US Seizes $84M From Capstone Payments Firm in Case Touching Tether
Federal prosecutors targeted a Montana payments company, not Tether directly, though the stablecoin giant's banking ties drew scrutiny.
US federal prosecutors filed a civil forfeiture complaint in the Eastern District of California on July 15, 2026, seeking roughly $84.2 million in assets tied to Capstone, a Montana-based payments firm. A September 14 court order specified the seized property: approximately $79.11 million from a Wells Fargo Securities account in Capstone's name, $1.86 million from a second Wells Fargo account, about $2.06 million held at JPMorgan Chase, and just over 1.1 million USDT across two crypto addresses. Capstone is accused of operating as an unlicensed money transmitter in at least six states while portraying itself to banking partners as a routine technology services company.
The case reached Tether through a chain of relationships. EQIBank, a Dominica-licensed digital bank, allegedly routed US dollar transfers through Capstone, including transactions connected to USDT purchases and redemptions. Tether and its affiliated exchange Bitfinex were EQIBank customers, drawing the world's largest stablecoin issuer into proceedings that do not name it as a defendant. A federal judge has since denied EQIBank's motion to recover the frozen funds, though that ruling rested on procedural grounds rather than a determination of who legally owns the assets.
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Tether confirmed the banking relationship but characterized its exposure as less than 0.034% of the group's total assets, without disclosing a specific dollar figure. Applied to the $187.75 billion in assets Tether reported for the quarter ending June 30, that percentage implies an exposure ceiling near $64 million — an outside calculation the company itself has not published. Tether separately noted that KPMG US issued an unqualified opinion on its 2025 financial statements showing reserves exceeding liabilities by $6.814 billion as of December 31, 2025, though that audit predates the current matter.
The contrast with EQIBank is stark. The digital bank has said it lost access to roughly $89 million, which it describes as approximately 80% of its liquid monetary holdings, and has warned of potential liquidation if the freeze is not lifted. That figure also does not align precisely with the $84.2 million in the court filing, and the gap has not been publicly reconciled. The discrepancy underscores that the DOJ complaint, EQIBank's statements, and Tether's percentage disclosure each describe different slices of the same set of events.
A central question remains unresolved: whether any portion of Tether's EQIBank exposure involves assets that back USDT in reserve, or whether it is limited to ordinary corporate banking activity. Neither Tether nor the court record has addressed that distinction. Continue reading at Forexlive.
