Circle freezes Zama’s USDC contract, locking $13M amid rug pull allegations
Circle has frozen Zama's USDC contract, locking approximately $13 million amid allegations of a rug pull. This action highlights the control that centralized issuers like Circle have over stablecoins, even those designed for privacy. Zama's CEO stated that the team is investigating the situation and will provide updates as they become available.
- ▪Circle blacklisted Zama's USDC smart contract on Ethereum after a suspicious $12.4 million deposit was linked to Overnight Finance.
- ▪The freeze has raised concerns about the effectiveness of privacy tokens, as Circle can still blacklist addresses regardless of encryption.
- ▪Zama's technology aims to balance privacy and compliance, but the incident shows that centralized control can override privacy features.
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| Original publisher | Crypto Briefing |
| Canonical URL | https://cryptobriefing.com/circle-freezes-zama-usdc-rug-pull/ |
| Publication time | Sat, 30 May 2026 09:07:36 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-30T09:12:09.024Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-30T09:12:09.024Z |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
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| Cluster | kUdhZPuo2MGB |
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| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Circle freezes Zama’s USDC contract, locking $13M amid rug pull allegations The stablecoin issuer blacklisted Zama's confidential USDC smart contract on Ethereum after a suspicious $12.4M deposit linked to Overnight Finance. Share Add us on Google by Editorial Team May. 30, 2026 window.sevioads = window.sevioads || []; var sevioads_preferences = []; sevioads_preferences[0] = {}; sevioads_preferences[0].zone = "01f21ccf-2092-46b1-9ac7-8c44cc782e0f"; sevioads_preferences[0].adType = "native"; sevioads_preferences[0].inventoryId = "c5700508-581b-472c-8fdd-a931cdbfc8e1"; sevioads_preferences[0].accountId = "1e47efc1-ec2d-4fca-a8b9-354e249e5095"; sevioads.push(sevioads_preferences); Circle just reminded the crypto world who actually controls USDC.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Crypto Briefing.
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