Bitcoinist 2026-05-16 13:00:56

Tether Faces Calls To Block $344 Million in USDT Linked To Terror Activity

A Jerusalem family that lost relatives in a 1997 Hamas suicide bombing is among the plaintiffs pushing a US federal court to order Tether to hand over hundreds of millions in frozen digital currency. The case, filed in Manhattan, could set a significant legal precedent for how courts treat centralized stablecoin issuers. A Decades-Old Debt The plaintiffs are survivors and family members of victims from Iran-linked terrorist attacks. They hold court judgments against Iran that were awarded years ago — judgments that have never been paid. Now they are targeting a pile of frozen cryptocurrency as a way to collect what they are owed. Attorney Charles Gerstein filed the lawsuit Thursday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. His clients say they have a legal claim to two Tron blockchain wallet addresses holding roughly 344 million USDT . Those wallets were frozen earlier this year by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which identified them as linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The plaintiffs are not asking Tether to simply release those specific wallets. According to reports, they want a court order directing Tether to transfer an equivalent amount of USDT to their legal team’s wallet address. Why Tether Can Be Compelled Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, USDT is controlled by a central company. Tether can freeze wallets, block transactions, and move funds when ordered to do so. That centralized structure is at the heart of Gerstein’s legal argument. Because a prior order already froze the wallets — something only possible because Tether has direct operational control — he contends the company can also be ordered to move the funds. The ownership question, he argues, is already largely settled: OFAC has already declared the wallets to be IRGC-controlled assets, which clears a path for seizure under US terrorism statutes. Broader Legal Campaign This is not Gerstein’s only case of this kind. Based on reports, he has filed similar actions involving North Korea-linked cyber operations against the Arbitrum platform. He is also handling a separate case involving Railgun DAO, a privacy-focused crypto protocol. The Manhattan filing is part of what appears to be a coordinated legal push to test whether courts can compel crypto platforms with centralized control to act on frozen assets held in sanctioned wallets. Tether had previously moved to block Wallex, an Iranian crypto exchange, amid the ongoing US-Iran conflict. Featured image from CEPA, chart from TradingView

En Okunan haberler

Roarcultable Latest Crypto Trends from Riproa...
2026-05-16
Can Dash Become the Marijuana Industry Coin?...
2026-05-16
Strategy Targets $1.5B Note Buyback as Bitcoi...
2026-05-16
ONDO slides toward THIS key zone as market se...
2026-05-16
Mark Zuckerberg New META AI Predicts the Pric...
2026-05-16
A16z Crypto Warns US Falling Behind MiCA as S...
2026-05-16
Trump Adds Coinbase and Bitcoin Stocks to Por...
2026-05-16
Solana stablecoin supply near $16B ATH: Early...
2026-05-16

Feragatnameyi okuyun : Burada sunulan tüm içerikler web sitemiz, köprülü siteler, ilgili uygulamalar, forumlar, bloglar, sosyal medya hesapları ve diğer platformlar (“Site”), sadece üçüncü taraf kaynaklardan temin edilen genel bilgileriniz içindir. İçeriğimizle ilgili olarak, doğruluk ve güncellenmişlik dahil ancak bunlarla sınırlı olmamak üzere, hiçbir şekilde hiçbir garanti vermemekteyiz. Sağladığımız içeriğin hiçbir kısmı, herhangi bir amaç için özel bir güvene yönelik mali tavsiye, hukuki danışmanlık veya başka herhangi bir tavsiye formunu oluşturmaz. İçeriğimize herhangi bir kullanım veya güven, yalnızca kendi risk ve takdir yetkinizdedir. İçeriğinizi incelemeden önce kendi araştırmanızı yürütmeli, incelemeli, analiz etmeli ve doğrulamalısınız. Ticaret büyük kayıplara yol açabilecek yüksek riskli bir faaliyettir, bu nedenle herhangi bir karar vermeden önce mali danışmanınıza danışın. Sitemizde hiçbir içerik bir teklif veya teklif anlamına gelmez