US freeze on Tether-linked payments firm Capstone locks up 80% of EQIBank's money

A Tether spokesperson put the company's exposure to EQIBank at "less than 0.034% of the assets of the group" ^[12]. EQIBank said in a court motion filed June 29 that it learned on April 2 that about 80% of its monetary assets, held through Capstone, had been frozen ^[13]. Both numbers describe the same freeze. Dominica's financial regulator has since put EQIBank under enhanced supervision and warned of further action, including potential liquidation ^[14]. According to the motion, the bank's officials spent about three hours on an April 16 call with Justice Department lawyers, with no US counsel present ^[18].

Tether and Bitfinex both said they are EQIBank clients, had no knowledge of the conduct alleged against Capstone and keep limited assets at the bank ^[17]. On the complaint's numbers, Capstone's Wells Fargo business account moved about $34 million a month from March to December 2025 ^[1]. The share that appears to have gone out on the two crypto firms' behalf, mostly to recipients outside the US, comes to a little under $225 million ^[2].

The $84.2 million prosecutors froze ^[1] is about a quarter of what that one account paid out ^[4]. It sits in five pieces: $79.11 million in a Wells Fargo Securities account, $2.06 million at JPMorgan Chase, $1.86 million at Wells Fargo Bank and about 1.18 million USDT split between two wallets ^[7]. The three bank balances add to $83.03 million, and the tokens counted at a dollar each make up the rest ^[6]. About $81 million of the total, or 96%, is at Wells Fargo entities ^[3].

The complaint also ties Capstone to a scam in which fraudsters posing as FBI agents pressed elderly victims for payments that were converted to USDT within a day or so ^[9]. That strand involves one account holding just over $2 million ^[9], about 2.4% of the frozen total ^[5]. Cryptopolitan, which reported the Financial Times identification, said there is nothing to suggest Tether, Bitfinex or EQIBank knew about it ^[10].

Capstone denies wrongdoing and plans to file a motion to dismiss, its lawyer said ^[11]. If that works, EQIBank gets back money it has been unable to use since at least April 2 ^[13]. If the forfeiture stands, the bank is back in front of a court that has already refused it once ^[15], with a regulator that has warned of possible liquidation ^[14]. Neither crypto firm is accused of wrongdoing, and the complaint as filed names neither ^[3].

I think the risk this case exposes sits with the small firms that Tether's payouts pass through on the way into US banks, and their balance sheets set how large it is. A bank holding four-fifths of its monetary assets through one Montana company ^[13] was placed under enhanced supervision and warned of liquidation after a single freeze ^[14], while Tether states its exposure in hundredths of a percent ^[12]. That view is wrong if the dollars Tether and Bitfinex had in transit through Capstone prove far larger than their balances at EQIBank; the reporting does not include a dollar figure for either. US pressure on USDT also comes from the other end. Two Thai businessmen are suing Tether over 42.4 million USDT it froze, allegedly at the verbal request of a Homeland Security agent, Cryptopolitan reported ^[16].