Circle CEO Says Freeze-and-Seize Tools Give Stablecoins an Edge Over Correspondent Banking

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street on Wednesday that stablecoin infrastructure can freeze and seize blockchain assets, a regulatory-required power he said correspondent banking—bank-to-bank accounts used for cross-border payments—lacks. He spoke after a roughly $6.3 billion hack at Binance, the exchange Circle relies on as a core distribution channel for its USD Coin stablecoin; the companies expanded their deal to five years in September, with Binance buying $100 million of Circle shares. Circle has frozen more than $1.1 billion in USDC since the Oct. 29 attack, while Elliptic said about $3.24 billion of stolen crypto remains in wallets tied to the theft.