Tether Freezes $544M in Turkey Amid Illegal Gambling Probe

• Tether blocked $544M in crypto after Turkish authorities flagged illegal gambling wallets.

• USDt wallets now top 24.8M, handling $4.4T in transfers despite market turbulence.

• Regulators stay watchful as stablecoins like USDt link to high-risk and sanctions-evasion activity.

Tether has frozen more than $544 million in cryptocurrency at the request of Turkish authorities, targeting wallets tied to an alleged illegal gambling and money-laundering operation. Prosecutors in Istanbul said the seized assets, valued at around €460 million ($544 million), belong to Veysel Sahin, who is accused of running unlawful betting platforms.

CEO Paolo Ardoino told Bloomberg that Tether acted on information provided by law enforcement and in compliance with Turkish law. “Law enforcement came to us, they provided some information, we looked at the information and we acted in respect of the laws of the country,” Ardoino said. “And that’s what we do when we work with the DOJ, when we work with the FBI, you name it.”

Besides Turkey, Tether has assisted authorities in more than 1,800 investigations across 62 countries, freezing over $3.4 billion in USDT linked to criminal activity. According to analytics firm Elliptic, Tether and Circle have blacklisted around 5,700 wallets containing approximately $2.5 billion, with three-quarters holding USDT at the time.

Consequently, regulators and blockchain researchers continue to scrutinize USDt despite its wide adoption, with cases involving Venezuelan nationals laundering $1 billion using the token.

Stablecoins Under the Lens

Furthermore, stablecoins often interact with high-risk blockchain addresses. According to a report from Bitrace, $649 billion in stablecoins-5.14% of the total transaction volume-flowed through such addresses in 2024. More than 70% of this flow was from Tron-based USDt. Moreover, large USDt transactions have been linked with sanctions-evasion schemes that increase regulatory pressure worldwide.

Despite this, USDt managed to achieve a record-high market capitalization of $187.3 billion in Q4 2025, increasing by $12.4 billion even amidst market volatility. The number of monthly active USDT wallets was up at 24.8 million, which represented around 70% of total stablecoin accounts, while quarterly transaction volume rose significantly to $4.4 trillion within 2.2 billion transactions. Other stable coins like Circle’s USDC saw flat performance, while Ethena’s USDe saw its value decrease by 57%.