The T3 Financial Crime Unit, a joint initiative involving Binance, Tether, Tron, and TRM Labs, reportedly closed in late August, months before a $6.3 billion hack hit Binance on Oct. 29, Bloomberg reported, citing undisclosed people familiar with the matter. The unit had struggled over the past year with “slow response times and a lack of coordination among members,” according to the report.
Tron, Tether, and TRM Labs confirmed the closure to Bloomberg, while Binance, which joined the initiative in 2025, declined to comment. The T3 unit’s account on X, which had more than 1,400 followers, was also closed, though users continued to mention and tag it through late August.
Previous Claims and New Initiatives
In May 2026, T3 said it had frozen more than $450 million in illicit tether (USDT) since launching in September 2024. It also claimed to have intercepted 43.9% more illicit proceeds in 2025 than in 2024, working with law enforcement across 23 jurisdictions.
When Binance joined the unit in September 2025, Nils Andersen-Röed, then global head of the Financial Intelligence Unit at Binance, said that joining the initiative reflected its “dedication to proactive collaboration with industry partners and law enforcement to combat illicit activity in real time.”
Following the closure, Tron hinted that its unspecified “new initiative will be coming soon,” while Tether said it would continue working with TRM Labs to fight crime. In 2025, TRM Labs launched its Beacon Network initiative, a real-time intelligence-sharing system aimed at intercepting illicit funds before criminals can withdraw them.
Call for Another Alliance
After the record hack on Oct. 29, Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) called for a crypto-wide security alliance. According to him, an alliance could identify common attack methods before they spread, share audit findings, exchange lessons from hacks, and coordinate faster asset freezes. Freezing illicit assets was also one of T3’s focuses.
After the Binance hack, Tether said it had frozen more than $1.5 billion in USDT stolen from the exchange.
