Tether Announces Support for Ethereum Proof of Stake Transition

Tether – the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT – has confirmed its support for the upcoming Ethereum Merge. This puts both USDT and USDC on the same page, quelling doubts about a potentially combative hard fork in September.

• In an announcement on Tuesday, Tether emphasized that it is important not to cause confusion and harm within the Ethereum ecosystem by weaponizing its upcoming transition. 

• “For this reason, Tether will closely follow the progress and preparations for this event and will support POS Ethereum in line with the official schedule,” said the company. 

• The transition, said Tether, must be smooth in order to ensure the long-term health of Defi and other ecosystems using Tether’s tokens.
• On September 19th, Ethereum is expected to undergo its long-awaited “merge” – an upgrade taking the protocol from proof of work to proof of stake.
• As this upgrade will make mining redundant, some members of the Chinese Ethereum mining community have discussed launching a new network – ETHW – at the time of the merge, which will continue using proof of work. 
• This presents trouble for stablecoin issuers, as they can only credibly use their reserves to service redemptions for a single state of the chain. Before Tether, Circle – the issuer of USDC – also confirmed support for the merge.
• Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has even suggested that such stablecoin issuers could influence future Ethereum hard forks, depending on which chain they choose to support. Neither, however, plan to cause disruptions at this time. 

• “We know it is our responsibility to reassure the community of our support for its development,” concluded Tether.