Tether, a cryptocurrency stablecoin issuer, has banned 40 Ethereum addresses holding millions of dollars of the stablecoin USDT, as banned addresses cannot receive or send the cryptocurrency.
Philippe Castonguay, the Ethereum researcher who shared his findings on Dune Analytics, said:
“The 40 addresses have been banned from using USDT on Ethereum as of now.”
It has been reported by Castonguay that one address was frozen in 2017, eight in 2018, seven in 2019, and 24 in 2020 so far. At press time, the latest address on his list was banned on Friday (July 10).
However, Stuart Hoegner, the General Counsel at Bitfinex, Tether’s sister company, said:
“Tether routinely assists law enforcement in their investigations.”
He added:
“Through the freeze address feature, Tether has been able to help users and exchanges to save and recover tens of millions of dollars stolen from them by hackers.”
The report said that its analysis shows that $5.51 million worth of USDT is held in addresses blacklisted this year.
Tether Freezes Millions of Dollars USDT in 40 Addresses Amid Regulatory Pressure https://t.co/EKVtwqd7w0 pic.twitter.com/SBqNHX3eC8 — Bitcoin News (@BTCTN) July 12, 2020
As per the report, Tether is not the only one freezing its coin. This week, the Centre Consortium blacklisted an address with $100,000 worth of the USDC stablecoin in response to a request from law enforcement.
Thus, Castonguay made a similar Dune Analytics dashboard to keep track of addresses banned from using USDC, which so far only includes one address.
Source: Bitcoin News | Image: CoinCodex