The Guarantsex, an exchange of sanctioned crypto, may have lost $ 26 million in line, but $ 15 million in crypto still move, or at least quietly seated.
A few weeks after the United States has led a high-level freeze of $ 26 million in Tether (USDT) assets linked to an exchange of Russian Crypto Privatex, a new survey suggests that the application can only have scratched the surface.
A report by the Global Ledger Blockchain Analysis Society, has revealed that more than $ 15 million in additional reserves remain intact on Ethereum, Bitcoin and BNB networks. These assets seem to be active and, in some cases, already in motion.
While the official freeze has targeted the USDT of Garantex holdings, the exchange would have been exposed far beyond. As the Global Ledger wrote in the relationship shared with Crypto.News, the exchange has also managed Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and a range of other ERC-20, BEP-20 tokens and even a stable, ruble hair called A7A5.
The freezing of sanctions, coordinated with Germany and Finland, took place over three days at the beginning of March. On March 6, Gassortex publicly recognized the application action. On the same day, an Ethereum portfolio linked to Guarantx suddenly returned online, underlines the report.
It had been calm for months. Now he aggregated 3,265 ETH, about $ 8.6 million. Then whitening started.
Between May 22 and June 4, more than $ 2.25 million in ETH were gradually transported via Tornado Cash, a mixture protocol based on Ethereum. Global Ledger says that the portfolio sent 844.99 ETH to the mixer in lots, which makes the trace more difficult. The company reported them as part of what it calls “coordinated liquidity outputs”.
Calculated decision
The activity did not stop there. On May 30, for example, 206 ETH – around $ 280,000 – were mixed by tornado cash. A few days later, on June 4, 30 other ETH were sent. On this date, the portfolio still held more than 2,334 ETH, or about $ 6.1 million.
“These models strongly suggest an intentional effort of money laundering to obscure the links with Garantinex. The activity is underway, real -time alerts continuing to follow new outings of this same reserve.”
Global book
The situation with Bitcoin was surprisingly similar. In early March, Global Ledger identified an aggregation of 19.39 BTC, again from dormant addresses. In the coming weeks, this number has increased to 30.04 BTC, worth around 3.17 million dollars. Part of this bitcoin did not stay long on the same channel. At the beginning of May, 2.2 BTC was sanded on the Tron (TRX) network and partially sent to Grinene, a successor suspected of Guarantx.
According to the CEO of Global Ledger Lex Fisun, the transition to Tron probably reflects a decision calculated to take advantage of the speed and low cost of the network. “Tron is inexpensive, liquid and fast,” Fisun told Crypto.News. “If your final goal is to exchange the BTC in Stablecoins, to fold directly in the chain which already dominates these flows is the path of the slightest resistance.”
“Transfers (on a tron) cost less than what you would pay on bitcoin or ethereum. Even non -subsidized tokens still cost fractions of a hundred, and for the USDT, the mobile value is literally free, with upgrades without recent gas.”
Lex Fisun
Whether Grinene acts or not as the successor to the sanctioned exchange remains to be confirmed, but Global Ledger does not seem to have much doubt. The company noted that all Guarantx assets were immediately removed after the walking freezing and sent directly to the portfolios linked to Grinene.
No big red button
The BNB channel also played a calm but curious role. Unlike Ethereum or Tron, the BNB channel does not support Tether. This means that the attachment does not have the power to freeze assets there. It turns out that the funds on the BNB channel have ceased to move the same day that Garantex announced its suspension: March 6. But there were no burns, no swaps and no withdrawals. In June, Global Ledger estimated BNB -based reserves at around $ 4 million, which is still not spent.
Fisun noted that this creates a strategic blindness for the application of sanctions. “There is no” large red button “, so the application of the BNB chain is based on actors out of the chain,” he said, stressing that in practice, the gel of assets on the BNB channel is slower and uncertain. “It took almost two years with the popcornwap scam,” said Fisun.
The CEO of Global Ledger also added that although the BNB chain is more opaque, its limited part of stables fished makes it overall less critical.
“(…) Only about $ 5 billion in USDT circulates on the BNB channel against $ 73.8 billion on a tron. In addition, the use of the BNB chain requires an additional packaging / bridging step that traders and bad players prefer to jump when Tron already offers deeper books and zero costs. ”
Lex Fisun
All in all, the analysis company estimates that at least $ 15 million in Crypto linked to Guarantx remain outside the scope of the application of the United States. And this figure does not include new tokens or potential stealth wallets which have not yet been traced.
These are not only the figures. The greatest concern could be what these models represent: an escape in the multi-chain application. Although the boys at the tokens – like the one imposed in Tether – can be effective on paper, they are much less useful when the entities move assets between the chains or in the stablecoins not issued by American companies.
As Global Ledger says, “the maneuvers on the Guarantx chain underline the growing challenge of the appliances of assets.
Asked about exposure to the USDC, Fisun said that Global Ledger followed the assets that moved just before frost. “The Blocked Guarantex portfolios still hold 73,283 USDC,” he said, adding that on March 4, more than 290,000 USDCs went from “Ethereum portfolio blocked to one of the first 10 addresses to deposit exchanges”.
He added that small titles could have flying under the radar, noting that the probable reason that the addresses were not frozen was the relatively low balances involved and that it can simply be summed up with the figures.
