Intro – The USDT and USDC stablecoins
Anyone getting into cryptocurrencies soon finds themselves at a fork in the road: USDT or USDC? Both claim to be worth one dollar. Both run on blockchains. Both are called stablecoins. And yet they are not interchangeable. And for anyone living in Italy or elsewhere in the European Economic Area, the difference is no longer a white paper matter: on many regulated exchanges, USDT has simply vanished from the listings.
Two issuers, two worlds
USDT is the product of Tether, a company now domiciled in El Salvador and launched in 2014. It is the largest stablecoin: in early September 2026 it was worth about 183 billion dollars, more than 60% of the entire market. USDC, on the other hand, is issued by Circle, a listed US company founded in 2018. It is worth about 74 billion, a quarter of the market. Together they are still the backbone of the on-chain dollar.
The real difference isn’t the peg. It’s who stands behind it and how they hold the money. Circle has bet everything on an “institutional” profile: reserves in cash and short-term US Treasuries, monthly attestations from Deloitte, American licenses and, above all, European authorization. Tether has bet on reach: it is the default dollar on offshore exchanges, in emerging markets and on the Tron network, where transfers are cheap. Its reserves are mostly US Treasuries, but there is also gold, bitcoin and other investments. Attestations come quarterly. More opaque, bigger, more everywhere.
Transparency versus liquidity
In a nutshell: USDC wins on transparency and compliance; USDT wins on liquidity and global presence. If you trade on the big international exchanges, you’ll find more depth in USDT. If you move money in DeFi, or work with regulated banks and fintechs, you’ll prefer USDC. It’s not a question of “which one is more honest”. It’s a question of who you’re dealing with and which jurisdiction you’re operating in.
Both companies can freeze addresses. Tether has done so on much larger volumes. Those who see it as a problem of illicit flows have a point; those who see it as an issuer more aggressive on compliance have another. The practical point remains: a centralized stablecoin is not bitcoin. Someone, somewhere, still has a switch.
Why you can no longer (easily) buy USDT in Europe
This is where the MiCA Regulation comes in, the European framework for crypto-assets. For Brussels, a stablecoin pegged to a single fiat currency is an e-money token. To offer it to the public, an authorized exchange (a CASP, in the regulation’s jargon) must be able to show that the issuer is authorized in the Union and entered in the relevant registers.
Circle did its homework: an electronic money institution license in France, a European passport, and USDC as well as EURC remain listed. Tether did not apply for authorization. Its CEO, Paolo Ardoino, said so without mincing words: for “significant” issuers, MiCA pushes a substantial share of reserves — the figure often quoted is 60% — into deposits at European banks. Tether keeps about 80% in US Treasury securities. Parking tens of billions in fractional-reserve banks, with deposit insurance typically capped at 100,000 euros, is for Tether a systemic risk, not a safeguard. It would also cut the yield on its Treasuries, which is the engine of its profits.
On the ground, the result was mechanical. Coinbase Europe delisted USDT for EEA customers as early as the end of 2024. Then came Crypto.com, Binance in its European incarnation, Kraken and others. On 1 July 2026 the last transitional window expired. On Europe’s regulated listings, what’s left, in practice, is Circle’s dollar.
Mind the vocabulary: this is not a ban on holding it. ESMA has clarified that holding and transferring an unauthorised stablecoin remains lawful. The restriction applies to the venue, not the wallet. You can keep USDT in self-custody, send it on-chain, swap it on a DEX. What has become awkward is buying it with a SEPA transfer on your trusted exchange and withdrawing euros as easily as before.
