Huione Guarantee puts up Telegram groups for sale as marketplace winds down

Huione Guarantee, one of the leading decentralized marketplaces suspected of laundering stolen stablecoins, is shedding more of its Telegram handles. Now, the group is moving away from its public gambling chat. 

Huione Guarantee divested several of its Telegram handles after years of scrutiny from crypto investigators and authorities. The former marketplace was one of the key hubs for laundering stablecoins. 

As Cryptopolitan reported recently, Huione Pay froze withdrawals at the end of 2025, causing chaos for related shop holders. The HWZF payment tool is also discontinued. 

Recent research by the SlowMist team shows Huione Guarantee is still divesting Telegram assets. The group went through a series of rebrandings in an attempt to redeploy some of its services. The Haowang Guarantee remained the new hub for escrow payments for the Huione Group. 

After Huione Group distanced itself from the Guarantee business, it sold off Telegram usernames. Now, the Huione Group is divesting some of its other public channels. 

Huione auctions off multiple channels

One of the last remaining public groups of Huione Group, @feibo, announced an auction for a series of channels. Participants must deposit 10,000 USDT, refundable after the end of the auction. 

The sale also aims to prevent spam by holding off spoof bids and reserving the right not to return the deposit. 

The most expensive group, with over 131K USDT in bids, is for gambling service ads. Other groups are just starting out or await to be repurposed. 

USDT laundering risk is getting reorganized

After the takedown of the main activities of Huione Group, the threat of USDT laundering did not subside. Similar scams continue to operate, but spread to alternative P2P markets. 

Liquidity is moving to new clusters, challenging researchers to locate addresses. Small shops and escrow services are one of the least traceable ways to transfer USDT. Even Tether itself and its financial crime unit have difficulties in tracing all transactions and wallets. 

The activity of Huione Pay peaked in the summer of 2025, later stopping withdrawals and winding down following the crackdown from authorities. Huione Pay was one of the main tools for Telegram-based and online gambling, as well as USDT laundering. 

After the shutdown of Huione Pay, up to 30 alternative entities emerged on Telegram, according to researchers from Eliptic. 

Briefly, Tudou Guarantee was the selected marketplace for similar activities, but it also followed Huione in winding down its operations. Huione Guarantee also held a 30% stake in Tudou Guarantee, becoming the single biggest shareholder.

Currently, smaller dark markets are competing for a share of payments and potentially, laundering.

USDT marketplaces, using the TRON version of the stablecoin, have now been marked as a risk factor and are more closely watched for potential stablecoin laundering.

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