Revolut's USDT Delisting Feels Like a Threat

Revolut, the major fintech company, has notified its European users that USDT is being removed from the list of assets supported by the Revolut wallet. Users can buy USDT through Revolut only until July 6, deposit USDT into their wallet until July 30, and sell or withdraw it until August 31. After that, any remaining USDT will be automatically converted to dollars.

My first thought was: what if European users - who already have fewer and fewer legitimate ways to exit USDT - all took Revolut up on this "forced conversion" offer at once and flooded their wallets with billions of USDT? Would Revolut actually be able to come up with that many dollars for its customers? Now that would be a fun stress test - a real-world liquidity check for USDT.

But then I remembered just how much demand there is for USDT among users of our swap service, and it struck me that Revolut's forced-conversion announcement doesn't really sound like a favor to customers. It sounds more like a threat.

Whatever USDT's flaws, and despite all the freezes carried out by Tether, the fact remains: you can usually send USDT to anyone, anywhere, without asking a bank or a fintech company for permission. Regular dollars don't give you that kind of freedom.