Tether Freezes 161 Wallets Sanctioned by OFAC
In an effort to enhance security and prevent the misuse of USDT within the financial system, Tether has frozen 161 stablecoin wallets associated with individuals on the United States Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list.
Tether freezes 161 wallets sanctioned by OFAC. Image: NewsBTC
Tether (USDT), the world's largest stablecoin issuer, has taken extensive measures to freeze multiple wallets connected to individuals listed on the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
USDT issuer Tether proactively froze 41 wallets on Saturday linked to people on the U.S. Treasury Department's OFAC list of Specially Designated Nationals, several of which addresses had been using Tornado Cash. Tether says this is a new voluntary wallet freeze policy with extra…
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) December 10, 2023
This action is described by Tether as a voluntary measure to prevent the abuse of USDT and bolster security.
According to data from Etherscan, Tether froze 161 Ethereum wallets on December 10, including 150 wallets holding no USDT and 11 wallets containing over 3.5 million USDT in reserves. Among these, a single address held more than 3.4 million USDT.
Based on on-chain analysis, ZachXBT has linked this address to the September hack of the online betting platform Stake.com. The wallet was active in recent weeks before being seized.
Reviewing the remaining 10 wallets holding USDT, two wallets hold approximately 20,000 tokens each, and one wallet contains nearly 60,000 tokens. Another wallet with only 0.6 USDT two days prior was used to transfer over 400,000 USDT received from THORChain to two other wallets, complicating tracking efforts.
Any info on source of funds?
— androolloyd.eth | ⬛️ |🦇 🔊 (@androolloyd) December 9, 2023
The distributed USDT amounts are scattered across Ethereum and layer-2 Polygon.
Data also reflects that some wallets have used the Tornado Cash mixing service over the past six months. One of the frozen wallets is believed to be linked to the major Ronin attack, which the U.S. Treasury Department has attributed to the North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group.
This is not the first time Tether has taken action to freeze wallets involved in illegal activities. Previously, in October 2023, they froze 32 wallets associated with terrorism and the Ukraine-Israel conflict. The company also seized $225 million linked to a human trafficking organization following a U.S. Department of Justice investigation.
In addition to its stablecoin issuance, Tether's Bitcoin investments have yielded over $1.1 billion in profits due to a strategy involving periodic purchases of BTC capturing 15% of profits.
