A US federal court has frozen around $57.65 million worth of the stablecoin USDC in a class action case over the controversial Libra memecoin.
Onchain datashared with Cointelegraph by the class group’s lawyer, Max Burwick, shows nearly $57 million worth of USDC (USDC) was frozen on May 28 after a Manhattan court agreed to a temporary freeze.
“Yesterday, a federal court in SDNY [Southern District of New York] entered a Temporary Restraining Order at our request, Burwick Law, supported by Tim Treanor, freezing approximately 57.65 million USDC held at Circle,“ Burwick told Cointelegraph.
He added that the court is scheduled to hold a hearing on June 9 to determine whether the assets will remain frozen as the class-action lawsuit progresses.
Burwick is representing Omar Hurlock and other plaintiffs in a class-action suit against crypto venture firm Kelsier Ventures and its three sibling co-founders, Gideon, Thomas and Hayden Davis, on March 17, alleging they created the Libra (LIBRA) cryptocurrency and misled investors to siphon over $100 million from one-sided liquidity pools.
The suit also named blockchain infrastructure companies, KIP Protocol and its CEO, Julian Peh, along with Meteora and its co-founder, Benjamin Chow, as defendants.
Chow’s lawyer, Kelsier Ventures and KIP Protocol were contacted for comment.
LIBRA reached a $4 billion market cap following an X post from Argentine President Javier Milei on Feb. 14 before crashing 94% hours later.
The saga caused a political scandal for Milei, prompting members of Argentina’s opposition party to call for his impeachment, though little traction was gained beyond those statements.
Data from polling platform Zuban Córdoba in March suggested that the Libra scandal negatively impacted Milei’s image and the national management approval rating.
Two Solana wallets with total USDC balances worth $57.65 million were frozen on May 28 at 3:15 am and 3:18 am UTC.
Data from Solana’s blockchain explorer, Solscan, shows that the address “3Fwr…ZQpK” had $44.59 million worth of the stablecoin frozen, while a little over $13 million was frozen from the wallet address “3nHw…xNgH.”
Both wallets were frozen by the Multisig Freeze Authority, Solscan data shows.
However, some critics say a legitimate investigation wasn’t properly conducted in the first place.
“It was always a fake, they never dared to investigate anything at all, and they’re covering each other up because they’re completely up to their necks in it,” Itai Hagman, an economist and member of the Chamber of Deputies of Argentina, said in a May 20 X post.
When TV cameras are let in to film world leaders meeting in person, the resulting footage is usually incredibly boring for journalists and incredibly safe for politicians.
Put through a total of almost 90 minutes of televised questioning alongside the American leader, it was his diciest encounter with the president yet.
But he still just about emerged intact.
For a start, he can claim substantive policy wins after Trump announced extra pressure on Vladimir Putin to negotiate a ceasefire and dialled up the concern over the devastating scenes coming from Gaza.
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There were awkward moments aplenty though.
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Image: The two leaders held talks in front of the media. Pic: Reuters
On green energy, immigration, taxation and online regulation, the differences were clear to see.
Sir Keir just about managed to paper over the cracks by chuckling at times, choosing his interventions carefully and always attempting to sound eminently reasonable.
At times, it had the energy of a man being forced to grin and bear inappropriate comments from his in-laws at an important family dinner.
But hey, it stopped a full Trump implosion – so I suppose that’s a win.
My main takeaway from this Scotland visit though is not so much the political gulf present between the two men, but the gulf in power.
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Trump gives Putin new deadline to end war
Sir Keir flew the length of the country he leads to be the guest at the visiting president’s resort.
He was then forced to sit through more than an hour of uncontrolled, freewheeling questioning from a man most of his party and voters despise, during which he was offered unsolicited advice on how to beat Nigel Farage and criticised (albeit indirectly) on key planks of his government’s policy platform.
In return he got warm words about him (and his wife) and relatively incremental announcements on two foreign policy priorities.
So why does he do it?
Because, to borrow a quote from a popular American political TV series: “Air Force One is a big plane and it makes a hell of a noise when it lands on your head.”
With Amazon and Walmart exploring stablecoins, institutions may be underestimating potential exposure of customer data on blockchains, posing risks to privacy and brand trust.
The European Central Bank may rely on regulated euro stablecoins and private innovation to counter the dominance of US dollar stablecoins, says adviser Jürgen Schaaf.