Treasury’s New Stablecoin Rule Could Force US Exchanges to Delist Tether

Reading Treasury’s newly proposed GENIUS Act rules on Bits + Bips, Austin Campbell said Coinbase’s US platform “might have to delist Tether,” pointing to Europe’s MiCA delistings as the template.

Austin Campbell, founder of Zero Knowledge Group, said on the Bits + Bips podcast that Treasury’s newly proposed rules for the GENIUS Act could leave US exchanges unable to offer Tether‘s USDT, forcing platforms such as Coinbase to delist it for American users.

“There may be a de minimis, but I’m starting to think Coinbase’s US platform might have to delist Tether,” Campbell said on the Aug. 17 show, hours after the Treasury Department released the proposal. “And by the way, Europe has already been doing this.”

The rule is Treasury’s notice of proposed rulemaking for Section 3 of the GENIUS Act, which governs who may issue, offer and sell payment stablecoins in the United States.

Beginning Jan. 18, 2027, a digital asset service provider, the category that covers exchanges, generally may not offer or make available a foreign-issued stablecoin unless the issuer can and will comply with US lawful orders and any reciprocal arrangement between Treasury and the issuer’s home country.

“You cannot offer, sell, or make available a foreign-issued payment stablecoin in the US unless that issuer can and will comply with lawful orders and reciprocal arrangements,” Campbell said on the podcast, summarizing the core prohibition. “So basically, Tether can be used offshore, but not here.”

The European precedent

Campbell’s read has a recent template. Under the EU’s MiCA regime, EU-regulated exchanges faced the same binary, carry a compliant stablecoin or lose their own license, and USDT lost its listings. Coinbase removed USDT for users in the European Economic Area effective March 31, 2025, with Crypto.com and Binance following the same quarter.

“I will remind people that’s not new, and we’re not going first,” Campbell said on the show. “The European Union with MiCA basically said, ‘If you’re not registered, goodbye.’”

USDT has about $183 billion in circulation, roughly 59% of the stablecoin market. It has not pursued the kind of registration MiCA required, and its answer to the US framework is more layered than a straight refusal.

Tether’s two-track answer

The company has split its strategy. It kept USDT as an offshore, dollar-pegged token and launched a separate, US-domestic stablecoin, USAT, in January 2026, built to comply with the GENIUS Act, issued through Anchorage Digital Bank and run by Bo Hines, the former head of the White House’s crypto council.

Co-host Chris Perkins, head of Franklin Crypto, pointed to that split on the show. “They also have USAT onshore being led by Bo Hines,” Perkins said. “I don’t think that they’re just ignoring Genius. I think they have a plan.”

That plan is what makes Campbell’s scenario coherent rather than hypothetical. If USDT stays foreign and unregistered while USAT carries Tether’s compliant US business, USDT is exactly the sort of foreign-issued stablecoin the proposed rule is written to reach.

Caveats

The rule is a proposal, not final. Treasury has opened a roughly 60-day comment window, and the foreign-issuer restriction does not take effect until Jan. 18, 2027.

A path also stays open: Treasury can deem a foreign issuer’s home regime “comparable” to the US framework and let it register, though no country has such a determination yet. And the proposal is silent on stablecoin yield, the issue tangled up in the separate CLARITY Act fight.

Related Listen: In an AI Agent World, Do Money Markets Win Over Stablecoins? – Bits + Bips