stable coins
By Jean-Luc Maracon
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What We Know About the Freeze. The $12.6 million in USDC was immobilized in connection with legal proceedings.
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Privacy Protocols Under Legal Pressure. Zama builds tools around fully homomorphic encryption, or FHE — a cryptographic technique that…
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What Happens to the Frozen Funds. Nobody knows when — or if — the $12.6 million gets released. That's the honest answer.
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Circle froze $12.6 million in USDC. The funds are linked to Zama, a privacy-focused protocol.
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Onchain investigator ZachXBT spotted the freeze first, flagging the connection between the immobilized funds and the ongoing legal matter.
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The $12.6 million in USDC was immobilized in connection with legal proceedings. Circle, as the issuer of USDC, has the technical ability to blacklist wallet addresses — meaning…
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Zama, for its part, hasn't said anything publicly. No statement. No blog post. No spokesperson comment.
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The civil nature of the case is worth noting. It's not a criminal matter, at least not based on what's known.
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Zama builds tools around fully homomorphic encryption, or FHE — a cryptographic technique that lets computation happen on encrypted data without decrypting it first.
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Read also: CLARITY Act Clears Senate Banking Committee 15-9, Crypto Consumer Rights at Stake
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Privacy protocols have had a rough few years legally. Tornado Cash's sanctions set a precedent that rattled developers across the sector.
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And it's not clear the two things are even directly related in the way it might seem. The freeze is reportedly connected to a civil case, but that case is described as unrelated…
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Nobody knows when — or if — the $12.6 million gets released. That's the honest answer. Frozen USDC can sit indefinitely if a court order requires it.
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The broader crypto community is watching. Precedents matter in this space, and the question of how stablecoin issuers respond to civil court orders — as opposed to criminal ones…
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Related: Crypto VC Funding Hits $4B in Q1 2026, Fewest New Funds Since 2020
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