The licensed Crypto Exchange Garantex could have lost $26 million on frozen tethers, but another $15 million of crypto is still running, or at least sitting quietly.
A few weeks after the US led a famous $26 million freezing in Tether (USDT) assets related to licensed Russian crypto exchange Garantex, a new investigation suggests that enforcement may have only damaged the surface.
A report from the blockchain analytics company’s global ledger found that more than $15 million in additional reserves remain untouched across Ethereum, Bitcoin and the BNB chain network. These assets are active and in some cases already on the move.
The official Tether Freeze targets Garantex’s USDT holdings, but the exchange reportedly goes way beyond that. As written in a report shared with Crypto.News by Global Ledger, the exchange also dealt with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and other tokens ERC-20, BEP-20, and even stable bones from ruble pages called A7A5.
The freeze on sanctions coordinated with Germany and Finland took place over three days in early March. On March 6th, Garantex publicly granted enforcement action. That same day, Ethereum wallets linked to Garantex suddenly returned online, the report noted.
It was quiet for months. It had now collected 3,265 ETH or about $8.6 million. After that, the washing started.
Between May 22 and June 4, more than $2.25 million in ETH was gradually routed through Tornado Cash, an Ethereum-based mixing protocol. According to Global Ledger, the wallet sends 844.99 ETH to the batch mixer, making it difficult to track. The company flagged these as part of what they call “adjusted liquidity spills.”
Calculated decisions
The activity didn’t stop there. For example, on May 30th, 206 ETH (approximately $280,000) was mixed through tornado cash. Just a few days later, on June 4th, 30 more ETs were sent. As of that date, the wallet still held 2,334 ETH, or more than about $6.1 million.
“These patterns strongly suggest deliberate money laundering efforts to blur links to Garantex. Activities are ongoing, and real-time alerts continue to track fresh spills from this same reserve.”
Global ledger
The situation with Bitcoin was surprisingly similar. In early March, Global Ledger once again identified a 19.39 BTC tally from dormant addresses. Over the next few weeks, that number rose to 30.04 BTC, worth around $3.17 million. Some of that Bitcoin didn’t stay in the same chain for long. In early May, 2.2 BTC was bridged to the Tron (TRX) network, partially sent to Grinex, a suspected successor to Garantex.
According to Global Ledger CEO Lex Fisun, the move to Tron may reflect a calculated decision to take advantage of network speed and low cost. “The Tron is cheap, liquid and fast,” Fisun told crypto.news. “If the ultimate goal is to exchange BTC for Stablecoins, then straightforward bridges to the chains that already dominate those flows is the least resistance.”
“The cost of transfers (on Tron) is less expensive than paying with Bitcoin or Ethereum. Even non-subcissinized tokens still cost a cent percentage, and in the case of USDT, the transfer value is literally free, as there are recent gas-free upgrades.”
Lex Fisun
It has not yet been confirmed whether Grinex is acting as a successor to the authorized exchange, but the global ledger does not seem to be questionable. The company said all Garantex assets were quickly withdrawn after the March freeze and sent directly to the wallets associated with Grinex.
You might like it too: Garantex co-founder Aleksej Besciokov has been arrested by Indian authorities: Report
There is no big red button
The BNB chain also played a quiet but strange role. Unlike Ethereum and Tron, BNB chains do not support tethers. This means that the tether does not have the power to freeze assets there. After all, funds for the BNB chain stopped moving the same day that Garantex announced its suspension: March 6th. However, there were no burns, swaps or drawers. As of June, Global Ledger estimates its BNB-based reserve of around $4 million, but it is not yet dependent.
Fisun noted that this creates a strategic blind spot for sanctions enforcement. “There’s no “big red button,” so enforcement of the BNB chain relies on off-chain actors,” he said, noting that in reality, the frozen assets of the BNB chain are slower and more uncertain. “It took nearly two years for the Popcornswap scam,” Fisun emphasized.
The CEO of Global Ledger also added that while the BNB chain is more opaque, the limited share of stubcoin in Dollar Peg is not as important overall.
“(…)Tron has around $5 billion in USDT in the BNB chain for $73.8 billion. Also, using the BNB chain requires an extra wrapping/bridging step that would rather skip if Tron and the bad actors already offer deeper books and zero fees.”
Lex Fisun
The analytics company estimates at least $15 million in Garantex-related cryptography is outside the scope of US enforcement. And the numbers don’t include new tokens or potential stealth wallets that have not yet been tracked.
It’s not just numbers. The greater concern may be what these patterns represent: loopholes in multi-chain enforcement. Token-level freezes can be as effective on paper as those imposed on tethers, but they are far less useful when entities move assets between chains or to stubcoins not issued by US-based companies.
As the Global Ledger says, Garantex’s “on-chain operations underscore the growth of the challenge of implementing assets freezes.
When asked about USDC’s revelations, Fison said that the global ledger tracked assets moving just before the freeze. “The blocked Garantex wallet still holds 73,283 USDC,” he said, adding that on March 4th, more than 290,000 USDCs became “one of the top 10 exchange deposit addresses from blocked Ethereum wallets.”
He added that small holdings may have flew under the radar, but noted that the reason the address may not have been frozen was a relatively small balance, which could have simply been a number.
read more: Authorized Russian Crypto Exchange Garantex Resurfaces, Grinex:Report
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