- Circle froze $57.65M in USDC tied to wallets linked to the controversial Libra token project.
- A U.S. federal court issued a restraining order pending a June 9 hearing on the asset freeze.
- The freeze follows fraud claims involving Kelsier Ventures and President Javier Milei’s promotion.
Nearly $58 million in USDC linked to the Libra meme coin project has been frozen following a court order. The affected wallets are located on the Solana blockchain and belong to individuals associated with the controversial Libra token, which was once promoted by Argentine President Javier Milei.
The freeze took effect Tuesday after Circle, issuer of the USDC stablecoin, blacklisted two Libra-linked wallets. The wallets held $44.59 million and $13.06 million in USDC, now immobile on Solana. Circle can restrict token movement under its blacklisting policy for legal or regulatory reasons.
Crypto analytics firm Arkham was the first to report the freeze, calling attention to the locked $57 million USDC. Solana block explorer Solscan confirmed the wallet statuses as frozen.
Max Burwick, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the Libra case, confirmed that a temporary restraining order prompted the action. The order came from a Manhattan federal court and was requested by Burwick Law, supported by Tim Treanor. The court will hold a hearing on June 9 to decide whether to extend the freeze.
The frozen wallets are allegedly connected to the original deployers of the Libra memecoin. The project gained notoriety after President Milei’s endorsement on social media in February. It briefly reached a multi-billion-dollar market cap before crashing nearly 90 percent. Authorities and investors accused the developers of executing a pump-and-dump scheme.
Burwick’s class-action lawsuit targets Kelsier Ventures and its sibling co-founders Gideon, Thomas, and Hayden Davis. The suit claims the group used misleading tactics to siphon more than $100 million through Libra’s liquidity pools. Plaintiffs also named other firms, including KIP Protocol and its CEO, Julian Peh, along with Meteora and its co-founder, Benjamin Chow.
Related: Circle Group Begins IPO Offering 24 Million Shares on NYSE
Law firm Burwick Law filed the case in March on behalf of investors like Omar Hurlock. The group argues that Libra’s rapid rise and fall were engineered to benefit insiders.
Martin Romeo, a plaintiff in Argentina’s separate Libra investigation, said the freeze followed a request from Argentina’s justice department. That investigation began after local outrage over Milei’s involvement in the token’s launch. Although a task force was formed to review the scandal, the Argentine government disbanded it last week. Coincidentally, Circle filed for an IPO on the same day the freeze was confirmed. The company seeks a $6.7 billion valuation on the New York Stock Exchange.
