Circle Freeze Traps Funds in Zama cUSDC Contract

The post After Perps Approval, Stablecoins Still Anchor Risk appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. Picture a trader rotating out of altcoins after a volatile week. They don’t retreat to fiat; they sit in USDC, waiting for the next perp entry. This is how risk is actually warehoused in crypto: in dollars that live on-chain. That habit just met a new regulatory inflection. The CFTC approved a bitcoin-referenced perpetual futures contract, and separately offered staff-level relief around posting customer-owned digital commodities and payment stablecoins as margin in certain foreign-futures setups. The headlines may look technical, but they touch the very pipes of crypto risk. So the question isn’t whether stablecoins matter after “perps approval.” It’s why they are still the instrument most desks trust to meter, move, and measure risk. The Big Picture: Why This Moment Matters Regulatory clarity in derivatives tends to ripple out into collateral, settlement, and market structure. On May 29,

The post Court Order Forces Circle to Freeze $12.6M USDC Linked to Zama Privacy Protocol appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. TLDR Circle executed a court-mandated freeze on $12.6M USDC stored within Zama’s privacy-focused smart contract The action originated from a class action lawsuit claiming Overnight Finance’s Maxim Ermilov misappropriated over $15M from treasury wallets Zama claims it was unexpectedly caught in the middle without prior notification of the freeze The entire contract pool was locked, preventing access to funds belonging to innocent Zama protocol users Blockchain investigator ZachXBT described the move as establishing a concerning precedent for freezing protocol contracts containing mixed user deposits In the early hours of Saturday morning, Circle implemented a freeze on $12.6 million worth of USDC following a federal court directive to blacklist a smart contract operated by Zama, a privacy-focused protocol. New: According to @zachxbt, @circle has frozen Zama’s con

Stablecoin supply hits $322B; USDT+USDC hold ~83% as the CLARITY Act advances in the U.S. Senate. Liquidity, exchange pairing, and custody models may shift.

The post Circle Freezes $12.6M in Stablecoins Linked to Zama Without Prior Notice: ZachXBT appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. Stablecoin issuer Circle froze $12.6 million in USDC dollar-pegged tokens linked to privacy protocol Zama’s confidential USDC smart contract on Saturday, according to onchain sleuth ZachXBT. The smart contract is “publicly labeled” on block explorers and the privacy protocol’s technical documentation, ZachXBT said.  The exact reason for the freeze is “unclear,” he said, adding that wallets linked to the Overnight Finance decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol deposited $12.4 million into the Zama protocol on May 11, 2026. He said: “Overnight Finance held a governance vote recently to distribute treasury funds after holders alleged the team was rug-pulling. Regardless, it’s precedent-setting to unilaterally freeze the contracts or addresses of a protocol where funds have been commingled with Zama users.” Source: ZachXBT “From my understanding, the Zama team does

The post ZachXBT Says $12.6 Million In Zama CUSDC May Have Been Frozen After Circle Blacklisting appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. A new controversy is making the rounds in crypto after blockchain investigator ZachXBT said Circle may have blacklisted a contract tied to Zama’s confidential USDC, or cUSDC, on Ethereum, freezing around $12.6 million in user funds. According to ZachXBT, the blacklist action happened roughly seven hours before he shared the update, and it appears to have locked the contract address used for Zama’s privacy-focused stablecoin setup. If accurate, that would mean users suddenly lost access to a very large amount of funds without much warning, which is exactly the kind of thing that tends to set off alarms in the crypto world. What makes the situation even messier is the fact that the address allegedly froze after recently taking part in an Overnight Finance governance vote about treasury allocation. That detail matters because it suggests the contract wasn’t

The post Payment Interoperability Crucial As Stablecoins Expand Use appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. Lawrence Jengar May 29, 2026 20:59 Global payments face fragmentation issues, but stablecoins like USDC and multichain designs offer a path to seamless money movement. Global payment systems remain deeply fragmented, despite rapid advances in digital finance. A lack of interoperability across networks and standards is slowing cross-border transactions, tying up liquidity, and forcing businesses to grapple with operational complexity. However, stablecoins like USDC and blockchain-based multichain infrastructure are emerging as potential solutions to bridge these gaps. According to a 2024 survey, 40% of companies reported losing business due to cross-border payment inefficiencies. Traditional systems like SWIFT, ACH, and SEPA operate on siloed standards and timelines, leading to settlement delays and reconciliation headaches for institutions operating across multiple

The post Banking Apps Issue Stablecoins—But Can Users Use Them? appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. Retail customers are finally seeing stablecoins appear inside their everyday banking and payments apps. That’s a milestone—but it’s only the first step. Turning a launch into durable, habit-forming utility is the harder, more important challenge. On May 27, 2026, Block’s Cash App began a phased rollout of USDC to roughly a quarter of its nearly 60 million users, supporting Solana, Ethereum, Polygon, and Arbitrum, with daily and weekly send/receive caps; the company said it aimed to reach all users by week’s end CoinDesk. Cash App’s press release also noted 59 million monthly customers, auto-conversion of received USDC to U.S. dollars in-app, and cited adjusted stablecoin transaction volume of $13.28 trillion over the last 12 months Cash App (press release). The same day, SoFi announced SoFiUSD, a 1:1 USD-redeemable stablecoin issued by SoFi Bank, N.A., embedded directly in its consumer

The $12.6 million in USDC was likely frozen in connection with an ongoing but unrelated civil court case, according to onchain sleuth ZachXBT.