Circle Says It Froze $1.1B in USDC Linked to Binance Hack Investigation

TL;DR: Circle says it froze roughly $1.1 billion in USDC connected with the reported Binance exploit while working with law enforcement. The stablecoin issuer stresses that a wallet freeze does not decide asset ownership or whether funds should ultimately be forfeited. The response to the enormous reported Binance breach has exposed a difficult but essential distinction in digital finance: tracking money is not the same thing as freezing it, and freezing it is not the same thing as recovering it for a victim. In a November 5 statement, Circle said it had frozen approximately $1.1 billion in USDC associated with the incident, in coordination with law enforcement. It described an attack involving more than $6 billion in digital assets, while emphasising that the investigation and identification of relevant funds remain ongoing. Why USDC can be frozen when Bitcoin cannot USDC is issued by a company that operates an administratively controlled token system. Under certain legal processes, the issuer can freeze specified addresses so tokens cannot move in or out. Bitcoin, by contrast, does not have an issuer with an equivalent global address-freezing switch. That difference can matter en...