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 12 months due to its affiliation with Argentine President Javier Milei, has taken one other flip.

USDC accounts belonging to 2 wallets tied to the Libra meme coin crew and token deployer have been frozen on Tuesday, locking up almost $58 million price of stablecoins on Solana that may now not be offered or transferred. 

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

As a result of the USDC stablecoin’s minting and issuance is managed by Circle, the agency is ready to freeze or “blacklist” tokens in accordance with its blacklisting coverage. Main stablecoin issuers like Circle and Tether have been recognized to blacklist addresses when related to main exploits, just like the $1.4 billion hack of Bybit again in February.

Circle didn’t instantly reply to Decrypt’s request for remark. In the meanwhile, it’s unclear who, precisely, requested the freeze, with a number of events taking to X to assert credit score.

Crypto-focused legislation agency Burwick Regulation mentioned that the freeze is because of a short-term restraining order issued at its request. In the meantime, Martin Romeo, a plaintiff within the Argentinian case across the Libra token, famously promoted by President Javier Milei, mentioned the freeze resulted from a request from Argentina’s justice division. 

“Yesterday, a federal court docket in SDNY entered a brief restraining order at our request, Burwick Regulation, supported by Tim Treanor, freezing roughly 57.65 million USDC held at Circle, which now you can see confirmed on Solscan,” Max Burwick mentioned in a press release shared with Decrypt. “We’ll return to court docket on June 9, 2025 for a preliminary injunction listening to to maintain these belongings frozen via the remainder of this litigation.”

Burwick beforehand filed a class-action go well with in opposition to Kelsier Ventures and Meteora, together with some named executives from the events, for his or her respective roles within the Libra token scandal.

The Solana-based Libra token, which President Milei promoted at launch on X in February, shortly shot as much as a multi-billion-dollar market cap earlier than plummeting almost 90% shortly thereafter, resulting in accusations of a pump-and-dump scheme as wallets related to the token cashed out income.

Later, President Milei was charged with fraud, and the federal government arrange a process pressure to research the matter. That process pressure was scrapped final week.  

On Tuesday, Circle filed for its preliminary public providing (IPO) on the New York Inventory Trade, concentrating on a $6.7 billion valuation.

Edited by Andrew Hayward