TETHER FROZE $42 MILLION WITH NO WARRANT — THE PAPER SHOWED UP 112 DAYS LATER — AND THE COMPLAINT SAYS THE RESERVES KEPT EARNING INTEREST THE WHOLE TIME
On October 30, 2025, Tether called a function in its own contract named addBlackList, and $42,417,785 stopped moving. Ten addresses. According to a complaint filed in New York federal court on August 31, what prompted it was a request from a Homeland Security Investigations agent. Not a warrant. Not a court order. Not a subpoena. A request.
The warrant came on February 19, 2026, out of a federal court in North Carolina. That is 112 days later. Sit with that gap, because it is the whole story. For 112 days the money was locked by a private company acting on an ask, and the paperwork that made it lawful did not exist yet.
The two men suing are Thai businessmen, Nutthawat Rukthammachalern and Natthawat Kasamvilas. Their claims are conversion and trespass to chattels, old legal words that mean somebody took your things and would not give them back. They want the money and they want the interest too. Their complaint says Tether went on earning Treasury yield on the reserves backing those frozen tokens for the entire hold. The tokens were dead. The money behind them was still working, for Tether.
Tether will likely answer that it froze its own property, not theirs. That answer is worth taking seriously, because it is an honest description of what a dollar token is. You never held dollars. You held a claim on a company, and the company can switch your claim off from its office on a phone call, then paper it four months later.
Bitcoin has no addBlackList. There is no function to call, no agent to ask, and no company to ask it. Nobody added that. It is the design. Maximalist.
The warrant came on February 19, 2026, out of a federal court in North Carolina. That is 112 days later. Sit with that gap, because it is the whole story. For 112 days the money was locked by a private company acting on an ask, and the paperwork that made it lawful did not exist yet.
The two men suing are Thai businessmen, Nutthawat Rukthammachalern and Natthawat Kasamvilas. Their claims are conversion and trespass to chattels, old legal words that mean somebody took your things and would not give them back. They want the money and they want the interest too. Their complaint says Tether went on earning Treasury yield on the reserves backing those frozen tokens for the entire hold. The tokens were dead. The money behind them was still working, for Tether.
Tether will likely answer that it froze its own property, not theirs. That answer is worth taking seriously, because it is an honest description of what a dollar token is. You never held dollars. You held a claim on a company, and the company can switch your claim off from its office on a phone call, then paper it four months later.
Bitcoin has no addBlackList. There is no function to call, no agent to ask, and no company to ask it. Nobody added that. It is the design. Maximalist.
TFTC · Wed Sep 2 · + BITCOIN.COM Sep 2 · complaint filed SDNY Mon Aug 31 · warrant 5:26-MJ-1267-JG, EDNC, Feb 19 2026