Tether has frozen more than $514 million USDT across Ethereum and Tron blockchains in the past thirty days, according to data compiled by BlockSec’s USDT Freeze Tracker. This highlights the growing role the world’s largest stablecoin issuer plays in law enforcement and compliance actions within the crypto sector.
Breakdown by networks and addresses
During this period, a total of 370 unique addresses were blacklisted: 328 of them on the Tron network and 42 on Ethereum. The largest share was on Tron, where $505.9 million in USDT was frozen, while Ethereum accounted for $8.73 million. The data suggests that recent freeze operations have been concentrated primarily on Tron’s network compared to Ethereum.
Tether demonstrates the ability to identify and respond rapidly to funds associated with high-risk activities or official investigations. From a technical standpoint, the company manages both the blacklisted addresses and frozen assets centrally, allowing it to enforce freezes directly on the relevant blockchain networks.
Yearly trends and comparisons
BlockSec’s analysis for 2025 reveals that Tether has blacklisted a total of 4,163 different addresses across Ethereum and Tron since the beginning of the year and has frozen $1.26 billion worth of USDT. If the current pace continues, this figure could surpass earlier records by year end.
More than half of the $1.26 billion in USDT frozen in 2025 was permanently removed from circulation using the “destroyBlackFunds” function. Only 3.6% of addresses were later removed from the blacklist, indicating that most freezing actions are long-term if not definitive.
Another study covering 2023 through 2025 notes Tether rendered approximately $3.3 billion in stablecoins inaccessible on 7,268 unique addresses over three years, far exceeding similar law enforcement actions conducted by its major competitor, Circle.
Tether’s cooperation with authorities
Back in February, Tether announced it had frozen a total of $4.2 billion in tokens linked to illegal operations over a three-year period, with $3.5 billion of that total blocked since 2023. The company closely coordinated these efforts with regulators and law enforcement as official actions against crypto-related crime intensified.
In April, Tether reported that, in partnership with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and law enforcement, it froze $344 million in USDT on two Tron addresses allegedly tied to Iran. In February, the company coordinated with officials to seize more than $61 million connected to so-called “pig butchering” crypto scams.
Data shows Tether has carried out more blacklist and freeze actions than any other stablecoin issuer and has been deepening its cooperation with U.S. authorities.
The rising number of asset freezes and seizures is fueling debate across the crypto sector over how aggressively stablecoin issuers and related protocols should intervene in transactions they consider suspicious or risky.
For example, in decentralized finance, some projects can use upgradable smart contracts and administrative privileges to suspend or reverse asset transfers during major security breaches. Questions remain as to who should ultimately hold and exercise such powerful intervention rights.
As of yet, neither Tether nor Tron representatives have issued an official statement regarding these most recent freezing operations.
