Tether Freezes $28M USDT on Sanctioned Russian Crypto Exchange Garantex

Tether recently froze $28 million worth of USDT on the Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex. This action taken by the stablecoin giant follows the European Union’s sanctioning of Garantex on February 26th, 2025, as part of its sixteenth package of sanctions targeting Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

The sanctions, levied three years after the commencement of the conflict, specifically cite Garantex’s close association with EU-sanctioned Russian banks.

Tether Freeze USDT on Garantex

On March 6th, 2025, following the freezing of its USDT assets, Garantex announced it had stopped all services, including withdrawals. The exchange said this was due to website maintenance.

Garantex claimed this was part of a Western effort against Russia’s cryptocurrency market and said they would fight back. This shows how much these actions affect a major Russian crypto company.

While Garantex is not tracked by major crypto sites like CoinGecko or CoinMarketCap, CoinPaprika shows its daily trading went up over 1000% in three years—from about $11 million on March 1st, 2022, to $121.6 million on March 1st, 2025. This is much smaller than giants like Binance, but it still shows Garantex’s importance in Russia.

The U.S. penalized Garantex in April 2022, citing its offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which other penalized virtual currency traders also used. Garantex started in late 2019 and was first registered in Estonia, making its legal status unclear and showing how hard it is to control cryptocurrency trading.

Tether did not respond to questions about the Garantex wallet freeze at the time of writing. Anton Gorelkin, a Russian parliament official, said on Telegram that this is likely part of a larger Western effort to pressure Russia’s cryptocurrency business.

EU Sanctions Crypto Exchange Garantex

On March 4th, the European Union added the Russian cryptocurrency exchange, Garantex, to its sanctions list. This is the first time the EU has sanctioned a crypto exchange. The EU said Garantex is linked to Russian banks that are already under sanctions.

An investigation last year showed Garantex had ties to a convicted criminal and Rosneft, a Russian oil company. The EU said these sanctions target people who get around EU rules, even using other countries.

Garantex, started in 2019, became Russia’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange. It helped people change rubles into other money, which became harder after the war in Ukraine. Garantex lets people use cryptocurrency for international payments. Customers paid in rubles and received cryptocurrency, which could then be traded for other currencies.