Tether freezes over $1 million in USDT belonging to a single address

Tether, Stablecoin’s most used broadcaster in the world of cryptocurrencies, froze more than $1 million in USDT last week. These data can be publicly verified on the blockchain. The amount is significant as it belongs to a single address.

Tether activated the “AddedBlacklist” function on December 30th to block this address in this transaction.

Therefore, USDT funds that are at this address can no longer be moved.

It is still unknown who owns this address, which also has several other tokens in its possession. The sum of the other tokens generates an amount slightly higher than $150,000.

A Tether spokesperson, when asked to comment on the incident, declined to share further details in order to maintain the owner’s privacy. However, he noted that Tether regularly works with regulators and law enforcement agencies around the world, including in any cases related to hacks and scams, to freeze addresses.

“Through the address freeze, Tether was able to help recover funds stolen by hackers or compromised,” said the spokesperson.

Tether began banning blockchain addresses in 2017 and has blocked more than 500 addresses to date on the ETH network, according to The Block.

Tether also has a “recovery” mechanism, which means it can freeze the USDT and reissue in certain cases. For example, if a user sends USDT to the wrong address, he can help to get it back by freezing the USDT sent to the wrong address and re-issuing new USDT to the user.

In the latter case of addition to the Black List, however, funds remain at the frozen address. These cases usually mean that a frozen address is under dispute or being investigated by a law enforcement agency, a Tether spokesperson said.