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FollowingTHORChain technology co-founder says Tether froze and subsequently unfrozen US$1.45 million in USDT in its wallets
On Friday, Chad Barraford, technology co-founder of the decentralized cross-chain liquidity agreement THORChain, said Tether had blacklisted the vault addresses associated with it, resulting in a total of USDTs in four separate wallets being frozen. The funds were inaccessible for hours before Tether lifted its freeze and resumed normal activities.
Tether's temporary freeze on the THORChain wallet
As a key developer behind the THORChain infrastructure, Barraford shared this progress on the X platform. He reported that Tether took action without prior communication and provided no explanation. He explained that THORChain's development team was confused about the reasons for taking action and tried to contact Tether directly during the incident.
"We don't know why we made this decision. We have never communicated with the USDT before this operation and are currently actively seeking dialogue." "We hope this is an error/misunderstanding," Barraford wrote on social media before the thawing.
Trading in the affected wallets resumed approximately two hours after the assets were unfrozen. Shortly after the incident, neither Tether nor ThorChain commented further on the matter.
Background
THORChain: This is a decentralized protocol designed to facilitate cross-chain liquidity and asset exchange without requiring users to relinquish control of their tokens.
Tether：The companies behind the stablecoin USDT can freeze or unfreeze assets at the request of law enforcement or mitigate suspicious activity, which has occurred many times in previous high-profile cases.
Previous freeze controversy
This latest incident follows an established pattern of similar actions involving Tether. Just a few days ago, cross-border payment platform Conduit Technology filed a lawsuit against the stablecoin issuer. The lawsuit alleges Tether froze $2.76 million in USDT, which was linked to a wallet that was investigated by Brazilian authorities in 2024.
In August this year, two Thai nationals also filed legal proceedings against Tether, claiming that the company had frozen US$42.4 million in USDT. According to the allegations, the freeze was triggered by an "informal request" from the Homeland Security Investigation Bureau, which once again highlights Tether's broad discretion to restrict the movement of assets on its platform.
Tether's unilateral asset freeze model has become the focus of attention from users and industry observers, prompting calls for stablecoin issuers to provide clearer policy explanations and greater transparency.
Growing regulatory concerns
Tether's practices are beginning to draw scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators. Concerns about the transparency and compliance of New York-based financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald's operations have continued to mount recently after Senate Democrats questioned its business relationship with Tether.
As legal and regulatory review intensifies, Tether's practices in asset management and blacklisting are likely to continue to be under the scrutiny of industry participants and government authorities.
