Tether has frozen roughly 39.3 million USD worth of USDT held across ten Tron addresses linked to Xinbi Guarantee, the Chinese-language “guarantee” marketplace that blockchain investigators have tied to billions of dollars in crypto transactions since 2022.
MistTrack, the onchain tracing platform developed by SlowMist, first reported the freeze, saying Tether had blocked approximately 39,273,713 USDT across the ten addresses. The affected wallets held balances ranging from a single USDT to about 10.8 million USDT, according to data shared by the tracing firm.
Anatomy of the freeze
The balances were spread unevenly across the ten Tron addresses. The largest address held about 10.78 million USDT, while three others contained roughly 8 million USDT each. Another wallet held around 2.04 million USDT, and two addresses contained about 1.28 million and 1.17 million USDT respectively. Three of the addresses held only 1 USDT each at the time represented in MistTrack’s data.
MistTrack’s transaction map linked one of the largest wallets, beginning with the prefix TWPma8x, directly to Xinbi Guarantee. The map showed transfers into the address from multiple wallets labeled “Guarantee Merchant,” while funds were sent onward to another Xinbi Guarantee address.
The tracing firm did not identify a law enforcement request behind the freeze in its public statement, and Tether had not publicly detailed the reason for targeting the addresses at the time of the report. The action follows a series of cases in which the stablecoin issuer has restricted USDT held on Tron, and MistTrack described the latest move as another potential crackdown on illicit Telegram-based escrow platforms.
A pattern of freezes on Tron
The Xinbi action adds to a growing list of high-profile USDT freezes. In June, more than 72 million USD was frozen after onchain investigator ZachXBT traced a wallet that had received 120.2 million USDT and moved funds through exchanges and cross-chain routes. A month later, Tether froze USDT balances across 131 Tron wallets linked by Chainalysis to ISIS-K after U.S. sanctions authorities added more than 100 crypto identifiers associated with the group.
Data compiled by BlockSec found that Tether blacklisted 4,163 addresses during 2025, freezing 1.26 billion USD in USDT across Ethereum and Tron. More than 514 million USD across 370 addresses was frozen during a single 30-day period covered by that research.
Xinbi’s 24.2 billion USD problem
Xinbi Guarantee emerged on Telegram around 2022 and developed into one of Southeast Asia’s largest illicit crypto marketplaces, according to TRM Labs. The blockchain intelligence company estimates the platform has processed approximately 24.2 billion USD in total transaction volume since its creation, including 12.1 billion USD in observed inflows since May 2025 alone.
The marketplace primarily serves Chinese-speaking users and operates through an escrow model. Guarantee marketplaces connect merchants with buyers while providing transaction infrastructure, with crypto commonly used for settlement. TRM Labs has linked Xinbi to scam operations, money laundering networks and cybercrime groups operating in Southeast Asia and beyond.
Earlier estimates of Xinbi’s activity were lower as investigators continued identifying transactions connected to the platform. Elliptic research published in May 2025 attributed at least 8.4 billion USD in USDT transactions to Xinbi since 2022 and found its user base had grown from 119,000 in August 2024 to 233,000 by May 2025. That investigation linked merchants on the marketplace to services used by online scammers, including laundering proceeds, fake identification documents and stolen personal information. Elliptic also found that approximately 220,000 USD in USDT connected to the 235 million USD WazirX hack had passed through Xinbi Guarantee addresses.
By February 2026, TRM Labs estimated Xinbi had processed 17.9 billion USD since mid-2025 alone, as activity continued despite enforcement measures against Telegram-based marketplaces. Its subsequent profile of the platform put total transaction volume since 2022 at 24.2 billion USD.
Life after the Telegram crackdown
Telegram removed thousands of channels associated with Xinbi Guarantee and Huione Guarantee in May 2025 after blockchain researchers documented their activities. Xinbi resumed operations soon afterward. TRM Labs found signs the marketplace had returned to Telegram within days, with some vendors previously associated with Huione Guarantee and Huione Pay active on Xinbi.
The platform later began moving parts of its operation away from Telegram altogether. TRM Labs said Xinbi migrated toward SafeW, a messaging service, and introduced NewPay — also known as XinbiPay — as a crypto wallet that did not require know-your-customer checks. The freeze announced this week suggests that migration has not insulated the platform’s Tron-based treasury from Tether’s ability to blacklist addresses at the token contract level, a capability unique to centralized stablecoin issuers.
What it means for the stablecoin debate
The action lands in the middle of an ongoing debate about stablecoin freezability. Critics argue that a single company’s ability to freeze 39.3 million USD with no public legal process illustrates the custodial risk embedded in centralized stablecoins. Defenders counter that exactly this capability is what makes USDT compliant enough to survive regulatory scrutiny — and what allows illicit-finance proceeds to be immobilized without waiting for a court order in a foreign jurisdiction.
For now, neither side knows how much of Xinbi’s operation the freeze will actually disrupt. The ten frozen addresses represent a small fraction of the platform’s cumulative 24.2 billion USD in throughput, and the marketplace’s previous recoveries from enforcement actions suggest resilience. But each freeze tightens the onchain perimeter around guarantee marketplaces, raising their costs and pushing them further toward niche wallets and offshore rails.
At press time, Bitcoin trades around 78,500 USD, Ethereum near 2,487 USD and Solana at about 103 USD.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
ten addresses, one holding 10.78m and three holding a single usdt each. whoever mapped those wallets did months of chaingraph work so tether could sign one tx
months of mapping to move 39m when june was 72m. the freeze size is dropping but the address intel keeps compounding, thats the scary part for these marketplaces
39.3 million frozen and Xinbi has moved billions since 2022. thats a rounding error for them, barely an inconvenience
one wallet at 10.78m and then three holding exactly 1 usdt. the mapping work was clearly done months ago, freeze is just the cleanup crew
39.3m frozen when xinbi has moved billions since 2022? rounding error for them, they’ll route around it in a week
route around it sure, but every new rail costs them opsec. freezes are less about the money and more about raising the burn rate on scam ops
counterpoint: the June ZachXBT freeze was 72m and the ISIS-K one hit 131 wallets. tether is clearly keeping a standing workflow for this now, each round gets faster
good context. 72m in june, 39m now. the workflow clearly exists, tether just needs an address list to run it
each round gets faster is the point tho. june needed zachxbt pushing it publicly, this one looks proactive. the freeze workflow is turning into routine plumbing
route around it sure, but june already cost them a full opsec rebuild. every reroute is thinner and noisier, thats the compounding part nobody prices
The TWPma8x wallet with 10.8m is the actual catch here. The rest is mostly dust and merchant flow.
merchant flow mostly, yeah. but one 10.8m wallet sitting next to three single USDT dust wallets is such a weird fingerprint. nobody cleans their trail
the 8m x3 cluster matters more than people think. thats merchant float, not savings. cutting it actually breaks settlement for a chunk of their escrow flow
breaking escrow settlement is the real damage. xinbi reroutes its own wallets within hours, the merchants waiting on frozen float dont get that option
if that were true theyd just route around it. xinbi spun up fresh tron wallets within hours of the june freezes, 39.3m blocked is a speed bump not a kill shot
speed bump or not, 39m of merchant float frozen mid settlement means someones escrow counterparty just went dark. the downstream damage is the real number here
fresh tron wallets within hours is exactly the tell. the freeze is a census more than a kill shot, tether learns the cluster shape every single round
census is a good word for it. every freeze teaches them the new wallet shape faster than xinbi can rotate it
June needed a ZachXBT thread before anything moved, this one went from chain analytics to frozen wallets inside a quarter. Xinbi basically operates on a countdown timer now
Three of the ten addresses held exactly 1 USDT each. someone tested those wallets and bailed, the map was already burning
three of the ten wallets held exactly 1 USDT each. someone at tether filed a freeze on a wallet with one dollar in it lol
the 1 usdt wallets are probably canary addresses. freeze one and you learn tether mapped your cluster before the real wallets ever move
xinbi wont feel 39m, they route through fresh wallets same day. the signal to other marketplaces matters way more than the money
^ this is why dust matters. MistTrack linking TWPma8x to Guarantee Merchant inflows did all the work before the freeze even happened
freezing wallets holding exactly 1 usdt is tether signaling the cluster map is done. the 10.78m wallet went quiet the moment the list existed
39.3m against billions moved since 2022 and three of the wallets held a single usdt. the freeze is a message, the dust addresses are the proof of work