Hassan Maishera
TL;DR
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Tether has frozen over 40 crypto wallets tied to sanctions.
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Some of the wallets have been using Tornado Cash over the last few months.
Tether Freezes 41 Crypto Wallets
Stabelcoin issuer Tether announced via a blog post on Saturday that it has frozen 41 wallets controlled by people on the Office of Foreign Assets Control's (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List.
The company said its latest action is a precautionary measure as it continues to work to abide by regulations. Tether said,
“As part of its continued dedication to fostering a secure and reliable environment for users worldwide, Tether is taking these further proactive steps by implementing this policy to supplement existing security protocols. Tether will now offer on the secondary market, the Sanctions controls it already enforces for wallets on its platform. This initiative is a proactive effort to work even more closely with global regulators and law enforcement agencies in safeguarding stablecoin usage.”
Available on-chain data revealed that several of the frozen wallets had been using coin-mixing service Tornado Cash in the past six months. One of the wallets is tied to
the $625 million Ronin Bridge attack, which, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, was executed by North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group.
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, added that,
"By executing voluntary wallet address freezing of new additions to the SDN List and freezing previously added addresses, we will be able to further strengthen the positive usage of stablecoin technology and promote a safer stablecoin ecosystem for all users.”
This latest development comes two months after Tether froze 32 wallets that were linked to terrorism and warfare in Ukraine and Israel. The stablecoin issuer also froze $225 million in November tied to a human trafficking syndicate after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
