TRON, Tether, and Chainalysis have announced the creation of a joint initiative, the Digital Crime Task Force, to combat illegal activity in the crypto industry. One of the main areas of work will be countering criminal operations involving the USDT stablecoin on the TRON blockchain. This is stated in a joint statement by the companies provided to The Block.
A new working group will focus on intelligence gathering and cooperation with law enforcement agencies. Participants aim to reduce the time between detecting suspicious transactions and taking action, in particular freezing assets before criminals manage to withdraw the funds.
TRON founder Justin Sun emphasized that millions of people use USDT on the network for personal transfers and doing business, so user protection must evolve alongside the spread of digital finance.
The new alliance replaced the previous initiative
The Digital Crime Task Force emerged after the dissolution of the T3 Financial Crime Unit — the previous alliance of TRON, Tether, and TRM Labs created in 2024. The alliance ceased operations due to slow response to threats and insufficient coordination among participants.
In the new initiative, instead of TRM Labs, Chainalysis is participating, which specializes in blockchain analytics and tracking cryptocurrency transactions.
Companies warned about rise in fraud using AI
The creation of the working group is taking place against the backdrop of the spread of fraudulent schemes and cyberattacks using artificial intelligence.
According to Chainalysis, in 2025, fraud using AI was 4.5 times more profitable than traditional schemes. The number of impersonation cases increased by more than 1400% year-over-year.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that attackers are using AI to accelerate attacks, so responding only after victims come forward is no longer sufficient. According to him, Tether has frozen more than $7 billion linked to illegal activity, cooperating with more than 360 law enforcement agencies in 73 countries, The Block reported.
The Digital Crime Task Force plans to counter various types of crime, including investment and romance fraud, hacks, terrorism financing, and cyberattacks linked to North Korea.
Among recent incidents in the industry are the hijacking of the domain of the cross-chain protocol Across and the hacking of blockchain infrastructure provider Chainstack. In the latter case, according to the company, the attackers compromised client names, email addresses, and password hashes.
Recall that losses from hacker attacks in October reached $6.48 billion.