Binance co-founder He Yi cautioned users on November 8, 2026, against depositing "discount USDT" or other suspicious-origin funds onto the exchange, warning that such balances can be frozen by law enforcement in holds the company cannot lift. The message came in a Chinese-language post on X.

According to He Yi, addresses tied to tainted funds can already be flagged before the money arrives on the platform. Once a deposit of that kind lands, it may face an enforcement freeze, and Binance has no authority to unfreeze it. A cheap stablecoin handoff, in short, is no bargain if the next stop is a locked balance.

What He Yi Told Users Not to Deposit

He Yi, who serves as Binance's chief customer service officer in addition to co-founding the exchange, listed several scenarios she wants kept off the platform: "discount U from friends"; coins sent on-chain by a relative; money presented as Myanmar business proceeds; accounts accumulated in Cambodia; and a friend's funds that merely "pass through" an account. She asked users not to move that class of money onto Binance.

She framed the warning as a matter of compliance rather than a new product rule. Binance applies strict global compliance standards, she said, and the patterns she described are easy for the compliance team to identify. Related addresses are often marked before tainted funds reach the platform. After a deposit arrives, the money can be locked in an enforcement freeze; such cases are usually complex, timelines run long, and Binance holds no unfreeze authority. She closed her post with a brief appeal for mutual understanding and mutual respect.

In Chinese crypto shorthand, "U" refers to USDT, the Tether-issued dollar stablecoin. A typical discount arrangement works like this: someone offers Tether below its usual dollar value, the buyer sends it to an exchange, and the address trail already carries a compliance flag. The balance can then sit under a law-enforcement hold that the venue cannot lift on its own.

What the Discount Price Actually Buys

The question the warning raises is direct: when a dollar token changes hands below face value, what does the lower price actually purchase? It does not buy a cleaner balance — more often, it transfers someone else's problem. A below-par USDT offer can serve as a liquidity sales pitch, or as a way to move tainted tokens onto a cleaner account.

He Yi's point is narrower than a moral lecture. Once such funds sit on Binance, a freeze can arrive through enforcement channels, not through a customer-service ticket the exchange can reverse.

Her post also avoided sweeping claims. She did not publish a new address blacklist, name a specific case, amount, or jurisdiction, or say that every discounted USDT trade is criminal. What she did say is that the listed origin stories are compliance red flags, that related wallets are often tagged in advance, and that Binance cannot unfreeze money locked by law enforcement.

For readers who treat USDT as on-chain cash, the exposure here is custody risk rather than the peg: the token can keep trading near a dollar while a deposit sits frozen on an exchange. Issuer blacklists and exchange freezes answer different questions, and He Yi's warning concerns the exchange side — the deposit path, the address history, and who holds the keys to release.

Several unknowns remain. The post does not say how many accounts are currently stuck under such holds, which agencies issue the freezes, or how often a "friend's discount U" story ends in a permanent lock versus a temporary review. Nor does it spell out every rule Binance uses to score those scenarios. What it does put on record is clear: He Yi told users to keep discount USDT and similar suspicious-origin funds off Binance, because flagged money can face enforcement freezes the exchange cannot undo. The dollar promise behind the token remains what it always was; this warning addresses who can stop that dollar once it lands in an exchange wallet.