Conduit sues Tether over allegedly freezing $2.8M without explanation

Cross-border payments platform Conduit Technology alleged that stablecoin issuer Tether froze $2.76 million in USDt (USDT) without explanation in September 2025.

In a complaint filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Monday, Conduit said that Tether froze funds belonging to the company to which it had “no legal entitlement” and “no claim.” The company said it began holding USDt as part of its digital treasury wallet in May 2025, alleging that Tether froze all $2.76 million of the stablecoin in September with “no justification” — an action Conduit claimed “materially impacted its business.”

“The funds are unequivocally Conduit’s, but Tether has taken them and is denying Conduit access to them,” alleged Conduit in the complaint, adding: “Tether is not allowed to take money from businesses just because they chose to store that money in Tether’s currency.”

According to the lawsuit, the freezing was connected to a Brazilian federal police investigation launched in 2024 into the financial intermediary Bull Intermediação de Negócios and Onix. Tether allegedly identified Conduit’s treasury wallet as tied to the companies “on its own initiative using its own criteria,” freezing the $2.76 million on Sept. 24, 2025.

Conduit said it had repeatedly asked Tether to unfreeze the funds, but the company had not done so as of Monday. Cointelegraph reached out to Tether for comment on the lawsuit but did not receive an immediate response.

The lawsuit came about a month after two Thai nationals sued Tether for allegedly freezing $42.4 million in USDt following what they called an ”informal request” from US Homeland Security Investigations. The funds were allegedly part of a $61 million pig butchering case filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, which issued a seizure warrant for the USDt in February.

Related: Tether says it helped freeze $550M in Iran-linked USDT this year