Tether Freezes More Than $514M USDT on Ethereum and Tron Over the Past 30 Days

Tether has frozen more than $514 million in USDT on the Ethereum and Tron blockchains over the past 30 days, underscoring the stablecoin issuer's expanding role in crypto-related enforcement activity, CoinDesk reported. Onchain data from BlockSec's USDT Freeze Tracker shows 370 addresses were blacklisted during the period—328 on Tron and 42 on Ethereum. The freezes total about $505.9 million on Tron and $8.73 million on Ethereum, pointing to a heavy concentration of recent actions on the Tron network. BlockSec's review of 2025 activity found Tether blacklisted 4,163 unique addresses across Ethereum and Tron, freezing a combined $1.26 billion in USDT. At the current pace, the tracker suggests the issuer could exceed that figure in blacklisted USDT well before year-end. Of the $1.26 billion frozen in 2025, more than half (around $698 million) was later destroyed using the contract's "destroyBlackFunds" function. Only 3.6% of the associated addresses were eventually removed from the blacklist, indicating reversals are uncommon once a freeze is applied. A separate analysis covering 2023–2025 estimates Tether froze roughly $3.3 billion across 7,268 addresses over the three-year span, well above rival stablecoin issuer Circle over the same period. Tether has also cited a higher cumulative total and highlighted specific cases. In February, the company said it had frozen about $4.2 billion in tokens over the past three years due to links to illegal activity, including approximately $3.5 billion locked since 2023 as authorities stepped up efforts against crypto-related crime. In April, Tether said it worked with the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control and law enforcement to freeze more than $344 million in USDT tied to two Tron addresses that U.S. officials connected to Iran-related sanctions-evasion activity. In February, Tether also assisted authorities in seizing more than $61 million in USDT linked to so-called "pig butchering" scams. The widening use of blacklists and related seizures is fueling debate over how far crypto issuers and protocols should go in blocking suspicious fund flows. Some decentralized finance projects rely on upgradeable contracts and admin controls to pause or recover funds after major exploits, raising questions over who should decide when such powers are exercised. In the stablecoin market, onchain data and enforcement disclosures suggest blacklisting and freezes have become routine in fraud, sanctions and scam probes, reflecting issuers' direct control over minting and burning mechanisms. Tether and the Tron network did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph's request for comment.