USDT Tether

Two Thai businessmen who don’t dispute involvement with a pig butchering scam sue Tether over frozen funds, thousands of Asia students access crypto loans. Asia Express.

Two Thai businessmen are suing Tether in federal court over about $42.4 million of frozen USDT. The stablecoin issuer froze the tokens last October on nothing more than a verbal request from a US agent, and a seizure warrant obtained almost four months later cannot cure an unlawful freeze, the complaint says. The blacklist hit ten Ethereum addresses The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on August 31. It lists Nutthawat Rukthammachalern and Natthawat Kasamvilas as plaintiffs and four Tether entities as defendants. CourtListener docket for Rukthammachalern v. Tether Holdings in the Southern District of New York, showing an August 31, 2026, filing date. Captured September 3, 2026. The filing says the tokens were held in ten Ethereum addresses. Nine belong to Rukthammachalern and one to Kasamvilas. Tether blacklisted those addresses on October 30, 2025, the complaint says. A Homeland Security Investigations agent had unofficially asked for the blacklisting, without a warrant, court order, or notice to the account holders. A federal magistrate judge in North Carolina did not sign a seizure warrant until February 19, 2026. The complaint stated that the warrant laid out a plan for Tether to burn the frozen USDT, mint an equal amount of new tokens, and transmit them to a government-controlled wallet. “Tether froze our clients’ funds following an informal government request with no warrant, no court order, no legal process directed to Tether and no notice,” Mark Beckett, counsel for the two men, said . He added that “a warrant followed nearly four months later.” Tether, he said, “has no contractual relationship with our clients, is not a custodian of our clients’ USDT, and has no legal right or basis to blacklist our clients’ accounts.” The lawsuit depicts Tether as a private company acting on its own, separate from any possible government claim. The plaintiffs seek a ruling that the freeze is unlawful, an order forbidding the destruction of the tokens before any final forfeiture ruling, and damages. They are also seeking the income, the complaint says, that Tether garnered while the funds were frozen. Reserves keep earning Treasury yield while the accounts sit locked The complaint says that when Tether mints the stablecoin, it takes in dollars and purchases interest-bearing instruments, mostly US Treasury securities held in New York. These holdings are the reserves. The plaintiffs contend that freezing a customer’s USDT costs Tether nothing, while it continues to accumulate yield on the corresponding reserves. That hands the company a financial inducement to freeze tokens and burn them. Tether markets USDT as stable, fully backed, and freely transferable but fails to mention it can block or destroy any holder’s tokens on any blockchain at will, the plaintiffs say. “The new lawsuit against Tether is a baseless attempt to interfere with Tether’s important work with global law enforcement, including the Department of Justice, to prevent the unlawful use of USDT,” the company said in a statement. The USDT smart contract has the ability to blacklist, which means Tether can flag addresses on blockchains such as Ethereum. Tether works with over 340 law enforcement organizations across 65 nations, Cryptopolitan reported in April. The company said that cooperation had helped freeze more than $4.4 billion in assets tied to suspected illicit activity. Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free .

USDT on TRON tops $94 billion as network accounts reach 401.9M, while Tether faces a lawsuit over a $42.4M USDT freeze made before a seizure warrant.

🚨 Ripple CTO publicly supports Tether’s $42 million USDT freeze before court warrant. 👀 The freeze targeted 10 Ethereum addresses during an unresolved ownership dispute. ⚖️ Tether’s move highlights how $XRP and RLUSD operate under different compliance models. 📌 Tether faces a lawsuit while expanding cooperation with US law enforcement. Continue Reading: Ripple CTO defends Tether’s $42 million USDT freeze amid legal dispute The post Ripple CTO defends Tether’s $42 million USDT freeze amid legal dispute appeared first on COINTURK NEWS .

🚨 Tether sued in New York over $42.4 million USDT wallet freeze. 💼 Thai businessmen say Tether froze $USDT on an informal HSI request, not a warrant. 🔎 Plaintiffs want compensation, access to their coins, and a court order stopping token destruction. 🕵️‍♂️ Case linked to a North Carolina investigation into a major crypto pig butchering scam. Continue Reading: Tether faces lawsuit over $42.4 million USDT freeze after unofficial US request The post Tether faces lawsuit over $42.4 million USDT freeze after unofficial US request appeared first on COINTURK NEWS .

🚨 Ripple’s David Schwartz publicly supports Tether in a $42.4 million asset freeze lawsuit. 🧊 $USDT reserves were frozen at HSI’s request amid an international fraud investigation. ⚖️ Plaintiffs claim the freeze was unlawful and seek asset release plus damages. 💼 The case could redefine stablecoin issuers’ liability when acting before court orders. Continue Reading: Ripple’s David Schwartz backs Tether in $42.4 million asset freeze dispute The post Ripple’s David Schwartz backs Tether in $42.4 million asset freeze dispute appeared first on COINTURK NEWS .

Former Ripple CTO David Schwartz has defended Tether’s decision to freeze $42.4 million in USDT before receiving a formal court warrant, putting a broader question about centralized stablecoin control into focus. Two Thai businessmen filed suit against Tether in the Southern District of New York on Aug. 31, alleging that the company blacklisted 10 Ethereum addresses containing 42,417,785.62 USDT on Oct. 30, 2025 after an informal Homeland Security Investigations request. A formal seizure warrant was issued months later, on Feb. 19, 2026. The allegations have not yet been adjudicated. Schwartz argued that Tether had little practical choice but to secure the assets while competing ownership claims were unresolved. His position is especially interesting because Ripple itself operates a competing regulated stablecoin — RLUSD. The Same Question Applies to RLUSD Ripple’s own RLUSD terms explicitly reserve broad powers to freeze digital addresses. The company states that it may blacklist wallets holding RLUSD when required by law or under Ripple’s internal compliance policies , including in response to law-enforcement requests. Its terms also allow RLUSD to be burned in one wallet and, where appropriate, minted elsewhere. That makes Schwartz’s defense of Tether less surprising than it first appears. Both USDT and RLUSD are issuer-backed stablecoins. Their ability to remain compliant with sanctions, fraud investigations and court orders partly depends on the issuer retaining administrative control. Coinpaper has previously examined RLUSD’s [security-first design] security-first design and Schwartz’s earlier explanation of XRPL’s [clawback feature] clawback feature . XRP Is the Important Contrast The distinction becomes much sharper with XRP itself. XRP is the XRP Ledger’s native asset rather than an issued stablecoin. XRPL documentation makes clear that freeze and clawback functionality applies to issued tokens , not XRP. Schwartz has previously emphasized the same point: Ripple cannot blacklist an XRP holder or reverse a valid XRP transaction once the network has finalized it. Coinpaper’s [XRP immutability] XRP immutability coverage explains that distinction. That does not automatically make one model better. Stablecoins need mechanisms for compliance, redemption and legal enforcement that a decentralized native asset does not. But it does explain why RLUSD should never be treated as interchangeable with XRP . $42.4M Case Could Test Stablecoin Issuer Powers The lawsuit also arrives as Tether’s cooperation with authorities expands. Tether said in February that it helped U.S. authorities seize nearly $61 million in USDT linked to a pig-butchering fraud investigation, while in April it disclosed another $344 million freeze coordinated with U.S. authorities. Asset Issuer-controlled freeze? USDT Yes RLUSD Yes XRP No The new case therefore matters beyond Tether. A court ruling could help define how far stablecoin issuers may go when law enforcement requests immediate action before formal judicial process arrives. For XRP investors, the more interesting consequence is conceptual: Schwartz’s defense of Tether highlights exactly why XRP and Ripple’s RLUSD serve fundamentally different roles, despite operating inside the same broader digital-asset economy.

Two masked, armed men tied up a couple inside their home in Alès, southern France, and threatened them for more than two hours in an attempt to force cryptocurrency transfers. The perpetrators escaped as police reached the property, and neither one has been arrested. France has experienced a long run of violent attacks on suspected crypto holders this year. How much did the couple attacked in France hold in cryptocurrency? An attack took place on Saturday in a residential area in the hills above Alès, Southern France. The intrusion started around five in the morning, when the couple was asleep. Two attackers donning hoods and gloves, one carrying a handgun and the other a knife, restrained the two victims and held them under threat for over two hours, demanding that valuables be handed over through cryptocurrency transactions. The couple’s young child was in the house the whole time. The victims’ shouts alerted neighbors, who called officers from the Alès police station. The intruders unfortunately ran off and escaped when the police arrived, leaving the couple behind. The case has been handed to the Organized and Specialized Crime Division (DCOS) in Nîmes, the former judicial police. The targeted couple reportedly has no known history with police and no apparent link to organized drug crime. Investigators have not confirmed that the pair actually held any digital assets, or in what amount. Notably, attackers have a pattern of going after people who have been flagged in advance using stolen data files and years of accumulated leaks . The victims have said they will “no longer hold any cryptoasset” in order to prevent any future attacks. About 80 similar assaults of unlawful detentions or extortions tied to crypto have been logged since January in the country. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said in July that France had recorded 77 cases of kidnapping, unlawful detention, extortion or attempted crimes linked to crypto by the end of June, compared to the 45 cases that were counted for all of 2025. Prosecutors at the national organized-crime unit PNACO said there were 18 cases recorded in 2024, 67 in 2025, and 47 in the first four months of 2026 alone. Roughly 200 people have been arrested after attacks or in preventive operations. Why are wrench attacks so common in France? CertiK’s H1 2026 wrench-attack report placed 33 of the 52 verified cases worldwide in France, about 63.5% of the global total, with Europe accounting for 39. Home invasions in its dataset jumped from a single case in the first half of 2025 to 20 a year later. Data leaks are a big part of the explanation. As Cryptopolitan reported in August, a hacker was marketing tax records on more than 678,000 French individuals and companies stolen from the tax authority, the DGFiP, complete with names, addresses and income figures. CertiK has also pointed to the case of a DGFiP official accused of querying crypto-holder profiles in government software and selling the data to criminal networks. Prior to the Alès break-in, on the night of August 23 to 24 in Jouy-en-Josas, a 47-year-old man was held for around two hours by attackers hoping for millions. They reportedly left with 3,000 euros instead. Even earlier, on the night of August 10 to 11, intruders entered a home in Rion-des-Landes, allegedly seeking access to a large amount of Bitcoin and other crypto. Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free .

Former Ripple CTO backs Tether's $42 million warrantless freeze in SDNY lawsuit, warning of massive anti-money laundering risks.