Tether Froze a Payments Firm's USDT Without a Court Order, Filing Says
A cross-border payments company says Tether froze $2.76 million of its money and still will not say why. More than a year later, it wants a New York federal court to hand it back.
A treasury wallet, frozen
Conduit Technology ran its working capital through a USDT treasury wallet and treated that address like an operating bank account. On September 24, 2025, Tether froze the entire $2.76 million balance. Conduit says it asked repeatedly for an explanation, or for the funds, and got neither.
The freeze traces back to a Brazilian Federal Police inquiry into two intermediaries, Bull Intermediação de Negócios and Onix Intermediações. Onix was a former Conduit customer. Conduit claims its wallet was never on the original police list, that a Brazilian criminal court has recognized it is not a party under investigation, and that no court order ever directed the freeze.
The timing does the arguing
Conduit leans hard on dates. Onix last used its platform on April 22, 2025 — about a month before the treasury wallet even existed — and the wallet never held Onix-related funds. In the four months before the freeze, that address processed 4,427 transactions with 78 counterparties, moving more than $1.1 billion.
The complaint's sharpest line is about power, not paperwork: the technical ability to blacklist an address does not create a legal right to do so.
What the lawsuit asks for
Conduit wants a court order restoring access to the wallet, at least $2.76 million in compensatory damages, and the yield Tether kept earning on reserves backing the frozen tokens. The company also says the block forced layoffs and office closures while it lost working capital and client settlements slowed.
It is not an isolated fight. About a month earlier, two Thai nationals sued Tether over $42.4 million frozen after what they described as an informal request from US Homeland Security Investigations.
Why this matters to you
USDT is the dollar rail a huge share of traders use without a second thought. If an issuer can lock a balance using its own criteria and no court order, then the old line about keys has a second half: not your issuer, not your access.