tether

According to CoinDesk, the U.S. law firm Charles Gerstein has filed a petition in the Manhattan federal court, requesting an order for Tether to transfer over $344 million of frozen USDT to victims holding judgments against Iran for unpaid terrorism claims. These USDT were previously frozen by Tether after the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control identified the related Tron wallets as belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran.The plaintiffs argue that since OFAC has designated the relevant wallets as owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Tether has frozen the related tokens, Tether can fully reissue an equivalent amount of USDT to a wallet controlled by the victims' attorney. This case is part of a broader legal strategy by Charles Gerstein aimed at leveraging the ability of crypto platforms to freeze and transfer digital assets to enforce terrorism-related judgments. Unlike the Arbitrum case involving North Korean-linked hacker funds, in this case, OFAC has clearly designated the relevant wallets as owned

The UK Parliament's Standards Commissioner is investigating UK MP and leader of the Reform Party, Nigel Farage, due to allegations of failing to declare a £5 million (approximately $6.7 million) personal donation from Tether investor Christopher Harborne. Christopher Harborne holds a 12% stake in Tether. Nigel Farage stated that the donation was received in 2024 before he announced his candidacy, intended for personal security, and therefore he had no obligation to declare it. According to the House of Commons Code of Conduct, new MPs must register any benefits received in the previous 12 months after being elected. If found in violation, Nigel Farage could face penalties such as an apology, suspension, or expulsion from Parliament.

According to The Block, the T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU), jointly established by Tether, TRON, and TRM Labs, announced that since its establishment in 2024, it has frozen over $450 million in illegal crypto assets globally.The unit intercepted illegal proceeds in 2025, with a year-on-year increase of 43.9%, covering 23 jurisdictions including the United States, Spain, and Germany, and was recognized by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as "an important resource for global law enforcement agencies."T3 FCU has participated in various criminal investigations, including exchange hacks, North Korea-related activities, terrorist financing, and violent crime cases, and assisted the Brazilian Federal Police in freezing over $5.989 billion in assets, including 4.3 million USDT.

According to CoinDesk, the UK's parliamentary standards watchdog is conducting a formal investigation into Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage for failing to declare a £5 million donation from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. Harborne holds a 12% stake in stablecoin issuer Tether. Farage argues that the donation was used to pay for personal security costs and falls within the exemption for disclosure.If found in violation of the code of conduct, Farage could face suspension. A YouGov poll shows Reform UK leading with a 28% support rate, and Farage is expected to become the next Prime Minister. The UK government suspended political crypto donations in March, and this ban will be written into the Representation of the People Act.

According to Whale Alert monitoring, Tether Treasury has just minted 1,000,000,000 USDT on the Tron chain, corresponding to approximately 999.6 million USD.

According to official news, Tether has launched a developer grant program that will reward developers with USDT or Bitcoin for building localized AI and payment infrastructure. There is no total grant cap for this program, and rewards will be issued based on technical tasks and deliverables, with current individual bonuses ranging from $1,500 to $4,000.This funding focuses on Tether's open-source technology stack, including wallet infrastructure, browser extensions, e-commerce integration, and particularly supports its local AI platform QVAC. Tether stated that QVAC can run AI inference directly on the device locally, without relying on cloud servers, to reduce latency, costs, and data exposure risks.In addition, Tether will also promote the development of its Wallet Development Kit (WDK) ecosystem. This tool allows developers to directly embed self-custody wallets within applications, enabling local key generation, transaction signing, and asset transfers without relying on custodial services or third-party APIs.Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that a significant amount of infrastructure still forces developers to rely on centralized platforms and data business models, and Tether hopes to fund systems that can "run locally, hold value directly, and have no external dependencies" to enter the market.

Santiment stated on the X platform that Tether (Ethereum-based) experienced the largest outflow of funds from exchanges in nearly three months, with a net outflow of $1.29 billion (USDT) on Friday. Such a large-scale USDT outflow typically reflects institutional or whale-level participants moving funds to self-custody wallets, DeFi protocols, or over-the-counter trading platforms in preparation for larger operational plans. This is merely a reallocation of funds, not a complete exit from the ecosystem.Santiment suggests closely monitoring what typically happens after these peaks in outflows. Previously, on February 9, when outflows reached $3.72 billion, Bitcoin experienced a slight pullback in the following two weeks (before an ideal buying opportunity on February 24). Whether the current funds will flow back into exchanges in the form of buying in the short term is a key variable to watch closely. If USDT starts to flow back into exchanges in the coming days, it indicates that a wave of investment in crypto assets is imminent.

Former Singapore Navy personnel Zhang Rongxuan (35 years old, phonetic) was sentenced to six years and ten months in prison after stealing 1.7 million Tether (nearly 2.3 million Singapore dollars) from a friend's cold wallet, which he spent on luxury watches, gambling, and paying off a mortgage.It is reported that Zhang Rongxuan was a member of the Naval Diving Unit at the time of the incident, holding the rank of captain. After getting to know the victim, he also co-managed a non-fungible token trading platform with friends, which is affiliated with Upstairs Research Pte Ltd and owned by DiGi Selection Holdings Pte Ltd. After security companies tracked the cryptocurrency wallet, Zhang Rongxuan admitted that he committed the crime due to suffering significant losses from the collapse of the FTX exchange.

According to Bitcoin.com, Tether has filed a lawsuit in São Paulo, Brazil, seeking to recover a $300 million loan from Titan Holding, a company under the Master Group. The loan was issued by Tether's venture capital arm, Tether Investments, in 2025, with a repayment due in 2026, but no repayments have been received to date.Daniel Vorcaro, the owner of the Master Group, was recently arrested, and his Banco Master was liquidated by the Brazilian central bank last November due to a reserve shortfall of $2.2 billion, affecting over a million customers. In the lawsuit, Tether has requested to freeze all financial assets of Titan and its affiliated companies.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, Tether has burned 2 billion USDT on the Ethereum network. Since then, Tether has minted 5 billion USDT, of which 2 billion USDT were burned 5 hours ago.

According to Cointelegraph, Tether has frozen over $514 million USDT in the past 30 days, involving 370 addresses. Among them, the Tron chain froze approximately $506 million, while the Ethereum chain froze about $8.73 million.An analysis of data from 2025 by BlockSec shows that Tether has blacklisted a total of 4,163 independent addresses on the Ethereum and Tron chains, freezing a total of $1.26 billion USDT.

According to CoinDesk, Jesse Spiro, head of government affairs at Tether, warned at the Consensus conference that the 2026 U.S. midterm elections could have a significant impact on the crypto industry and will be a key test of whether Washington's recent friendly attitude towards digital assets can endure.He pointed out that the industry has made progress over the past year, including the passage of the GENIUS Act and advancements in market structure legislation, but these achievements could be overturned by the elections. Spiro emphasized that the crypto industry should not be partisan, and the best scenario is to gain bipartisan support. Colin McLaren, head of government relations at the Solana Policy Research Institute, stated that the industry's political efforts are focused on "persistence," ensuring that Congress continues to advance priorities such as tax reform and developer protections.Mason Lynaugh, executive director of Stand With Crypto, said that the organization's nearly 3 million members view the elections as a "moment of accountability," with high enthusiasm among crypto voters that could sway results in closely contested elections.

According to market news, Ben O'Neill, the head of cash flow at Bridge, stated at the Consensus conference that the dominance of Tether and Circle in the stablecoin market is generally detrimental to the growth of the entire industry. He pointed out that the design choices of these two major issuers have their pros and cons, but they are not suitable for all use cases.Tether has built a dollar shadow economy independent of the U.S. financial system, while Circle's USDC follows a regulated route in the U.S. and deeply engages in DeFi. O'Neill analyzed the shortcomings of both companies from the perspective of large payment companies: Tether's redemption fee of 10 basis points is too expensive for payment companies, while Circle's continuous increase in destruction fees has a net negative impact on companies like Visa that want to handle trillions of dollars in card settlements.He believes that more stablecoins need to be built and optimized for specific use cases in the coming years, while the role of clearinghouses will rise to make exchanges between stablecoins as efficient as possible. He warned that more competition is needed; otherwise, Tether and Circle will only continue to raise fees and not share profits, making stablecoins increasingly less like money.

According to Cointelegraph, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that Tether's AI research team will release another breakthrough in the field of local AI this week.

"On-chain detective" ZachXBT disclosed that the DSJ Exchange (DSJEX) / BG Wealth Sharing Ponzi scheme, involving over $150 million, collapsed last week.Under its leadership, actions were taken in collaboration with Tether, Binance security teams, OKX, and U.S. law enforcement agencies, resulting in approximately $41.5 million in funds being frozen, including $38.4 million frozen by Tether on May 4, and about $3.1 million frozen by other platforms.It is reported that the project has been operating since 2025, using "1.3%--2.6% daily returns" as a gimmick to attract users through referral commissions and tiered rewards. DSJ has been identified as a fraudulent trading platform, BG as a supporting investment organization, and the so-called CEO "Stephen Beard" is also a fictional character. Investigations show that the project team evaded regulation by frequently changing domain names and hot wallets, and promoted false trading signals through messaging applications. Before the collapse, the platform had suspended withdrawals and demanded users pay a 12% "tax" under the pretext of "upcoming IPO."In terms of fund flow, the involved addresses transferred assets through Tokenlon exchanges, cross-chain bridges (such as Bridgers, Butter Network), and stablecoin wrapping/unwrapping, ultimately flowing into addresses of multiple exchanges. Currently, 13 regulatory agencies from five continents have issued risk warnings regarding this project. Analysts believe that this incident once again highlights the critical role of cross-chain tracking and multi-party collaboration in combating cryptocurrency fraud.

The total market value of Tether's tokenized gold product Tether Gold (XAU₮) has surpassed 3.3 billion USD, with physical gold reserves increasing by 36%, reflecting investors' increased allocation to physical assets amid record-high gold prices and global economic pressures.

Tether's official data reveals that Tether Gold (XAUT) continued to expand in the first quarter of 2026, with a total market value exceeding $3.3 billion, driven by record-high gold prices and increased macroeconomic uncertainty, leading to a significant rise in investor demand for safe-haven assets.Tether's data for this quarter shows that its underlying gold reserves increased by 36% quarter-over-quarter, reaching approximately 707,747 ounces as of March 31, corresponding to a 1:1 gold backing for the circulating XAU₮ tokens, with a total market value of about $3.303 billion. Compared to the approximately 520,000 ounces of reserves at the end of 2025, the gold holdings this quarter have significantly increased, reflecting a continuous inflow of funds into digital products backed by physical gold.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, as Tether minted 1 billion USDT on the Tron network, Tether has previously minted an additional 5 billion USDT on the Ethereum and Tron networks.