Tether has added three more Ethereum addresses to its blacklist, holding more than $150 million worth of stablecoin Tether (USDT) between them.
As a centralized company, Tether can blacklist addresses it deems to be involved in crimes, in money laundering or for any other reason you decide.
This is the first time Tether has blacklisted an address in 2022, but last year it added 312 addresses to its blacklist and has added 563 since it first did so on November 28, 2017.
Tether has not disclosed why the three new addresses were blacklisted. However, it has used its power to blacklist addresses involved in cyberattacks and law enforcement investigations. Following the KuCoin hack in September 2020, Tether froze some $35 million in USDT to prevent hackers from capitalizing on their theft.
There may also be “cautionary reasons” for blacklisting, such as association with scams, which Arcane Asset Chief Investment Officer Eric Wall pointed to as a reason for the Tether freeze in 2020.
Concerns about a lack of decentralization may be a factor driving the adoption of Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin, TerraUSD (UST). It is currently the fourth largest stablecoin with a market cap of $10.6 billion. However, the market cap of this decentralized currency is still slim compared to that of USDT, which is the fourth largest cryptocurrency in the world with a market cap of $78.5 billion.
Do Kwon, the founder of Terra, tweeted in response to the Tether stock news that there was no way to blacklist UST addresses.
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