Tether’s Mega-Freeze: $344M USDT Locked Down In Major Operation With US Authorities

bitcoinistPublicado em 2026-04-24Última atualização em 2026-04-24

Resumo

Tether has frozen $344 million in USDT held in two Tron wallets at the request of US authorities, including OFAC, after the wallets were linked to sanctions evasion and criminal activity. The company emphasized its routine cooperation with global law enforcement, having supported over 2,300 cases and frozen more than $4.4 billion in assets to date. This action contrasts with increased scrutiny on rival stablecoin issuer Circle, which faces a lawsuit over its alleged failure to promptly freeze $280 million stolen in the Drift Protocol hack. Tether also announced a collaboration with Drift Protocol to support recovery efforts with nearly $150 million in backing.

Crypto giant Tether disclosed that it has supported the US government in freezing $344 million in USDT held in two Tron wallets, following a request from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and US law enforcement.

Tether’s Latest Crackdown

According to Tether’s Thursday disclosure, the freeze came after authorities allegedly identified the wallets as linked to sanctions evasion, criminal networks, or other illicit activity.

The company framed this as part of its routine response to lawful requests from governments in the US and abroad, noting that it works with more than 340 law enforcement agencies across 65 countries.

In a statement, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino emphasized that USDT should not be used as a “safe haven” for wrongdoing. He argued that when Tether sees credible links to sanctioned entities or criminal networks, it acts quickly and decisively.

Beyond this specific freeze, Tether said its broader cooperation has supported more than 2,300 cases globally, including over 1,200 tied to US law enforcement.

The company added that those efforts have contributed to the freezing of more than $4.4 billion in assets, including over $2.1 billion linked to US authorities.

Circle Under Fire

Tether’s move comes as the industry’s second-largest stablecoin issuer, Circle (CRCL), which issues USDC, has faced increased scrutiny. The firm has faced criticism for what some describe as a lack of similarly prompt actions.

The issue was highlighted after the Drift Protocol hack in early April, when reports alleged that in several widely documented thefts and hacks, the issuer either delayed freezing responses or did not freeze funds at all—allowing attackers to move large sums across blockchains and convert them into other assets.

That controversy is now tied to legal action. NewsBTC reported last week that Circle is facing a fresh lawsuit in Massachusetts connected to the $280 million Drift Protocol hack.

The complaint alleges that Circle did not freeze stolen funds even though it allegedly had both the technical capability and contractual authority to do so.

The allegations include that attackers were able to offload up to $230 million onto the Ethereum blockchain by leveraging Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), according to the lawsuit’s framing.

Plaintiffs say this ability to transfer stablecoin-related assets during the period when funds were being moved is central to why they believe Circle should have prevented the transfers.

While Circle faces accusations over the Drift incident, Tether announced a strategic collaboration with the Drift Protocol. Tether said the effort is intended to support user recovery and help relaunch the Drift platform.

The collaboration, Tether said, creates a structured recovery plan supported by up to nearly $150 million in combined backing, including up to $127.5 million from the company.

The daily chart shows the total crypto market cap at $2.58 trillion as of Thursday. Source: TOTAL on TradingView.com

Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com

Perguntas relacionadas

QWhat was the amount of USDT frozen by Tether in collaboration with US authorities, and on which blockchain were the wallets located?

ATether froze $344 million in USDT held in two wallets on the Tron blockchain.

QWhich US government agency requested the freeze of the assets, and what was the alleged reason for the action?

AThe freeze was requested by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and US law enforcement, as the wallets were allegedly linked to sanctions evasion, criminal networks, or other illicit activity.

QHow does Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino characterize the company's stance on the use of USDT for illicit activities?

APaolo Ardoino emphasized that USDT should not be used as a 'safe haven' for wrongdoing and stated that Tether acts quickly and decisively when it sees credible links to sanctioned entities or criminal networks.

QWhat controversy is the stablecoin issuer Circle facing, as mentioned in the article?

ACircle is facing a lawsuit in Massachusetts related to the $280 million Drift Protocol hack, with allegations that it did not freeze stolen funds despite having the technical capability and contractual authority to do so.

QWhat is the nature of Tether's newly announced collaboration with the Drift Protocol?

ATether announced a strategic collaboration with the Drift Protocol to support user recovery and help relaunch the platform, creating a structured recovery plan backed by up to nearly $150 million, including up to $127.5 million from Tether.

Leituras Relacionadas

GitHub, Transfixed by AI

On the night of February 9th, GitHub suffered a major outage caused by a simple configuration change—reducing a cache refresh interval from 12 to 2 hours—that triggered a cascade of failures. This was not an isolated event, but part of a broader pattern. In early 2026, GitHub experienced at least 8 major incidents, failing to meet its promised 99.9% availability. These outages stemmed from structural issues: explosive growth in load, tight service coupling, and insufficient protection against abnormal traffic. This unprecedented load is driven by AI Agents. In 2025, GitHub handled ~1 billion commits. By 2026, weekly commits reached 275 million, projecting to ~14 billion for the year—a 14x increase. AI tools like Claude Code now contribute 4.5% of all public repository commits, with weekly submissions surging 25x in just three months. AI-generated pull requests jumped from 4 million to 17 million per month in half a year. Unlike human developers, AI Agents work continuously, generating commits at a scale that overwhelms infrastructure designed for human rhythms. The surge also shattered GitHub's business model. Copilot's flat-rate pricing, based on assisting human developers, became unsustainable as Agentic AI sessions consumed resources worth hundreds of dollars for a few dollars in fees. In response, GitHub imposed usage limits and, by June 1st, shifted to a pay-per-use "AI Credits" system. Facing this new reality, GitHub realized a 10x scaling plan was insufficient. It announced a need to *redesign* its architecture for 30x current scale—decoupling services, adding fault isolation, and improving change management to prevent cascading failures. Other platforms like Stripe and AWS are facing similar challenges with AI Agents. Fundamentally, GitHub is transitioning from a human collaboration platform to an "exhaust pipe" for automated AI workflows. Its detailed post-mortem reports aim to maintain trust during this turbulent rebuild. The February outage was not just a technical glitch, but a signal of the software industry's entry into a new, AI-driven era.

marsbitHá 7m

marsbitHá 7m

Visualizing Musk's Wealth: $3.6 Million Per Hour, Average Person Needs 11 Million Years of Work

Elon Musk is on the verge of becoming the world's first trillionaire, with a current estimated net worth of $970 billion. This wealth, largely tied to equity in SpaceX and Tesla, translates to him accumulating roughly $992 per second or $3.6 million per hour on average over his 31-year career. His fortune surpasses the annual GDP of over 125 countries and represents about 3% of U.S. GDP, double the relative wealth of historical figures like John D. Rockefeller. For perspective, an average U.S. household earning the median income would need to work over 11 million years to amass a comparable sum. Musk's wealth could buy approximately 2.4 million average American homes, all 32 NFL teams plus every NBA team, or over 10,000 private jets with operating costs. The analysis highlights the staggering scale and concentration of modern wealth, driven by successes in electric vehicles, space exploration, and artificial intelligence.

marsbitHá 10m

Visualizing Musk's Wealth: $3.6 Million Per Hour, Average Person Needs 11 Million Years of Work

marsbitHá 10m

Both Suffer Massive Losses Exceeding $90 Billion, Which Is in Greater Peril: Strategy or Bitmine?

Facing massive paper losses exceeding $90 billion each amidst a sharp market downturn, "Digital Asset Treasury" (DAT) giants Strategy and Bitmine find themselves in a precarious position, but with different underlying risks. Strategy, heavily invested in Bitcoin (BTC), faces significant financial strain. Its strategy relies heavily on debt, including convertible notes and preferred stock (STRC) requiring substantial dividend payments. With its cash reserves dwindling and BTC offering no staking yield for cash flow, Strategy's high leverage makes it vulnerable. A continued price decline could force asset sales to meet obligations, potentially creating a negative feedback loop. Its market value has already fallen sharply. In contrast, Bitmine, an Ethereum (ETH) holder, appears on firmer financial ground. It primarily funds its purchases through equity offerings (like ATM programs), avoiding debt pressure. It also generates income by staking a large portion of its ETH holdings. While not immune to market drops and shareholder dilution concerns, Bitmine maintains more flexibility, recently announcing a new preferred share offering to raise further capital. The core divergence lies in their financing: Bitmine uses equity (investor money), while Strategy uses debt (borrowed money). Consequently, Bitmine currently faces less immediate liquidity pressure than Strategy, which must navigate the dual challenge of servicing debt/dividends and a declining core asset (BTC) price.

marsbitHá 14m

Both Suffer Massive Losses Exceeding $90 Billion, Which Is in Greater Peril: Strategy or Bitmine?

marsbitHá 14m

Both Suffer Losses Exceeding $9 Billion, Which Is More at Risk: Strategy or Bitmine?

As Bitcoin and Ethereum prices drop significantly, two major corporate treasury holders, Strategy and Bitmine, are facing massive unrealized losses—approximately $100 billion and $90 billion, respectively. The article compares their financial health and underlying risks. Bitmine, holding over 5.4 million ETH, relies primarily on equity financing (like ATM offerings) and has substantial cash reserves, alongside staking income from its ETH holdings. It plans a $300 million perpetual preferred stock offering. In contrast, Strategy, holding Bitcoin, is burdened by significant convertible debt and preferred stock dividends, with cash reserves covering only about six months of its annual dividend obligations. Strategy's leverage is higher, and it faces potential liquidity pressure if BTC prices fall further, possibly forcing asset sales. While both companies are under pressure, Bitmine’s financial structure appears more resilient, whereas Strategy’s high leverage makes it more vulnerable to continued market declines.

Odaily星球日报Há 19m

Both Suffer Losses Exceeding $9 Billion, Which Is More at Risk: Strategy or Bitmine?

Odaily星球日报Há 19m

Where the AI Bubble Really Is: Which Layer of Players Are Naked

AI Bubble: Where It Really Is and Who's Swimming Naked This analysis dissects the AI industry not as a single entity but as a five-layer pyramid, arguing that bubbles are concentrated in specific tiers, not uniformly distributed. **Key Distinction from the 2000 Dot-com Bubble:** Unlike 2000, where companies had stock prices before revenue, today's leading AI players have massive, contract-backed revenue driving their valuations. Core infrastructure demand is real, with every GPU running at full capacity for paying customers. **The Five-Layer Pyramid & Bubble Assessment:** * **L0 (Fab/Manufacturing) & Top L4 (Leading AI Apps): NO BUBBLE.** Companies like TSMC, NVIDIA, major cloud providers (Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon), and top AI labs have real revenues and orders. Supply is tightly constrained by TSMC's disciplined capacity control and physical limits like power/land for data centers, preventing a supply glut. * **L1 (Memory): BATTLEGROUND.** Sky-high HBM margins could signal a new structural cycle or a classic "boom before bust." The oligopoly of three major players may enforce supply discipline, making this a high-stakes bet. * **L2 (Interconnect/Optical Modules): BUBBLE TERRITORY.** Companies like Lumentum and AAOI have seen stock surges (4-10x) far outpacing revenue growth. This hardware segment has lower physical barriers to expansion than fabs, allowing speculation. It mirrors the 2000 bubble's epicenter—optics. * **L3 (Infrastructure/"GPU Landlords"): VULNERABLE.** GPU leasing companies profit from the current compute shortage but own no long-term moat. Their business model relies on a temporary bottleneck that will ease as big tech expands and new tech (e.g., potential space-based data centers) emerges. * **L4 Long Tail (VC-backed Startups): STRONG BUBBLE SIGNALS.** VC funding concentration in AI is twice that of the 1999 peak. Many startups with little revenue use the valuation logic of successful giants to justify their own, creating high risk of a "valuation crunch" when funding dries up. **Critical Risks to Monitor:** 1. **GPU Depreciation & Accounting:** Companies extending the assumed useful life of GPUs artificially boost profits. The true economic life depends on future generational leaps from NVIDIA. 2. **"GPU Credit" & Off-Balance-Sheet Leverage:** Emerging structures where shell companies borrow to buy GPUs and lease them out (with chipmakers sometimes investing) move debt off major balance sheets. This echoes the "vendor financing" of 2000 and the securitization risks of 2008, though currently small-scale. 3. **TSMC Abandoning Caution:** If the primary supply bottleneck (TSMC's conservative capacity planning) breaks, runaway supply could trigger a bust. 4. **Algorithmic Efficiency Breakthrough:** A major leap in software efficiency could drastically reduce the need for raw compute hardware, undermining the investment thesis. **Conclusion:** The AI boom is expensive and has frothy areas, but its core is underpinned by real demand and physical supply constraints. The bubble risk is layered: most present in optical components, GPU leasing, and the long-tail startup ecosystem, while the foundational chip manufacturing and leading application layers remain relatively solid—for now.

marsbitHá 27m

Where the AI Bubble Really Is: Which Layer of Players Are Naked