Tether froze more than $514 million in USDT over the past 30 days across 370 addresses on Ethereum and Tron. Data cited in the report shows that roughly $506 million of that total was on Tron, while about $8.73 million was on Ethereum, reinforcing Tron’s dominant position in USDT activity.
Most of the latest freeze activity was on Tron
The figures come from BlockSec’s USDT Freeze Tracker. The latest wave was concentrated on Tron addresses, with Ethereum representing only a small share. A monthly total above half a billion dollars points to a compliance mechanism that is being used on a recurring basis, not as an isolated intervention.
In its on-chain report, “$1.26 Billion Frozen: USDT Blacklisting on Ethereum and Tron in 2025,” BlockSec said Tether blacklisted 4,163 unique addresses in 2025 and froze a cumulative $1.26 billion in USDT. The report added that more than half of that amount was permanently destroyed through the destroyBlackFunds function.
Only a small share of wallets were later unfrozen
BlockSec researchers wrote that “USDT can be frozen. Yes, yours.” Their report says only 3.6% of the wallets frozen in 2025 were later unfrozen. According to the same analysis, about $698 million of the frozen USDT was burned, reducing circulating supply, while the rest remained locked indefinitely or was moved later under law-enforcement direction.
A follow-up blog post and a LinkedIn post from BlockSec grouped the triggers for blacklisting into three categories: direct requests from agencies such as the FBI, Europol and local police; automatic blocking of wallets linked to U.S. sanctions lists; and proactive investigations by Tether’s T3 Financial Crime Unit, which was established with Tron and TRM Labs.
Frozen wallets were tied to fraud, darknet markets and sanctioned entities
The report linked several frozen addresses to large-scale fraud schemes, pig-butchering operations, darknet markets and wallets associated with terrorist financing, including entities designated by the U.S. Treasury. Tether has also highlighted this enforcement role in its own statements. In April, the company said it had supported the freeze of more than $344 million in USDT across two Tron wallets in coordination with OFAC and U.S. law enforcement, calling it one of the largest such actions in its history.
That followed a January action in which Tether froze about $182 million in USDT on Tron. Yahoo Finance described the move as a massive coordinated action against five wallets flagged by U.S. agencies, based on company statements and on-chain forensic findings.
Centralized stablecoins are acting as enforcement rails
Across a longer period, BlockSec said Tether froze more than $3.29 billion in USDT across 7,268 addresses from 2023 through 2025. Reuters recently reported, citing company disclosures, that Tether has now frozen about $4.2 billion over its lifetime in funds tied to crime, sanctions and other illicit activity.
The data sharpens the picture of what centralized stablecoins are in practice. USDT is not a neutral settlement asset on-chain; its contract architecture includes freeze and destruction controls that can be used at scale. For traders, exchanges and protocol teams, wallet screening, deposit and withdrawal controls, and compliance checks are now directly tied to whether on-chain funds remain usable.