Tether Freezes $150 Million in USDT

Tether has added three additional Ethereum addresses to its blacklist, totaling $150 million worth of the USDT stablecoin.

Tether can ban addresses it feels are involved in crime, money laundering, or any other reason it chooses because it is a centralized organization.

Tether has banned an address for the first time in 2022, but it put 312 addresses to the blacklist last year and has added 563 total since November 28, 2017.

Tether hasn’t said why the three new addresses were banned, although it has previously used its authority to block addresses linked to cyber attacks and law enforcement investigations. Tether froze roughly $35 million USDT following the Kucoin attack in September 2020 to prevent hackers from profiting from their heist.

There might also be “precautionary grounds” for the blacklisting, such as being associated with frauds, as mentioned by Arcane Asset’s CIO Eric Wall in a separate Tether freeze in 2020.