Stephanie Douse 
Binance has acknowledged that it does not currently have any intentions to “auto-convert” Tether (USDT) to Binance USD (BUSD), but that this “may change.”
Binance shocked the market on September 6 by announcing it would stop supporting USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin linked to the US dollar, along with USDP Stablecoin (USDP), and TrueUSD on its platform (TUSD).
On September 29, users who are still holding any of the three stablecoins will start to automatically convert such holdings to BUSD at a 1:1 ratio over a 24-hour period.
While Tether USDT, the largest stablecoin by market size, was not mentioned, Binance claimed that the decision was made to improve liquidity and capital efficiency for customers.
A spokesman for the cryptocurrency exchange stated in a statement that there are currently no plans to convert USDT to Binance Coin, but that this may change in the future:
“We do not have plans to auto-convert USDT to BUSD as of now, but may change.”
The representative added that the decision to stop providing most trading services for USDC and the auto-conversion is “not temporary measures” and “will continue.”
According to a Sept. 6 tweet from Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the business is “simply consolidating all liquidity into one pair” and will provide customers with the “best pricing, lowest slippage” rather than delisting the three stablecoins.
Additionally, Binance will transition most of the pairings over to BUSD and remove the extensive range of spot trade asset pairs linked to these stablecoins.
Users should also be cautious about using USDC in the exchange’s staking, saves, liquid swaps, or loans because those services will also be discontinued for that asset.
The action by Binance coincides with a temporary restriction of deposits and withdrawals in Ether (ETH) and Wrapped ETH (wETH) on specific networks from September 6 until the completion of the Ethereum Merge later in the month.
According to CEO Alex Svanevik of the analytics platform Nansen, the cryptocurrency exchange has been progressively converting USDC to BUSD since the middle of August. During that time, nearly $1.5 billion worth of assets has changed hands.
Currently, less than $1 billion worth of USDC is available on Binance’s platform, with about $993.3 million at the time of writing. Comparatively, Binance is the exchange with the largest global holding of USDT, valued at a staggering $4.99 billion.
