Circle froze USDC balances in 16 business hot wallets linked to exchanges, casinos and forex platforms, citing a sealed U.S. civil case.On-chain investigator ZachXBT publicly questioned Circle’s decision-making and consistency, highlighting the absence of clear links between the targeted addresses.The move reignites long‑running concerns over censorship and control in centralized stablecoins such as USDC, even as adoption in institutional markets accelerates.