Stablecoin Freezes Under the GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act

What this page is

This page is a dated record of what two United States laws say about freezing stablecoins, and of what this site’s record shows. The laws were read on 12 September 2026, the day this page was written. Nothing here is a forecast about any wallet or company.

The GENIUS Act: an issuer must be able to freeze, seize or burn

The GENIUS Act is Public Law 119-27, signed on 18 July 2025. It sets federal rules for the companies that issue payment stablecoins, and it makes the ability to act on a court or agency order a condition of issuing.

The law defines a “lawful order” in section 2(16) as “any final and valid writ, process, order, rule, decree, command, or other requirement issued or promulgated under Federal law, issued by a court of competent jurisdiction or by an authorized Federal agency pursuant to its statutory authority” that “requires a person to seize, freeze, burn, or prevent the transfer of payment stablecoins issued by the person” and “specifies the payment stablecoins or accounts subject to blocking with reasonable particularity”.

Section 4(a)(5)(A)(iv) requires each issuer to have “technical capabilities, policies, and procedures to block, freeze, and reject specific or impermissible transactions that violate Federal or State laws, rules, or regulations”.

Section 4(a)(6)(B) makes it a condition of issuing: “A permitted payment stablecoin issuer may issue payment stablecoins only if the issuer has the technological capability to comply, and will comply, with the terms of any lawful order.” Section 3(b)(2) puts the same condition on a foreign issuer’s coin before it may be offered in the United States.

In plain words: the company that issues the coin, Tether for USDT or Circle for USDC, must be able to freeze, seize or burn it when a court or a federal agency orders it, and must obey that order. The company acts, not the coin.

On 18 August 2026 the Treasury Department published a proposed rule for section 3 in the Federal Register (91 FR 53368). The notice says comments must be received by 19 October 2026.

The CLARITY Act: a bill with a “temporary hold” rule

The CLARITY Act is H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. The House passed it on 17 July 2025. On 10 September 2026 Senator Cynthia Lummis released the Senate’s revised text and said a Senate vote on the bill was set for 15 September 2026. As of 12 September 2026 the Senate had not voted.

Section 10305 is the part about freezes. It is titled “Temporary hold for certain digital asset transactions”, and it defines a temporary hold as “a restriction applied by a covered person that delays execution of a transaction, conversion, or withdrawal involving digital assets for a reasonable period of time, not to exceed 30 calendar days, which may be extended for an additional 150 calendar days pursuant to a qualified written request”.

A covered person that “voluntarily implements a temporary hold shall not be held liable pursuant to any Federal or State private right of action for implementing the temporary hold”, provided that it “implements the temporary hold based on a reasonable belief the transaction, conversion, or withdrawal relates to a violation or attempted violation of State or Federal law” or “implements the temporary hold after receiving a qualified written request from a covered agency”, and follows the section’s notice and record-keeping conditions.

In plain words: an issuer or an exchange that holds a transaction because it reasonably believes the transaction is tied to a crime, or because a government agency asked in writing, is protected from private lawsuits over that hold if it follows the section’s notice and record-keeping rules. Holds are voluntary: Senator Lummis’s summary says the firms “are not required to impose holds”.

None of this was law as of 12 September 2026.

What the record shows

Neither law requires a company to publish the wallets it froze. Every event on this site is read from the chain: the transaction in which Tether, Circle or another company blocked, seized or released a wallet, with its date and its hash.

As of 10 September 2026, our record holds 72,694 freeze, seize and unfreeze events. 20,803 wallets have at least one recorded event, and 2,711 seizes are on record, meaning the balance was destroyed or taken. We check 444 coins on 35 chains.

Tether has 11,457 recorded freezes on USDT and Circle has 11,928 on USDC, as of 10 September 2026. Tether was freezing wallets years before either law was written: the oldest event in our record is a Tether freeze on USDT dated 9 June 2018.

Sources

GENIUS Act, Public Law 119-27, enrolled text (govinfo.gov)

Treasury’s proposed rule, 91 FR 53368, 18 August 2026 (federalregister.gov)

S. 1582 bill history (govtrack.us)

H.R. 3633, Senate substitute text, draft EHF26654 (lummis.senate.gov, PDF)

CLARITY Act section-by-section summary (lummis.senate.gov, PDF)

Senator Lummis press release, 10 September 2026 (lummis.senate.gov)

H.R. 3633 bill history (govtrack.us)