Coinbase Restricts 14 Stablecoins in Europe, Sets October 30 for Automatic Conversion
Key Facts
Coinbase has set October 30, 2026, as the deadline for retail customers in the European Economic Area to withdraw their remaining balances in 14 affected stablecoins, including USDT, before any remaining holdings are converted automatically. The company said on its help page that balances not withdrawn by that date will be converted under the terms it announced. The move follows the end of the transitional period for stablecoin issuers under MiCA rules, according to Coinbase. The company says it no longer supports coins whose issuers are not licensed under those rules. The deadline therefore covers a broader set of assets than USDT alone, including the stablecoins Coinbase listed as affected.
Coinbase has restricted the purchase, sale and transfer of these assets on its platform, saying withdrawal to an external wallet is the available option for anyone who wants to continue holding them. This means customers covered by the decision cannot sell or transfer the affected assets internally on Coinbase, according to the company’s help page. The October 30 deadline remains available for withdrawing balances, the same notice says. For anyone who leaves a balance after the deadline, the company says it will convert it automatically. The notice applies to retail customers, the group Coinbase identifies as the target of its measures in the European Economic Area.
The consideration in the conversion will not necessarily be USDC in every case: Coinbase says conversion to that currency will occur when appropriate; otherwise, it will be to another crypto asset or currency supported by the platform. The company set the market price at the time of conversion as the basis for the transaction, without specifying a fixed advance price for balances in the notice provided. This condition ties the value of the consideration to the time of execution and leaves the type of asset received dependent on whether USDC is appropriate and on Coinbase’s support for alternatives. The company says automatic conversion applies to balances remaining after the deadline. Customers who withdraw their assets beforehand can hold them outside the platform, under the option Coinbase announced.
Coinbase says affected assets sent to its accounts after October 30, 2026, will not be added to balances and will not appear in them. Those assets also will not be tradable, convertible or transferable through the platform, and will not be included in the automatic conversion announced by the company. Explaining the background to the decision, Coinbase said the transitional period for stablecoin issuers under MiCA ended on July 1, 2026, and was not extended. The company says Coinbase Luxembourg S.A. provides crypto-asset services to customers in the European Economic Area as a service provider licensed under MiCA by the CSSF. It added that support could be reassessed in the future if issuance of a stablecoin becomes MiCA-compliant, but that would not reverse a conversion already completed.