US prosecutors seize bank accounts of a payments firm handling Tether flows

US federal prosecutors have seized bank accounts belonging to Capstone, a payments business working on behalf of stablecoin issuer Tether and an affiliated company^1,3. Capstone was allegedly processing Tether-related wire transfers on behalf of the Caribbean bank EQIBank⁷.

The reported size of the action is not consistent. One account put the Justice Department’s seizure at $90 million from EQIBank accounts⁷. Others described it as an $89 million asset seizure^2,4. Tether said the funds were taken from a lender seized by US authorities on Thursday².

Tether has moved to contain the read-across. The issuer said it has very little exposure to the lender², and put its own exposure at under $64 million, a fraction of its reserves⁴. It said any impact on overall reserves would be limited, while acknowledging that the amount ultimately recoverable could depend on the outcome of proceedings⁵. Tether is the world’s largest stablecoin issuer¹, and its USDT token is designed always to be worth one US dollar, a promise it keeps by holding reserves⁶.

Why it matters to investors

The episode is about plumbing rather than about the token. A stablecoin’s peg depends on reserves that sit in banks, and this case shows those dollars moving through a small offshore lender⁷ and a third-party payments firm³ rather than through the large institutions that clear most dollar flows.

That concentration creates a specific failure mode. The lender is now described as facing liquidation risk⁵, and one account says the seizure is pushing EQIBank toward collapse⁴, which is how a law-enforcement action against one intermediary becomes a recovery question for the issuer.

Tether’s own numbers frame the scale as manageable, with exposure put at under $64 million against reserves it describes as far larger^4,5. The discrepancy between the $90 million and $89 million figures now circulating^2,7 is unresolved in these reports.

What to watch

The first item is what the recoverable amount turns out to be, which Tether itself says depends on how the proceedings resolve⁵.

The second is EQIBank’s status. If the lender is pushed into collapse⁴, the question widens from one seizure to the fate of every client balance held there.

The third is banking access. The case exposes how much of the stablecoin infrastructure runs through institutions of this size⁴, and whether larger banks take on that business is what determines if the next seizure has the same effect.