Circle Freezes $58 Million Worth of USDC in Solana Wallets Tied to Libra Scandal

The Libra meme coin scandal, which rocked the cryptocurrency market and world politics earlier this year which potential of of its affiliation with Argentine President Javier Milei, has taken one other flip.

USDC accounts belonging to 2 wallets tied to the Libra meme coin team and token deployer had been frozen on Tuesday, locking up nearly $58 million price of stablecoins on Solana that can no longer be sold or transferred.

The accounts, tagged as frozen on Solana block explorer Solscan, accumulate $44.59 million and $13.06 million in USDC, a stablecoin issued by Circle that is pegged to the cost of the U.S. greenback.

For the rationale that USDC stablecoin’s minting and issuance is managed by Circle, the agency is able to freeze or “blacklist” tokens in accordance with its blacklisting protection. Main stablecoin issuers address Circle and Tether were identified to blacklist addresses when connected to main exploits, address the $1.4 billion hack of Bybit succor in February.

Circle did no longer without prolong acknowledge to Decrypt’s search files from for mutter. For the time being, it’s unclear who, precisely, requested the freeze, with a pair of events taking to X to exclaim credit.

Crypto-focused legislation agency Burwick Laws acknowledged that the freeze is which potential of a instant restraining advise issued at its search files from. In the period in-between, Martin Romeo, a plaintiff within the Argentinian case round the Libra token, famously promoted by President Javier Milei, acknowledged the freeze resulted from a search files from from Argentina’s justice division.

“The day old to this, a federal court docket in SDNY entered a transient restraining advise at our search files from, Burwick Laws, supported by Tim Treanor, freezing approximately 57.65 million USDC held at Circle, which that you simply must perchance maybe maybe now be conscious confirmed on Solscan,” Max Burwick acknowledged in an announcement shared with Decrypt. “We’ll return to court docket on June 9, 2025 for a preliminary injunction listening to to build up these sources frozen during the rest of this litigation.”

Burwick beforehand filed a class-action suit in opposition to Kelsier Ventures and Meteora, including some named executives from the events, for their respective roles within the Libra token scandal.

The Solana-primarily primarily based Libra token, which President Milei promoted at initiate on X in February, swiftly shot as much as a multi-billion-greenback market cap sooner than plummeting nearly 90% quickly thereafter, ensuing in accusations of a pump-and-dump blueprint as wallets connected to the token cashed out earnings.

Later, President Milei was once charged with fraud, and the govt. set up a job pressure to overview the topic. That job pressure was once scrapped closing week.

On Tuesday, Circle filed for its preliminary public providing (IPO) on the Original York Inventory Replace, focused on a $6.7 billion valuation.

Edited by Andrew Hayward