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.
39.3 million frozen and Xinbi has moved billions since 2022. thats a rounding error for them, barely an inconvenience
39.3m frozen when xinbi has moved billions since 2022? rounding error for them, they’ll route around it in a week
The TWPma8x wallet with 10.8m is the actual catch here. The rest is mostly dust and merchant flow.
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
^ this is why dust matters. MistTrack linking TWPma8x to Guarantee Merchant inflows did all the work before the freeze even happened