Stablecoin issuer Tether froze $5.2 million in USDT linked to a phishing scam on May 14. The assets were stored in 12 Ethereum wallets labeled as USDT Blacklisted Address. Slomist’s chief security officer stated that the addresses were used to launder funds obtained from phishing scams without providing further details.
Billions of Dollars in Tether Frozen
The world’s largest stablecoin issuer Tether has frozen billions of dollars in assets linked to hacks and fraud. CEO Paolo Ardoino stated in an X post that the firm has blocked over $1.3 billion since its inception, with approximately $1.6 million related to illegal crimes.
In January 2022, Tether blacklisted three Ethereum addresses holding over $150 million in USDT. In October 2022, Tether froze $8.2 million in USDT on Ethereum and blacklisted 215 Ethereum-based USDT addresses. By the end of 2022, Tether’s frozen assets exceeded $360 million. In October 2023, the stablecoin issuer froze $817,000 in USDT linked to illegal activities in Ukraine and Israel. A month later, $225 million in USDT connected to another fraud case was frozen.
The stablecoin issuer also collaborated with 24 law enforcement agencies in over 40 different countries. The firm cooperated on 198 wallet blocking requests from law enforcement in the past 12 months and 339 requests over the past 3 years.
Significant Steps by the Tether Team
Tether also introduced secondary market controls to freeze activities linked to sanctioned individuals on the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. All companies or individuals controlled or owned by sanctioned countries were included in the list.
The use of decentralized ledger technology allows crypto companies to monitor funds within the ecosystem, and the centralized nature of stablecoin projects enables issuers to freeze assets linked to illegal activities at the request of law enforcement.
