Why Did Turkish Authorities Move Against USDT?
Tether has frozen more than half a billion dollars in cryptocurrency after a request from Turkish authorities investigating an alleged illegal online betting and money-laundering operation. Prosecutors in Istanbul said last week they had seized around €460 million ($544 million) in assets linked to Veysel Sahin, who is accused of running unlawful betting platforms and laundering proceeds.
While officials initially declined to name the crypto firm involved, Tether Holdings SA was later identified as the issuer that blocked the funds. The company, which issues the USDt stablecoin, said it acted after receiving information from law enforcement.
“Law enforcement came to us, they provided some information, we looked at the information and we acted in respect of the laws of the country,” Tether chief executive Paolo Ardoino said in comments reported by Bloomberg. “And that’s what we do when we work with the DOJ, when we work with the FBI, you name it.”
The freeze forms part of a wider crackdown on underground gambling and payment networks in Turkey. Authorities have already seized more than $1 billion in assets through related investigations, according to Bloomberg, indicating that digital assets are being treated as a core element of the country’s financial crime probes rather than a side channel.
Investor Takeaway
How Common Are Stablecoin Freezes?
Tether’s action in Turkey fits into a broader pattern of wallet blacklisting across the stablecoin sector. According to analytics firm Elliptic, stablecoin issuers — mainly Tether and Circle — had blacklisted roughly 5,700 wallets holding about $2.5 billion by late 2025. Around three-quarters of those addresses contained USDT at the time they were frozen.
Tether told Bloomberg that it has assisted authorities in more than 1,800 investigations across 62 countries, resulting in $3.4 billion in frozen USDT connected to alleged criminal activity.
This cooperation has not removed scrutiny. US prosecutors last month charged a Venezuelan national with laundering $1 billion, largely using USDT. Separately, blockchain researchers have linked large USDT transfers to sanctions-evasion activity, reinforcing concerns around how the token is used in high-risk jurisdictions.
What Do the Data Say About High-Risk Stablecoin Flows?
Independent research continues to highlight the scale of stablecoin usage in higher-risk segments of the crypto economy. Bitrace reported that $649 billion in stablecoins, around 5.14% of total stablecoin transaction volume, flowed through high-risk blockchain addresses in 2024.
The report found that Tron-based USDT accounted for more than 70% of that activity. While this does not imply that most USDT transactions are illicit, it has kept attention on the network and on issuers’ ability to monitor and restrict problematic flows.
These findings have fed into a wider debate among regulators over whether stablecoins should face tighter controls, particularly when they are widely used for cross-border payments outside traditional banking systems.
Investor Takeaway
USDT Growth Continues Despite Rising Scrutiny
Despite repeated enforcement actions and regulatory pressure, USDT has continued to expand. The token reached a record market capitalization of $187.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, rising by $12.4 billion even as broader crypto markets were hit by an October liquidation cascade.
Rival stablecoins lagged during the same period. Circle’s USDC ended the quarter largely flat, while Ethena’s USDe lost roughly 57% of its value, according to industry data.
Usage metrics also climbed. Monthly active USDT wallets reached 24.8 million, accounting for about 70% of all stablecoin-holding addresses. Quarterly transfer volume rose to $4.4 trillion across 2.2 billion transactions, setting new on-chain records.
The Turkish case highlights the tension at the center of USDT’s growth story. The token’s scale and liquidity make it a key settlement layer in many markets, but the same scale ensures that enforcement actions, once triggered, are highly visible and disruptive. For users and investors alike, that trade-off is becoming harder to ignore.
