Tether has frozen approximately 39.27 million USDT held across ten addresses on the Tron blockchain, according to blockchain analysis tool MistTrack. The addresses are linked to Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language marketplace operating on Telegram that has served fraudsters across Southeast Asia since 2022.
MistTrack, a tool developed by security firm SlowMist that tracks illicit funds across multiple blockchains, reported the freeze on X on Tuesday. The disclosure adds Xinbi to a growing list of Telegram-based marketplaces that Tether has moved against as authorities and blockchain investigators intensify scrutiny of laundering networks built around the stablecoin.
A marketplace built on escrow and USDT
Xinbi Guarantee functions as an escrow platform, with an operator vetting traders and securing payments between buyers and sellers. Transactions on the marketplace are conducted almost exclusively in USDT. Traders on the platform have offered money laundering services, stolen personal data, fake identification documents and Starlink satellite equipment.
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic first publicly exposed Xinbi in May, at which point the marketplace had recorded 8.4 billion dollars in inflows since 2022 and counted 233,000 users. Following the exposure, Telegram blocked thousands of channels, including those tied to Xinbi and to its larger competitor, Huione Guarantee. Xinbi reappeared under the same identifier shortly after the ban.
Growth despite crackdowns
Data from TRM Labs shows Xinbi absorbed a further 17.9 billion dollars in inflows since the May ban, even as activity at rival platforms collapsed. Haowang Guarantee saw activity fall by nearly 100 percent, while Tudou Guarantee dropped by more than 70 percent. Elliptic's most recent estimate puts Xinbi's total inflows at no less than 19.7 billion dollars as of March, the same month the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on the marketplace. Elliptic has also linked Xinbi to North Korea.
The marketplace has surfaced in connection with one of the industry's larger hacks. Attackers stole 235 million dollars from Indian exchange WazirX in 2024, and roughly 220,000 dollars of those stolen funds are reported to have flowed through Xinbi-linked addresses.
Part of a wider freezing pattern
Tether routinely freezes balances at the request of law enforcement authorities. The company's own figures show it froze 514 million dollars in a single 30-day period in May, of which 505.9 million dollars was frozen on the Tron network specifically. The Xinbi-linked freeze fits a broader pattern of enforcement action against Tron-based laundering infrastructure that continues to attract scrutiny from both private investigators and government agencies.
