The ECB now wants the MiCA rule Tether refused to accept

The European Central Bank and the euro-area national central banks have asked the Commission to scrap MiCA's bank-deposit floor for stablecoin reserves. Tether refused to seek an EU licence over that same rule two years ago. The two institutions have now reached the same conclusion from opposite sides of a bank's balance sheet, and neither changed its mind to get there.

What is being replaced:

• Now: at least 30% of reserves in bank deposits, and more than 60% for stablecoins classed as significant.
• Proposed: no deposit floor at all, with at least 40% of reserves maturing within one working day and 60% within five.
• The 60% survives the change. What it measures does not.

Tether's objection was about the depositor. Paolo Ardoino has argued since 2024 that forcing reserves into bank accounts makes a token less safe, because deposit insurance in the EU stops at €100,000. Run that against the size of the thing being insured: USDT has a market value of $183.3bn, so a 60% deposit floor would put roughly $110bn into banks. Covering that at €100,000 a time would take about 1.1 million separate insured positions. The guarantee is real and it is not built for this scale.

“When MiCA becomes safer for consumers and stablecoin issuers, then we might reconsider.”

— Paolo Ardoino, Tether, quoted by BeInCrypto

Paolo Ardoino, chief executive of Tether, on the EU rules

The other side of the balance sheet

The ECB's objection is about the bank. Deposits from a stablecoin issuer are not ordinary corporate cash: if holders redeem in a wave, the issuer pulls the money in a day and the deposits leave a bank's balance sheet overnight. A rule written to make stablecoins safer ends up importing their run risk straight into the banking system, which is the part supervisors are paid to keep boring.

The replacement is the interesting design choice. Dropping the deposit floor and demanding 40% of reserves at one-day maturity and 60% at five days targets the actual failure mode, which is not where the money sits but how fast it can be turned into cash. It is also a reminder that percentages in regulation are only as meaningful as the thing they count. Sixty percent of reserves in a bank and 60% maturing within a week describe completely different portfolios.

What is actually being fixed

For the market the practical question is whether this brings the largest issuer into Europe. Tether said it would reconsider if the rules changed, and the rule it named is the one now under review. Nothing is settled: this is a consultation response, and MiCA stands as written until the Commission acts. Meanwhile USDT keeps growing outside the perimeter, and yesterday we measured how much of its payment traffic runs on a single chain. Jurisdictions that took the opposite approach are visible too, with China banning yuan stablecoins outright. Europe is choosing between designs. That is a different conversation, and a more useful one.

Informational material, not investment advice. The ECB submission is a consultation response, not law; MiCA's rules stand until the Commission changes them. Market figures are CoinGecko data for 22 September 2026.