This January, Tether made a big move by launching a new stablecoin called USAT, specifically designed for US compliance.

Many people are loudly proclaiming, "Tether has finally been tamed!"
But Forbes' recent analysis directly exposes the truth: USAT is just a smokescreen; it’s a bulletproof wall Tether has built for itself, aiming to keep its $183 billion USDT offshore empire forever non-compliant!
Why is it impossible for USDT to ever be compliant? Because the costs of compliance are simply beyond what it can bear.
According to the latest US GENIUS Act, compliant stablecoins can only hold cash and short-term debt on a 1:1 basis.
But a quick look at Tether’s Q1 financial report shows that among its $191.8 billion in reserves, there are $20 billion in gold and a large amount of Bitcoin!
Relying on its gold reserves and Bitcoin holdings, Tether earned $10 billion last year.
If USDT were to follow the US compliance route, it would have to sell all its gold and Bitcoin to convert into low-interest government bonds.
Such a “self-sabotaging” move—why would you do it?
Moreover, the real core base of USDT isn’t in the US at all, but in emerging markets like Argentina, Turkey, and Vietnam, where US dollars are scarce and local currencies are collapsing.
For these offshore users, the most critical value of USDT is precisely that it “follows the market, not the propaganda,” and is far enough from US regulation.
If it becomes a compliant currency that the US government can freeze or audit at any time, users will abandon it first.
With this “dual-currency strategy,” Tether has already calculated the endgame for 2028:
According to the law, US exchanges must delist non-compliant stablecoins by 2028.
By then, compliant USAT will stay in the US to handle regulation and institutional traffic;
the much larger USDT will be completely separated, continuing as an unregulated “underground dollar giant” overseas.
The most ironic part is that the US government actually has little to no way to counter this move.
Tether’s holdings of US Treasuries now surpass those of Germany and South Korea.
Every additional dollar of USDT issued is equivalent to lending that dollar to the US Treasury.
The US government relies on this “offshore debt holder,” while law enforcement and regulation can’t reach it.