Circle freezes $57M USDC from the wallets linked to Argentina’s LIBRA token

Circle froze USDC from the wallets linked to Argentina’s LIBRA token. The asset freeze gives hope of restitution to early traders, who lost an estimated $250M as the token crashed. 

Circle, the issuer of USDC, performed one of its biggest asset freezes in a bid to salvage assets linked to Argentina’s LIBRA token. The single transaction affected two USDC accounts. Arkham Intelligence tagged the accounts as Libra and Libra Deployer, with one of the accounts holding $44M and the other around $13M USDC. 

The request to freeze the funds came from the Arroyo Salgado court, directly contacting Circle, Inc. with the request to freeze $57M in assets. The freeze would affect several wallets identified as belonging to the initial team behind LIBRA, including early owners who sold minutes after the launch. 

The freeze request specifically came from victim Martin Romeo, who sues both as an investor and as an investment advisor whose reputation was damaged. The request preceded the actual freeze by a few hours, creating tension on whether the owners would move their funds and prevent the attempt at justice and redress. 

Lawsuits against the LIBRA team continue, despite the recent dismissal of the official investigation by Argentina’s president Javier Milei. 

The freeze comes amid an ongoing class action lawsuit led by Burwick Law, seeking redress on behalf of US-based investors. Burwick has not stated any requests for further freezes. 

The recent USDC freeze is one of the biggest single transactions for Circle. Based on Dune data, the protocol has sanctioned a total of 292 addresses for over $98.35M. However, not all LIBRA investors greeted the potential to claw back funds, as it would also damage the censorship-free nature of crypto. 

I'm down over $500,000 on LIBRA and I don't even think this is right.

This is suicide for crypto's use-case and all alt coins.

If you are happy about this – you want to see Solana at $30, ETH at $500 and everything else at $0.

HORRIBLE MOVE.

I guarantee nobody gets refunds… https://t.co/6cKs1J4c4X

— old (@old) May 28, 2025

Technically, the frozen USDC will be burned, while Circle may mint the tokens anew to compensate the victims based on a yet-to-be-determined schedule. Circle has been mostly reluctant to freeze assets, despite being involved in multiple recent exploits. 

While the token freeze raised fears of centralization, Circle may be one of the last resorts for hacks, exploits, or rug pulls. However, not all requests are honored, and some bad actors retain access to their USDC. 

Hayden Davis USDC wallets avoid blacklisting

Hayden Davis, one of the main promoters of LIBRA and other meme tokens, has not been tagged among the frozen wallets. Davis, through his company Kelsier Ventures, currently holds 3.74M USDC. 

Most of the assets in the wallets of Davis cannot be frozen, including any remaining LIBRA or SOL. The USDC reserves remained mostly unchanged in the months since the crash of LIBRA. 

The wallet only moved $174K in USDC through the Jupiter aggregator on Solana. Otherwise, Davis has been relatively inactive in terms of meme trading, with the exception of taking profits on MELANIA. 

The frozen wallets also did not belong to the list of original sellers, who were the most responsible for crashing the price of LIBRA. 

LIBRA is still down by 90%, trading around $0.032 with minimal volumes on MEXC and several decentralized exchanges.

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