Justin Sun, the founder of TRON and owner of the HTX exchange, has dismissed a wave of reports that exchange wallets had been spraying small cryptocurrency transfers at unrelated addresses, calling the claims fabricated.

Writing in Chinese on X on August 18, Sun said, which translates to English as, “The investigation is clear: it’s all made up.” He provided no supporting details with the post, linking only to an unspecified follow-up, and did not name the accusers, describe the transfers, or explain what his team had investigated.

The post came after what was widely viewed as a noisy day for HTX, formerly known as Huobi. For hours, traders on the platform had been circulating screenshots of unsolicited USDT — the dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Tether and the largest by market capitalization — landing in wallets that blockchain explorers had tagged as belonging to the exchange.

A trader known as 紫夜 (0xZiye) wrote that he received 7.5 USDT in his Coinbase account and attributed it to Sun’s exchange. “HTX is crazily transferring out small amounts, polluting other addresses,” he wrote. The trader claimed that Coinbase had informed him his account would be closed unless he explained where the funds came from.

What users actually received, and what happened next

The amounts transferred to the respective addresses were small, with some recipients reportedly receiving as much as 12 USDT. Unlike typical dust attacks, in which tiny sums are sprayed across large numbers of addresses — historically in an attempt to deanonymize wallet owners by clustering their activity, or to carry phishing messages — the transferred funds were not near zero in value. Either way, even an unwanted deposit creates a permanent, visible link between sender and recipient on a public blockchain, part of why unsolicited transfers draw scrutiny regardless of size.

Phyrex, a widely followed analyst on X, later confirmed that 0xZiye’s Coinbase account had returned to normal and that anyone in a similar position could ask Coinbase support to review their case. He said he had contacted the Coinbase Singapore arm, adding, “They have escalated the feedback to relevant departments at Coinbase, including the legal team.” Phyrex also said he was in communication with the HTX team.

Why a few dollars of USDT sets off alarms

The concern for users who received these USDT deposits has not been theft but compliance. HTX is being treated as a sanctioned counterparty in the United Kingdom and the European Union, meaning wallets that withdrew funds from HTX after May 26 are considered in breach of those sanctions. That is what led to some of the freezes that users, such as 0xZiye, experienced when the funds entered their Coinbase addresses. Exchanges operating in those jurisdictions are required to screen customer activity against sanctions lists and can face penalties for processing transactions involving listed counterparties, which is why an unrequested deposit the customer cannot account for tends to prompt an account review rather than pass unnoticed.

Binance has frozen transactions tied to HTX, Exmo, and more than a dozen other exchanges as well as some decentralized venues. Even Hyperliquid, a decentralized platform, has begun blacklisting HTX-linked addresses.

What HTX is saying, and whether new freezes appeared on its ledger

In an official statement, the exchange said it had “not conducted any related transfers or testing activities” and would not speculate before finishing its review. Molly, HTX’s head of marketing, said the platform “absolutely” did not behave this way, blaming either a misunderstanding or deliberate sabotage.

The exchange also pointed to attribution as a possible culprit. Explorers and analytics firms assign wallet labels using ownership disclosures and clustering, and a displayed tag is not proof that the named exchange authorized a payment. HTX said it was checking whether address tagging or on-chain source identification had produced a false link.

Later in the day, a representative said HTX had reviewed tens of thousands of deposit and withdrawal orders across platforms and found no new frozen cases. HTX has denied sending the transfers, and no security researcher has so far publicly connected the disputed deposits to a specific operator, leaving Sun’s dismissal, the exchange’s denial, and the screenshots circulating among traders as unresolved, competing accounts of who sent the funds.