Los Angeles (CoinChapter) – Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the United States, announced it will list Tether (USDT) on its professional trading platform, Coinbase Pro.
Effective immediately, Coinbase Pro will begin accepting inbound transfers of USDT. However, the company said that trading will only begin on Monday, April 26 if liquidity conditions are met.
“Once sufficient supply of USDT is established on the platform, trading on our BTC-USDT, ETH-USDT, USDT-EUR, USDT-GBP, USDT-USD and USDT-USDC, order books will launch in three phases, post-only, limit-only and full trading,”
Coinbase explained in a blog post.
USDT trading on Coinbase Pro is currently available for residents of the United States (with the exception of New York state). Support additionally has been extended to the European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, and Singapore.
Moreover, Coinbase emphasized that USDT is not yet available on its retail trading platform Coinbase.com.
“We will make a separate announcement if and when this support is added,” the company noted.
Tether operates atop multiple blockchains. But Coinbase, a US-regulated cryptocurrency trading firm, chose to work ith USDTs issued on the Ethereum public ledger. Ethereum does not attract strict scrutiny from the US regulators, for they see the project as truly decentralized.
Tether has issued more than 24 billion USDT via Ethereum.
Coinbase Pro Not Concerned Over Issues Surrounding Tether
By listing Tether, Coinbase Pro doesn’t seem to be worried about past issues surrounding USDT. In February 2021, Tether and Bitfinex settled with the New York Attorney General’s Office, over claims that it did not back the stablecoins it issued with a 1:1 US dollar peg.
As part of the settlement, New York regulators forced Tether and Bitfinex to pay $18.5 million in damages. They also ordered them to submit to periodic reporting of their reserves. A settlement pointed at potential mishandlings on the Tether management’s side, but the cryptocurrency community on the whole celebrated the conclusion. Bitcoin prices remained unfazed by the settlement.
Coinbase, which strictly adhered to US regulatory standards while listing tokens, somewhat approved USDT as a non-controversial token, taking some heat over its backers at Tether. The exchange previously delisted coins under regulatory scrutiny. That includes Ripple Labs’ XRP, which faces allegations from the US Securities and Exchange Commission of being a security token. Ripple Labs has denied the charges.
Meanwhile, Tether’s trading volume is up by more than 55% in the last 24 hours. Currently, the most notable crypto exchanges that offer support for USDT are Binance, CoinSpot, Bitfinex and Kraken.
