Tether Takes Action: Freezes USDT Funds on 160+ Wallets to Safeguard Against Potential Abuse

Explore the latest move by Tether as it voluntarily freezes USDT funds on over 160 wallets to proactively prevent misuse. Learn about the company's commitment to security and the impact on the cryptocurrency landscape. 

Tether has voluntarily frozen funds in USDT on over 160 cryptocurrency wallets, as reported by The Block, based on public data on fund freezing.

This decision was made after the company announced its intention to freeze USDT balances of individuals listed in the sanctions of the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The voluntary action aims to "prevent potential abuse of Tether tokens and enhance security measures."

Data available through services like Etherscan shows that on December 10th, Tether indeed froze assets on 161 wallets in the Ethereum network, although most of them do not contain USDT tokens. Due to the freeze, it became impossible to view data on past operations on these wallets.

On the remaining 11 wallets, over 3.5 million USDT tokens were discovered, with the majority (3.4 million) located on a single address. It's worth noting that the USDT stablecoin is available not only on Ethereum but also on several other blockchain networks, such as Polygon.

Earlier in November, Tether, in collaboration with the cryptocurrency exchange OKX and the U.S. Department of Justice, froze $225 million in USDT linked to an international criminal syndicate involved in human trafficking in Southeast Asia. In October, the company also reported freezing $835 million in stolen funds as a result of cooperation with law enforcement, most of which were associated with hacks of blockchain services and crypto exchanges.