Tether froze over $514 million USDT across 370 addresses in the past 30 days as its 2025 blacklist swelled to $1.26 billion, underscoring how centralized stablecoins now function as embedded enforcement rails for global regulators and law enforcement.

Tether has frozen over $514 million worth of USDT in the last 30 days, locking funds across 370 addresses on Ethereum and Tron, according to data cited by Cointelegraph.

BlockSec’s USDT Freeze Tracker shows that about $506 million of the frozen tokens sit on Tron and roughly $8.73 million on Ethereum, once again highlighting Tron’s central role in USDT flows.

Separately, BlockSec’s on-chain report, titled “$1.26 Billion Frozen: USDT Blacklisting on Ethereum and Tron in 2025,” found that Tether blacklisted 4,163 unique addresses last year, freezing a cumulative $1.26 billion in USDT and permanently destroying more than half of it via its destroyBlackFunds function.

How Tether’s blacklists work at scale

BlockSec’s researchers write that “USDT can be frozen. Yes, yours,” noting that in 2025 alone Tether froze $1.26 billion “across 4,163 addresses,” with only 3.6% of those wallets later being unfrozen.

Their analysis finds that $698 million of the frozen USDT was burned, reducing outstanding supply, while the rest remained locked indefinitely or was later moved under law‑enforcement direction.

A follow‑up blog, “Following the Frozen,” and a companion LinkedIn post identify three main triggers for blacklisting: direct requests from agencies such as the FBI, Europol and local police; automated blocking of wallets tied to U.S. sanctions lists; and proactive investigations by Tether’s T3 Financial Crime Unit, established with Tron and TRM Labs.

The report links multiple frozen addresses to large‑scale fraud schemes, pig‑butchering operations, darknet markets and wallets associated with terrorist finance, including entities designated by the U.S. Treasury.

Tether itself has publicly emphasized this enforcement role. In April, the company announced that it had “supported the freeze of more than $344 million in USDT” across two Tron wallets “in coordination with OFAC and U.S. law enforcement,” calling it “one of the largest such actions in the company’s history” in an official statement.

That followed a January move in which Tether froze roughly $182 million USDT on Tron in what Yahoo Finance described as a “massive coordinated action” against five wallets flagged by U.S. agencies, according to a report that drew on company statements and on-chain forensics.

Centralized stablecoins as enforcement rails for crypto

Looking beyond any single freeze, the numbers are now system‑level. From 2023 through 2025, Tether froze more than $3.29 billion worth of USDT across 7,268 addresses, with Reuters recently reporting that the firm has now frozen about $4.2 billion over its lifetime “linked to crime, sanctions and other illicit activity,” citing company disclosures in a story.

Crypto.news has tracked how this enforcement capability shapes the broader market. A recent story on Tether’s $344 million Tron freeze noted that USDT’s compliance layer has become “a de facto extension of Western financial sanctions,” while another story on stablecoin enforcement detailed how both Tether and Circle have accelerated blacklisting as regulators scrutinize how dollar tokens move through DeFi and centralized exchanges.

For traders and builders, the lesson is blunt. Centralized stablecoins like USDT are not neutral settlement assets; they carry embedded kill switches that can and do get flipped at scale, often in coordination with law‑enforcement and sanctions authorities.

That reality is already reshaping design choices across the market, from protocols experimenting with overcollateralized, on‑chain alternatives to exchanges bolstering wallet screening and travel‑rule compliance to avoid waking up one day and discovering that millions of dollars in user deposits have been blacklisted — and, in many cases, will never come back.

Decentralized finance protocols are reevaluating their blockchain oracle providers’ security after the fallout from the $293 million Kelp DAO exploit last month. Several protocols have announced migrations to Chainlink infrastructure in recent days, citing security concerns around third-party oracle and bridge providers.

On Thursday, Bitcoin DeFi platform Solv Protocol announced it would migrate to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) and replace LayerZero bridges, citing an “extensive security review” concluding that CCIP provided the “strongest security assurances.” 

A day earlier, liquidity protocol Tydro also said it was moving to Chainlink after its previous oracle provider, Chaos Labs, suffered an incident that prompted Tydro to pause markets over concerns about inaccurate price feeds.

The migrations come after an April 18 exploit in which attackers drained 116,500 Kelp DAO restaked ETH (rsETH) tokens worth between $290 million and $293 million. Following the exploit, Kelp DAO also migrated its rsETH token to Chainlink, moving away from its previous LayerZero-powered bridge after attributing the incident to weaknesses in its cross-chain setup.

Source: Solv Protocol

LayerZero, however, said on April 20 that the exploit resulted from a single point of failure in Kelp DAO’s implementation, which relied on a single LayerZero DVN as the only verified path despite prior warnings against that configuration.

DeFi protocols review oracle security after Kelp exploit

The Kelp DAO exploit triggered a “wake-up call” for DeFi providers, according to Zach Rynes, strategic initiatives lead at Chainlink Labs.

Related: Aave liquidates Kelp DAO hacker’s rsETH positions on Ethereum, Arbitrum

Rynes told Cointelegraph that DeFi teams conducting security reviews are increasingly deciding to replace older oracle and bridge systems with Chainlink infrastructure to strengthen baseline security protections, and multiple other DeFi protocols are discussing potential migrations to Chainlink following the exploit.

Oracle providers with long operating histories and strong reliability are becoming increasingly important as hacks continue across the sector, Marcin Kazmierczak, co-founder of RedStone, the fourth-largest blockchain oracle provider, told Cointelegraph, adding that RedStone has also kept a “fully reliable track record.”

Redstone was also contacted by Tydro as an emergency measure after the Chaos Labs oracle attack and provided support to help restore oracle feeds for the protocol.

Source: Redstone

Oracle consolidation raises new questions for DeFi

Following the Kelp DAO exploit, only a smaller group of specialized providers may be able to meet the “demand and reliability requirements” created by growing institutional participation in DeFi, Kazmierczak said.

“A smaller set of trusted oracles is forming in the market,” he said, adding that as capital concentrates around providers with proven track records, the risk of oracle-related exploits could decline.

When asked about the risks of multiple DeFi protocols depending on fewer providers, Rynes said Chainlink’s infrastructure was designed to withstand extreme market conditions.

He pointed to periods including the 2020 Covid market crash, the 2022 FTX collapse and major volatility events in 2025, saying Chainlink continued operating throughout those disruptions.

Related: Arbitrum vote to release $71M in frozen Kelp exploit ETH set to pass

Nik Kunkel, founder of Chronicle, the second-largest oracle provider, said that an overreliance on a single infrastructure provider will always present additional risks.

“There are risks anytime a large portion of an ecosystem depends on a single piece of infrastructure,” Kunkel told Cointelegraph, adding that reducing those risks also requires data infrastructure to remain independently transparent and verifiable.

Top Oracle providers by market share. Source: DefiLlama.com

Chainlink remains the largest oracle provider with a 58% market share and more than $32 billion in value secured, according to DefiLlama. Chronicle ranks second with $7.6 billion in total value secured, while RedStone holds fourth place with $3.7 billion, representing a 6.7% market share.

Magazine: 53 DeFi projects infiltrated, 50M NEO tokens could be ‘given back’: Asia Express

Bitcoin (BTC) traders expect a short-term correction as a key BTC price strength metric rises to its highest levels in almost fifteen weeks.

Key takeaways:

• Bitcoin’s “overbought” RSI historically precedes significant corrections.
• Bitcoin could see a short-term price drop if the price breaks below the $78,000 support.

Bitcoin metrics suggest BTC price is “overheated”

Bitcoin’s 36% rally to $82,800 on Wednesday from its macro low of $60,000 has significantly impacted its daily RSI.

On the daily chart, the RSI rose to 70 on Wednesday from local lows of 39 in March. 

“$BTC’s daily RSI went overbought right as we tagged the 200-day EMA,” trader Jelle said in a Friday post on X, adding:

“It makes sense to find resistance here.”

BTC/USD weekly chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

RSI measures trend strength and contains three key levels for observers: the 30 oversold boundary, the 50 midpoint and the 70 overbought threshold.

When the price crosses these levels, depending on the direction, traders can infer about the future of the current trend. After rallies, BTC usually corrects once the RSI enters the overbought territory.

Related: Bitcoin bulls target $115K by December: Does data back the expectation?

Analyst Crypto Tice said this is a “rare” signal that has occurred only four times over the last year, with every occurrence leading to a “short-term pullback,” adding:

“Overbought conditions on the daily don’t resolve sideways. They resolve with a flush.”

Fellow analyst Rekt Fencer pointed out that the “last 2 times this happened, it dumped” 35%-38%, as shown in the chart above.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s market value to realized value (MVRV) ratio, which measures whether the asset is overvalued, recently entered the “overheated” zone.

“Bitcoin breaks above the overheated level on the short-term holder Bollinger Bands for the first time since November 2024,” analyst FrankAFetter said in a recent post on X.

The last time it was at similar levels was in November 2024 before a 15% BTC price drop.

Bitcoin  STH MVRV Bollinger Bands. Source: CheckOnChain

Bitcoin support at $78,000 becomes key for BTC price

Bitcoin traders agree that $78,000 has now become an important area of support for BTC/USD.

The 200-day exponential moving average at $83,000 is acting as resistance, while the “first main area of interest sits at $78,000,” analyst Jelle said in an X post on Friday, adding: 

“Turn that into support and we can have another go at the MAs.”

BTC/USD daily chart. Source: X/Jelle

Fellow analyst Tradermayne said holding the support at $78,000-$80,000 on low time frames would give “bulls a very easy bias level.”

BTC/USD weekly chart. Source: Trader Mayne

Orders are sitting on both sides of the spot price, with analyst Master of Crypto seeing the likelihood of these liquidity clusters being taken out.

“$BTC is holding around the $78.5K–$79.1K support zone,” the analyst said in a Friday post on X, adding:

“If buyers defend this area, the next move could be toward $82K–$83K where a lot of liquidity is sitting. But if this support breaks, Bitcoin could quickly drop to $75K–$76K.”

Bitcoin liquidation heatmap. Source: CoinGlass

The Bitcoin liquidity map shows that a correction below $78,000 would trigger over $3.1 billion worth of leveraged long liquidations across all exchanges.

Bitcoin exchange liquidation map. Source: CoinGlass

European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde argued against the need for privately-issued euro-pegged stablecoins, even in the face of a market which is 98% dominated by dollar-pegged tokens.

Despite the rapid global adoption of USD stablecoins, Largarde argued Europe should focus on building tokenized settlement infrastructure anchored in central bank money rather than simply replicating the U.S. stablecoin model in a speech Bank of Spain’s LatAm Economic Forum in Madrid on Friday

“The case for promoting euro-denominated stablecoins is far weaker than it appears,” Lagarde said, arguing that the technological case for stablecoins can be replicated by central bank infrastructure, while their monetary function introduces unacceptable risks to financial stability.

Those comments come as Qivalis, a consortium of 12 of Europe’s largest banks, including ING, BBVA, BNP Paribas, Danske Bank, and UniCredit, announced plans to launch a privately-issued digital euro, not a CBDC, later this year under the same premise that Europe faces dollarization risks.

“If we don’t have a euro onchain with depth of liquidity, then the only alternative is the U.S. dollar,” Qivalis CEO Jan-Oliver Sell told CoinDesk. “That’s a real risk to Europe’s financial and digital sovereignty.”

Lagarde reiterated warnings that stablecoins could create financial stability risks during periods of market stress. She referenced the March 2023 collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, when Circle disclosed that $3.3 billion of its USDC reserves were at the bank, causing a brief de-peg of its stablecoin.

“At scale, such dynamics can transmit stress to the underlying asset markets. The promise of par redemption depends on the very market confidence that can vanish when financial stability deteriorates – and a mass redemption can accelerate that deterioration,” she said on Friday.

“As stablecoin use grows, so too does the potential for feedback loops between redemptions and asset markets,] particularly where issuers are non-banks.”

The growing global dominance of U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins issued by Tether and Circle represents risks to Europe’s financial system, Lagarde said on Friday.

Lagarde noted circulation in six years has increased from $10 billion to $310 billion. However, she expressed concern that nearly 90% of the market is controlled by two issuers – Tether USDT$0.9997 and Circle USDC).

She said that in Europe there’s increasing debate over the bloc’s urgent need to remain relevant.

“Europe must respond by promoting euro-denominated stablecoins of its own,” she said. “Otherwise, it faces a future of digital dollarisation and a loss of monetary sovereignty.”Lagarde is calling on the EU countries to support the development of a CBDCs. “We must build the public infrastructure that will enable alternative instruments, such as stablecoins and other forms of tokenised money, to operate within a framework anchored by central bank money,” she said.

Late last year, Lagarde announced the ECB’s plans for a “digital euro by 2029, assuming the European co-legislators adopt the necessary regulation by 2026,” adding that the preparatory steps, including pilot exercises and initial transactions, could begin as early as mid-2027.

TLDR:

• Revolut confirmed a third-party disruption caused Bitcoin to display at $0.02 inside the app on Friday.
  
• No user asset losses were reported, as the glitch only affected price displays and push notifications sent out.
  
• Bitcoin continued trading normally on major exchanges while the erroneous figures circulated across Revolut’s platform.
  
• Past crypto pricing glitches have triggered liquidation cascades, wiping out nearly two million accounts in minutes.

Revolut users were caught off guard on Friday after the fintech app displayed Bitcoin prices crashing to as low as $0.02.

The erroneous figures appeared in push notifications and price displays across the platform. Revolut confirmed the issue stemmed from a third-party service disruption.

No user asset losses have been reported so far. Cryptocurrency markets remained stable throughout, with Bitcoin trading normally on all major exchanges.

App Displays False Bitcoin Crash, Users React Online

The alerts arrived without warning in the early hours of Friday morning. Many users initially feared a real market collapse had occurred overnight. Screenshots spread quickly across X, showing notifications warning of a “52-week low” for Bitcoin.

Some users reported seeing apparent sell orders executed at two cents. Others questioned whether automated trades had triggered incorrectly during the malfunction. The issue appeared to affect price alerts, displays, and trading information tied to Bitcoin.

Revolut Support responded publicly on X, acknowledging the problem directly. “We are currently experiencing technical issues affecting some crypto functionalities,” the company stated.

The team confirmed that investigations were actively underway, and users were reassured that their assets remained unaffected.

Reactions on social media ranged from alarm to dark humor. One user wrote, “Woke up this morning and saw this and went back to bed. Thanks Revolut for nearly sending me to an early grave.”

Another posted, “Wtf is this manifesting? I want to see $150000 instead of $0.02.” A third added, “As a big fan and user of Revolut, I’m glad I didn’t see the notice — otherwise I’d have shut my laptop on the spot.” The posts reflected genuine anxiety among retail investors relying on mobile alerts for market updates.

Crypto Price Glitches Carry a History of Market Disruption

This is not the first time a pricing error has rattled crypto traders. Technical glitches, even brief ones, can trigger outsized fear among retail investors. The Revolut incident draws attention to how heavily traders depend on fintech apps for real-time data.

Speaking on CNBC’s Power Lunch following a previous crash, Fundstrat’s Tom Lee linked a major market drop to a pricing-feed failure.

A stablecoin briefly fell to $0.65 on one exchange due to thin liquidity. “On a specific exchange, a stablecoin’s price varied from other exchanges,” Lee explained. “It dropped to $0.65. But that only happened within this exchange because of liquidity.”

That distorted price then triggered a chain reaction across derivatives markets. “It wiped out, as that spread across other exchanges, because liquidations cascade,” Lee said.

Nearly two million crypto accounts were affected, despite being profitable just minutes before the glitch occurred.

South Korean exchanges faced a similar episode during the country’s political turmoil in late 2024. A martial-law shock triggered heavy trading activity, causing local order books to detach from global prices temporarily.

Those sudden downward wicks served as another reminder of how fragile pricing infrastructure can be during periods of instability.

SoftBank has cut a planned OpenAI‑backed margin loan from around $10 billion to roughly $6 billion after banks and private credit funds pushed back on the deal’s structure and the difficulty of valuing OpenAI, an unlisted AI unicorn.

SoftBank Group is scaling back an ambitious financing plan that would have raised around $10 billion using its OpenAI shares as collateral, after lenders balked at both the structure of the margin loan and the private valuation underpinning the deal.

According to Bloomberg, cited by Reuters and other outlets, SoftBank and its arranging banks have floated a reduced target “as low as $6 billion” in recent discussions with prospective lenders, implying a 40% cut from the original size. U.S. News reported that the initial pitch “had investors concerned about the difficulty of reaching a valuation for an unlisted company like ChatGPT maker OpenAI.”

Lenders question private OpenAI valuation and structure

Bloomberg’s April scoop on the deal said SoftBank was seeking “a $10 billion loan secured by its shares in US artificial intelligence giant OpenAI,” structured as a two‑year margin loan with an option to extend by another year. Bloomberg said the facility would let the Japanese conglomerate “take on more debt for its push into AI” without selling down its OpenAI stake.

In practice, the mechanics are straightforward but risky: SoftBank borrows against its OpenAI equity, and if the value of that collateral falls, lenders can demand more margin or seize shares. The sticking point, lenders now say, is how to price that collateral. As the Economic Times summarized from Bloomberg’s reporting, “some creditors expressed concerns over how to value OpenAI, a privately held company,” which has missed some internal sales and user milestones in recent quarters. A separate breakdown on Chinese platform Futu noted that “the crux of the issue lies in lenders’ inability to determine a reasonable valuation” for OpenAI, calling the loan talks “a major setback” for SoftBank’s AI leverage strategy.

Those worries are layered on top of SoftBank’s already sizable AI financing stack. In March, Bloomberg reported that SoftBank had secured a $40 billion bridge loan to fund its OpenAI investment and general corporate needs, a deal backed by a syndicate of global banks and now being syndicated out to more lenders. Bloomberg said institutions such as HSBC, BNP Paribas and Intesa Sanpaolo were joining as sub‑underwriters, each asked to commit around $5 billion. Reuters, summarizing the same reporting, added that SoftBank “is pursuing a loan of as much as $40 billion” to support its OpenAI bet. Yahoo Finance echoed that figure, underscoring just how much leverage is already tied to the AI trade.

What the scaled‑back loan means for SoftBank’s AI push

The margin loan was meant to be another pillar in that structure: by borrowing against OpenAI shares rather than selling them, SoftBank can raise cash to expand its AI investments — potentially into infrastructure projects like the “Stargate” data‑center initiative — while preserving upside if OpenAI’s valuation continues to rise. TechFundingNews noted that the $10 billion margin loan was “just one part of SoftBank’s larger AI financing plan,” which reportedly includes commitments of more than $60 billion to OpenAI and related ventures through Vision Fund 2, the $40 billion bridge loan and other facilities.

Cutting the margin‑loan target to around $6 billion does not end that strategy, but it signals that creditor appetite for concentrated, private‑equity‑collateral risk is not unlimited, even in a market obsessed with AI. As Bloomberg put it in an earlier piece on the $40 billion bridge, the OpenAI exposure is already “one of the biggest tests yet of creditor sentiment toward the Japanese conglomerate’s debt-fueled push further into artificial intelligence.”

The latest downsizing suggests that, for now, banks and funds are willing to back SoftBank’s AI ambitions — but only up to the point where they can still convince their own risk committees that the collateral they are lending against can be valued with something more than vibes and secondary‑market whispers.