On May 14, Tether, the issuer of the stablecoin USDT, froze $5.2 million in assets linked to phishing scams. These funds were held in 12 Ethereum wallets labeled as "USDT Banned Address." SlowMist, a research firm, indicated that these addresses were used for laundering funds from phishing scams, though no additional details were provided.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino revealed in a post on X that the company has blocked over $1.3 billion in assets since its inception, with about $1.6 million of that amount tied to terrorist financing.
In January 2022, Tether blacklisted three Ethereum addresses containing over $150 million in USDT. In October 2022, the company froze $8.2 million in USDT on Ethereum and added 215 Ethereum-based addresses to its blacklist. By the end of 2022, Tether had frozen assets worth over $360 million. In October 2023, Tether froze $817,000 in USDT associated with terrorist activities in Ukraine and Israel, and a month later, it froze $225 million in USDT linked to romance scams.
Tether has worked with 24 law enforcement agencies from more than 40 countries and has complied with 198 requests to block wallets in the past year, and 339 requests over the past three years. Additionally, Tether has proposed implementing secondary market controls to freeze activities connected to sanctioned entities as listed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which includes companies or individuals controlled by or operating in sanctioned countries. #USDT。