Tether faces lawsuit over $44.7 million in stablecoin freeze, plaintiff claims investment opportunities were lost due to non-compliant freeze

On October 17th, dlnews reported that in April of this year, stablecoin issuer Tether froze $44.7 million worth of USDT at the request of Bulgarian police.

Texas-based Riverstone Consulting has now filed a lawsuit, alleging that Tether illegally locked its tokens, causing the company to miss out on significant investment opportunities. According to the complaint filed in the Southern District Court of New York, on April 4th, Tether froze assets in eight offline wallets controlled by Riverstone.

Riverstone alleges that Tether's freeze, based solely on a request from Bulgarian local police, was "procedurally flawed" and failed to follow the formal procedures required by Bulgaria's International Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, which requires "exchange of filing information through central authorities and external liaison channels."

The complaint further alleges that when Riverstone contacted Tether, they were simply told to communicate directly with the Bulgarian police, who never responded.

As of now, the circulation of Tether stablecoins has exceeded $180 billion.

The company disclosed that as of September 15, it had cooperated with global law enforcement agencies to freeze a total of approximately $3.2 billion worth of USDT.