Assets frozen for several consecutive days! Claiming to cooperate with law enforcement agencies, USDC freezes assets, Tether blacklists 39 addresses

In the cryptocurrency market, stablecoin issuers have reportedly blocked user addresses in compliance with law enforcement requests for the second consecutive day. Tether, the leading USD stablecoin ranked third by market capitalization, is said to have blacklisted 39 Ethereum addresses holding USDT; while CENTRE has frozen $100,000 worth of USDC stablecoin.

24 Addresses Blacklisted This Year

Blockchain game developer and Ethereum researcher Philippe Castonguay has enthusiastically created a data tracker on the Ethereum data sharing platform Dune Analytics, showing that Tether has been freezing funds since November 2017.

However, at that time, USDT had not yet moved from Omni to the ERC20 protocol, so it may have been done by its sister company Bitfinex.

Among all the frozen 39 addresses, 24 have been blacklisted this year, holding $5.51 million USDT in the addresses this year, with the address holding the most USDT ($4.56 million) being blacklisted on April 5th this year.

Being blacklisted means the addresses cannot send, receive, or trade USDT, rendering the USDT in the addresses worthless. Stuart Hoegner, general counsel for Bitfinex, told The Block regarding this:

Tether frequently assists law enforcement in investigations and collaborates with international law enforcement agencies. When necessary, it takes action to block specific addresses. By freezing addresses, Tether helps users and exchanges recover tens of millions of dollars in funds stolen by hackers.

CENTRE Also Freezes Specific Addresses

On July 8th, CENTRE, the issuer of the second-largest USD stablecoin USDC, for the first time blacklisted a specific address with a balance of 100,000 USDC, naming it "blacklister."

Similarly, Ethereum researcher Philippe Castonguay has also created a tracker for blacklisted USDC addresses on Dune Analytics.

CENTRE, the issuer of the USD stablecoin USDC, recently surpassed a total issuance of $1 billion on July 2nd. A CENTRE spokesperson stated:

CENTRE "responded to requests from law enforcement" by blacklisting the address. We have no further comment on the specific details requested by law enforcement. All USDC in blacklisted addresses may be permanently untransferable.