Argentine court orders Tether to freeze $3.5 million in USDT linked to Ponzi scheme; crypto firms assist in investigation.
The Argentine justice system has recently ordered Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, to freeze approximately $3.5 million tied to the Rainbowex platform. Currently, it is also under investigation for allegedly running a huge Ponzi scheme. Investigators are concentrating their efforts in the town of San Pedro, in Buenos Aires, where thousands have been scammed, as reported by the local media source.
An Argentine court’s freezing of the funds is aimed at dismantling Rainbowex’s financial network. The court also ordered that digital assets should be seized, including cryptocurrency wallets and bank accounts of those who were involved in the scheme frozen. The measure seeks to stop further financial dealings around the alleged fraud.
In the past, Tether has also been in similar legal situations. The company has a system that can blacklist a particular wallet address upon a court order. With this, Tether will be able to prevent any purchase from any wallet found on the blacklist. Once their system blacklists a wallet, then all transactions in and out of USDT will be blocked.
Cryptocurrency Firms Assist Argentine Authorities in USDT Seizure Case
Rodrigo Mansilla and Maximiliano Firtman have spoken about what this centralized control means. While being built on the decentralized blockchain, USDT is capable of freezing assets. It is fundamentally out of order for a decentralized cryptocurrency, Mansilla stated. ‘The smart contract verifies if a wallet is blacklisted before performing the transaction,’ Firtman explained. In case the wallet is blacklisted, the transaction just does not get processed.
As in any process, this raises interesting questions about how centralized control in cryptocurrencies works in general, particularly for a crypto like USDT backed by a stablecoin. It also unlocks a situation where funds can be locked possibly indefinitely.
Several cryptocurrency tracking firms like Lemon Exchange, Chinalisys and Qlue have given it their technical expertise to help in the investigation. Their support is crucial for Argentine authorities track and analyze the data needed for the case to make progress.
