Conduit Sues Tether, Says $2.76 Million in USDT Was Frozen Without Basis
Cross-border payments platform Conduit Technology has sued Tether, alleging the stablecoin issuer froze $2.76 million of USDT without justification.Cointelegraph reported on Oct. 6 that Conduit said in a complaint filed the previous day in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that Tether froze company-owned funds and blocked access to them despite having no legal right or claim to the assets.Conduit said it began holding USDT in a treasury wallet for digital-asset management in May 2024. On Sept. 24, 2024, Tether froze the entire $2.76 million of USDT in that wallet, according to the company. Conduit alleged Tether offered no valid basis for the action and said the freeze significantly affected its business.In the complaint, Conduit said the funds “plainly belong to Conduit,” but Tether “took them and is blocking access.” It added that Tether cannot take the money simply because the company chose to hold its funds in Tether's currency.The freeze was reportedly linked to an investigation opened in 2024 by Brazil's Federal Police into financial intermediaries Bull Intermediação de Negócios and Onix. The lawsuit said Tether, applying its own standards, determined that Conduit's treasury wallet was connected to those firms and froze the USDT on Sept. 24, 2024.Conduit said it repeatedly asked Tether to lift the freeze but had not recovered the funds by the time it filed suit. Tether did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph's request for comment.This is not the first lawsuit over Tether's freezing of USDT. About a month earlier, two Thai nationals sued Tether, alleging it froze $42.4 million of USDT based on an “informal request” from U.S. Homeland Security Investigations. The funds were reportedly tied to a $61 million pig-butchering fraud case filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.