Circle and Tether freeze $318K of Bitget hack funds as $387.5M slips away - Cryptopolitan

Stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether have frozen roughly $318,000 in USDC and USDT tied to the recent Bitget exchange hack, according to Cryptopolitan. The action shows how centralized stablecoin issuers can intervene when funds move through their networks, since both companies maintain blacklist functions that allow them to lock specific addresses.

The freeze represents only a small fraction of the total. The report notes that about $387.5 million tied to the incident remains unfrozen, underscoring the limits of this approach. Stablecoin issuers can only block assets on their own ledgers, and funds routed through mixers, decentralized exchanges, or converted into other assets may fall outside their reach.

For market observers, the development highlights a broader tension in crypto: stablecoins offer a traceable, freeze-capable settlement layer, but they cover only part of the ecosystem. What to watch is whether additional addresses are blacklisted, how the unrecovered balance changes over time, and whether exchanges and issuers coordinate further. The episode also serves as a reminder that on-chain transparency does not automatically translate into recoverability.