮ on every protocol.

For the next 12 months, Tether will continue to redeem the USDT tokens issued on these chains and allow users to swap them for other chains.

USDT has seen a sharp increase in demand that, at one point, was in favor of USD Coin (USDC) over the past couple of months. Since March this year, USDT’s circulation has observed a rise, and as of this month, the circulating supply hit an all-time high of $83.9 billion. 

USDT-USDC circulating supply

USDC, on the other hand, is down to $26.1 billion, losing its position as the fourth biggest crypto asset to Binance Coin (BNB) and Ripple (XRP).