Analysts from Global Ledger have released a new report revealing the existence of unfrozen cryptocurrency wallets belonging to the sanctioned exchange Garantex, with balances exceeding $15 million. Despite the restrictions imposed on the exchange, the movement of assets in these accounts continued even after the freezing of USDT stablecoins on the platform.
This is reported by Finway
Details of Garantex’s Crypto Asset Movements
It is known that the Garantex exchange effectively ceased operations on March 6, 2025, after the company Tether froze its wallets containing USDT worth 2.5 billion rubles (equivalent to about $28 million). However, Global Ledger experts discovered that the exchange continued to hold significant assets, including bitcoins, ERC20 and BEP20 tokens, as well as a new stablecoin A7A5, denominated in rubles.
The report notes that one of the company’s Ethereum wallets accumulated 3,265 ETH (approximately $8.6 million) by March 6. At the end of March, this wallet became active again: from March 22 to June 4, 2025, 844.99 ETH was withdrawn from it, which was subsequently laundered through the Tornado Cash mixer. As of June 4, there remained 2,334.25 ETH in this account.
Garantex and New Sanctioned Projects
Additionally, according to the report, Garantex controls 30.04 BTC, most of which was accumulated on March 6. By May 8, 2.2 BTC was transferred to the TRON network, after which these funds were moved to the accounts of the new exchange Grinex, which, according to Global Ledger, was created by the Garantex team. Garantex also holds crypto assets worth approximately $4 million on the BNB Chain network.
“While this [approximately $15 million] may only represent a portion of the exchange’s total reserves, the fact that such a large amount remains in circulation (more than half of the already frozen assets) underscores the scale of the issue that traditional measures may be ineffective in the cross-chain space,” stated Global Ledger.
The report emphasizes that the scale of unfrozen assets in the context of blocked reserves indicates the limited effectiveness of traditional blocking tools in the face of modern cross-chain technologies.