Circle reminded everyone again that USDC is not quite "decentralized"

They froze 16 hot wallets of various businesses (exchanges, casinos, forex platforms). They just took and blocked USDC on them. The reason is some civil lawsuit in the USA, the details are not yet disclosed. The wallets seem to be unrelated to each other, but everyone was hit at once.

In general, classic: Circle complies with US laws, so they can ban addresses at the request of authorities. For some, this is normal, for others — a vivid example of how centralized stablecoins can be treated.

Against this background, the company's shares have already fallen by more than 20%. A pretty significant drop.