The post ‘Bad actor’ Circle slammed for letting stolen $3M USDC sit unfrozen appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Stablecoin issuer Circle is once again facing harsh criticism for its failure to block stolen funds in a timely manner. Over $3 million worth of USDC stolen from SwapNet users is still sitting in a Basescan address, yet to be frozen. An independent blockchain investigator who goes by the name “Tanuki42” on X tagged Circle and its CEO, asking whether they are waiting for a “court order to ‘prove’ something which is entirely publicly verifiable on-chain?” $3,000,000+ of stolen USDC has now been sat in this initial theft address for over 8 hours – will @circle save this man his retirement savings or will they instead ask for a US court order to “prove” something which is entirely publicly verifiable on-chain?@jerallaire? pic.twitter.com/Mwh7x5Ul0P — tanuki42 (@tanuki42_) January 26, 2026 Read more: Circle rarely freezes stolen funds but wants reversible transactions Fellow crypto sleuth ZachXBT also pitched in, calling Circle a “bad actor.” He asks, “Why should anyone continue building on $USDC when you never take care of your users as a centralized stablecoin issuer?” Typically, hackers will swap centralized stablecoins. such as Circle’s USDC or Tether’s USDT, for assets that can’t be frozen. These include the stablecoin DAI, or native ETH which can be washed via crypto mixers like Tornado Cash. The crypto security community has previously criticized Circle for its failure to act. Notably, in the wake of last year’s $42 million hack of GMX, the laundering of funds stolen by North Korean hackers from ByBit, and more. Compared to Tether’s $1.6 billion frozen from over 2,500 addresses, Circle has frozen a total of just $110 million from fewer than 500 addresses, according to a Dune dashboard from AMLBot. Read more: Circle dragged for dragging feet as DeFi protocol GMX hacked SwapNet and Aperture Finance contracts compromised In the latest…

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Filed under: News - @ January 26, 2026 2:28 pm