In a significant streamlining of its global product portfolio, Tether announced on February 21, 2026, that it will officially stop supporting its offshore Chinese Yuan-pegged stablecoin, CNHT. The decision marks the end of a product that was first launched in 2019 to provide traders with a digital bridge to the offshore value of the Yuan but ultimately failed to achieve significant market traction. Tether stated that the move is part of a strategic adjustment to ensure its resources are concentrated on products with “strong endogenous adoption rates” and long-term community demand. Effectively immediately, Tether has halted all new minting and issuance of CNHT tokens across the Ethereum and Tron blockchains. The company has directed current holders to redeem their assets as soon as possible, providing a one-year window for redemptions that will conclude in early 2027. This sunsetting process highlights the increasing competition within the stablecoin sector, where liquidity is rapidly concentrating around a few dominant, dollar-denominated instruments.
The primary driver behind the cancellation of CNHT was the persistent lack of usage and liquidity compared to Tether’s flagship USDT product. Despite the initial potential for CNHT to facilitate cross-border trade and serve as a hedge against Yuan volatility, the “usage scale” remained insufficient to justify the ongoing operational and technical maintenance costs. Market observers noted that the offshore Chinese Yuan market is subject to intense regulatory scrutiny and strict capital controls, which may have deterred the broader crypto community from adopting a digital version of the currency. Tether’s review of its portfolio concluded that the “attention levels” for CNHT were no longer high enough to meet the company’s strict standards for product sustainability. By retiring the underperforming asset, Tether is able to reallocate its engineering and compliance resources toward its core stablecoin infrastructure and the development of new financial instruments that align more closely with the current “agentic” and institutional market dynamics.
The withdrawal of CNHT is not being viewed as a retreat by Tether, but rather as a defensive “cleaning of the house” to solidify its dominance in the dollar-pegged market. USDT remains the undisputed leader in global stablecoin liquidity, and Tether is now prioritizing the expansion of this core asset into new tokenized infrastructure projects. This includes a 2026 focus on “on-chain” settlement for real-world assets and the enhancement of its transparency and reserve reporting protocols to satisfy evolving global regulations. Tether reiterated that the closure of CNHT has no impact on its other stablecoin offerings, including those pegged to the Euro (EURT) and the Mexican Peso (MXN₮), which continue to see healthy adoption in their respective regions. As the stablecoin industry matures and the “Digital Asset Market Clarity Act” begins to shape the landscape in the United States, Tether’s move to prune its niche products signals a broader industry trend toward “liquidity centralization” where only the most trusted and widely used assets survive.
