Tether seeks USDT settlement on Bitcoin blockchain BUT we already had OMNI??

[sergiorus]

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/03/12/tether-invests-in-ark-labs-to-make-bitcoin-ready-for-stablecoins-and-payments
What happened to the OMNI tech that was so popular pre-2019?

Why are Tether investing in new 3rd party solutions?

[OmegaStarScream]

It's not the only company they have invested in, I already made a post about this if anyone is interested[1]. They stopped supporting omni layer (among other chains) some time ago[2] probably due to its limitations (especially now, if we're comparing it to RGB and Taproot assets).

Omnichain was never properly adopted though. I was around that time and I don't remember any big exchanges supporting it (maybe except for OKX?) or popular wallets either.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5528322.msg66483903#msg66483903
[2] https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2025/07/12/tether-to-halt-usdt-on-omni-bch-kusama-eos-algorand-as-focus-shifts-to-layer-2s

[Charles-Tim]

I did not know the reason Omni layer is no more used. Maybe it is people that are not using it or the exchanges just decided not to continue to accept it because of low usage before tether said they will no more support it.

This project is also different from Omni layer for USDT, it focuses on making bitcoin usable for payments and financial tools that often require faster settlement and automation.

I will say I like the idea if it will be built on bitcoin blockchain.

[tbct_mt2]

Omnichain was never properly adopted though. I was around that time and I don't remember any big exchanges supporting it (maybe except for OKX?) or popular wallets either.

I was around that time when Poloniex supported USDT on OMNI layer before its leading position in cryptocurrency exchange market was taken over by Bittrex, then Binance. I don't remember Bittrex and Binance supported USDT on OMNI back then but very likely they did.

Poloniex supported USDT on the Omni Layer (Bitcoin network) from roughly the inception of USDT trading on their platform (around 2014–2015) until April 30, 2021.

Poloniex announced to delist USDT-OMNI on April 27, 2021.
https://support.poloniex.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040013653-Delisted-Assets#

April 27, 2021 Announcement

April 30 at 17:00 UTC: Deposits of USDT OMNI disabled.

Why 2021 year? It was the year when transaction fees on Bitcoin blockchain and OMNI layer was expensive - with fee rates sometimes spike to 100-200+sat/vbyte -  so it lost competitiveness with other chains like Tron.
https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC%20(default%20mempool),all,weight

[sergiorus]

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5528322.msg66483903#msg66483903

thanks, that's interesting.
i assume those projects will allow settlement of other stablecoins and possibly tokenised securities/RWAs on the Bitcoin blockchain as well?
i noticed valuations of most Layer 1s and 2s have been taking brutal beatings lately, is the market realising the only reason they even got to exist wasn't a proper Bitcoin settlement layer at the time after Omni shuttdown + Ethereum fees became too high and now everything must go back to the most secure layer aka Bitcoin?

I don't remember any big exchanges supporting it (maybe except for OKX?) or popular wallets either.

I think every single big exchange supported USDT on OMNI back then, however there indeed was a lack of OMNI wallets (if there even were any?) and the only way to hold USDT outside exchanges was via holding it on your normal Bitcoin cold wallet but that was quite a complicated and not user-friendly process at all.

[OmegaStarScream]

thanks, that's interesting.
i assume those projects will allow settlement of other stablecoins and possibly tokenised securities/RWAs on the Bitcoin blockchain as well?
i noticed valuations of most Layer 1s and 2s have been taking brutal beatings lately, is the market realising the only reason they even got to exist wasn't a proper Bitcoin settlement layer at the time after Omni shuttdown + Ethereum fees became too high and now everything must go back to the most secure layer aka Bitcoin?

Yes, the whole idea about RGB and Taproot assets is to bring smart contracts to Bitcoin so yes, I would not rule out RWAs and tokenized securities. Ark labs product seem a bit different, and is mainly about stablecoins.

As for the "why" then that's one way to see it for sure. Tether definitely seem to be investing a lot into Bitcoin. By buying it, releasing their open source MiningOS for miners (of all scales), and backing multiple L2 and Bitcoin scaling solutions. USDC? not so much.

[buwaytress]

Actually thought they stopped using Bitcoin network because of a perceived lack of usage, rather than just a lack of belief in OMNI. Not going to bother reading about why they're looking for a return, but if I were to speculate based on little but what I can observe, it has something to do with USDC moving into their territory on all those L2s... and a disappointing development performance of said Ls (look at Polygon now, for example).