If you read our earlier post on MiCA and what it means for you, you already know that Tether never sought authorization under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation. Therefore, licensed European platforms can no longer offer USDT to retail customers. We won't re-cover the "why" here, as that's the whole subject of the previous article. This time, we're answering the two questions that usually come next: what should you actually use instead, and is USDT the only asset caught up in this kind of restriction?
Key Takeaways
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USDC remains the largest MiCA-compliant dollar stablecoin, but it's no longer the only major option. A growing list of euro-denominated tokens now compete for the same use cases.
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Privacy coins like Monero, Zcash, and Dash face a mandatory EU delisting deadline in July 2027 under the bloc's new Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR), which is separate from MiCA.
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A handful of countries, including China and Egypt, ban cryptocurrency outright
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Bacloud continues to support MiCA-compliant crypto payment options; check our payment methods page for what's currently accepted.
The Best USDT Alternatives Right Now
MiCA authorization means an issuer holds an e-money institution or credit institution license in the EU, backs its token 1:1 with reserves held at European banks, and gives holders an enforceable right to redeem at face value. Here's how the main contenders stack up.
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USDC: USDC is the default replacement for most people moving away from USDT. Circle's European arm, Circle Mint Europe SAS, holds an e-money institution license supervised by France's ACPR, and USDC was one of the first two tokens to receive a notified MiCA white paper when the stablecoin rules took effect. It's dollar-pegged, listed on every major EU exchange, and functionally the closest thing to a drop-in USDT replacement.
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EURC: the euro-denominated counterpart to USDC, issued by the same company. It's currently the largest MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin by circulating supply. If the services you're paying for are priced in euros, settling directly in EURC lets you skip the currency conversion step entirely.
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EURI (Banking Circle) and EURCV (Société Générale-FORGE) are the two most notable bank-issued alternatives. EURCV, in particular, is backed by a major European bank's balance sheet rather than a crypto-native issuer, which appeals to users who want reserves held within traditional banking infrastructure. It's listed on Bitstamp's EU-regulated exchange.
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EURQ and USDQ (Quantoz Payments) are issued by a Dutch e-money institution authorized by De Nederlandsche Bank. Kraken uses this pairing to offer both EUR and USD stablecoin rails to EU customers now that USDT is off the table.
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Rounding out the field are USDG (Paxos) and smaller tokens like EUROe, EURS, and EURR. None of these match USDC or EURC in liquidity yet, but MiCA's licensing bar means every token on this list comes with the same baseline guarantee: audited reserves, redemption rights, and a supervising regulator you can look up directly in the ESMA register.
The practical takeaway: if your priority is a dollar peg with maximum liquidity, USDC is the safe default. If you're transacting in euros, EURC or EURCV will usually save you a conversion. Either way, swapping existing USDT for a compliant token is typically fast and low-cost on any EU-licensed exchange.
Other Currencies Facing Restrictions in the EU: Privacy Coins
USDT was delisted because its issuer didn't seek authorization. Privacy coins are being delisted for a different reason entirely: their core design conflicts with another important EU law.
The EU's Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (Regulation 2024/1624, "AMLR") becomes directly applicable on July 10, 2027, and it requires regulated crypto platforms to drop any asset that obscures sender, recipient, or transaction amount by default. That description fits Monero (XMR) precisely. It has no transparent mode, so its path on licensed EU exchanges is a full delisting.
Zcash (ZEC) has a better chance of partial survival, since it offers optional transparent addresses and viewing-key disclosure alongside its shielded pool; some platforms may keep a transparent-only version listed. Dash (DASH), with weaker opt-in privacy features, is treated more leniently but still falls under regulatory scrutiny.
None of this makes holding these assets illegal, as self-custody wallets and peer-to-peer transfers are untouched. What you might not get is access through licensed, EU-regulated exchanges, the same distinction we described for USDT in our MiCA article. Several major exchanges have already delisted Monero voluntarily ahead of the deadline, well before AMLR forces the issue across the board.
Currencies Banned Outside the EU
Outside Europe, the picture is much less nuanced. There are a number of countries that not only restrict how crypto can be used but also prohibit it outright, with criminal penalties attached.
As of 2026, countries maintaining a full cryptocurrency ban include China, Egypt, Bangladesh, Algeria, Bolivia, Iraq, Nepal, Morocco, Tunisia, and Afghanistan. China's ban is the most technically enforced of the group, combining exchange blocks with deep packet inspection to flag crypto-related traffic even over encrypted connections. Egypt's central bank prohibits banks and licensed financial institutions from engaging in crypto at all, a prohibition reinforced by religious rulings from some Islamic authorities that classify it as forbidden. Within Europe itself, North Macedonia stands out as the one country with a complete domestic trading ban, separate from the EU's regulate-rather-than-prohibit approach under MiCA.
It's a useful contrast: MiCA restricts which platforms can offer which assets inside a functioning regulatory system. An outright ban restricts the activity itself, everywhere, for everyone.
Where this leaves Bacloud clients
Our position hasn't changed since the MiCA article: we operate in the EU, so our payment infrastructure follows MiCA-authorized rails. USDT isn't accepted, Bitcoin and Ethereum remain unaffected (they have no issuer to license), and MiCA-compliant stablecoins are supported wherever our payment partners list them. Full details are always current on our payment methods page.
If you're running validator nodes, wallets, or trading infrastructure that needs to track any of this (compliant stablecoins, privacy-coin nodes, or blockchain infrastructure generally), our crypto-focused dedicated servers and Bitcoin-ready VPS hosting are built for exactly that kind of workload, with full root access and hardware sized for 24/7 node uptime.
Regulation in this space moves fast, and the direction of travel in the EU and beyond is toward more transparency, not less. We'll keep this space updated as the AMLR deadline approaches and as new MiCA-compliant tokens enter the market.